The Golden Compass

December 7th, 2007

Today marks the release of a movie I’ve been waiting several years for, The Golden Compass. The initial response, ala the Tomato Meter isn’t so great; a 44% as I am writing these words. Now I don’t have time to examine all 120+ reviews that Rotten Tomato is referencing here, but I am in the habit of reading the full reviews from those reviewers I’ve come to trust over the years. In this case, Roger Ebert and Kenneth Turan. Normally I’d check A.O. Scott’s review as well, but the only review up on the NY Times right now is from Manohla Dargis (who did write a favorable review, nonetheless). Here I think, is one of the more notable excerpts from Ebert’s review:

As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging. Teenagers may be absorbed and younger children may be captivated; some kids in between may be a little conflicted, because its implications are murky.

They weren’t murky in the original 1995 novel, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, a best seller in Britain, less so here.

The “murkiness” that Ebert talks about comes from the fairly well known fact that, instead of portraying the Magisterium (the large, not so nice, group at the heart of all the badness going on) as part of The Church (yes, those caps are intentional), it is represented as a governmental agency, akin to Big Brother.

But as Turan points out, this change is of particular importance to this story:

…though the Magisterium’s representatives dress like religious functionaries, all references to church connections have been removed.

Still, though it takes some doing, “The Golden Compass” retains enough tastes and traces of the original to fascinate and involve viewers. This is especially important because, as opposed to, for instance, “The Lord of the Rings” or even the Harry Potter books, this is a noticeably cool story, one whose most memorable connections are intellectual rather than emotional.

What I noticed, too, about both of these reviews is that it appears both Ebert and Turan had actually read the books. I generally try and judge an adaptation apart from its source material. Books and movies just work in different ways. A good example, I think, is another seminal fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings. The movies work so well because they focus on the action of the books, but anyone whose read them will tell you that the fights and battles (even the really BIG ones) are treated as secondary by Tolkien, almost as if they were mere plot devices required by the narrative, but not necessarily important. In the film, for instance, it takes Frodo about 2 minutes to decide to leave the Shire, in the book it takes, literally, months. That just wouldn’t play on the big screen. In regards to this film, though, I think that there must be some implicit connection the two versions.

So does this change work for the film?

That’s the major question, for me, as I anticipate seeing it. As I said, it appears that both Turan and Ebert read the books, and give glowing reviews to the movie, even with this much ballyhooed change. What seems interesting to me, from my brief perusal of the various reviews, is that those who give the movie a negative review seem to have not read the books. I could certainly be mis-categorizing things here. Surely there are bad reviews written by people who read (and, no doubt, even loved) the books.

Stephanie Zacharek at Salon seems to have read the books, though I’m not sure how well. Her main contention is that the movie is stilted, episodic and too grand for director Paul Weitz to handle. She says that the characters are always “trekking here and back again” though the audience hardly knows why, and that “nothing that happens in “The Golden Compass” is particularly well dramatized, and because Weitz has tried to cram in so many details and plot machinations, there’s never any time for relationships to develop between characters.” Well, unfortunately, that’s just how the book works too. At a few points in her review Zacharek bemoans the loss of the “magic” of the book. But the first book is just the first act of a longer work. People (especially Lyra) really are just running from here to there as the narrative unfolds and the characters are trying to make sense of it. In that regard, then, it seems that Weitz has been faithful to the source material (of course, I haven’t seen the movie yet so I could be wrong).

More importantly, though, even I who whole heartedly endorse the books on every level, can admit that Lyra, as a character, has no growth until the last book. She works as more of a device in this first installment. The most important device, no doubt, but one used mainly so that Pullman can get to the philosophical ideas he’s working towards. It’s not until the final act of the story do the character’s actually engage with these intellectual ideas in very real ways, and that’s precisely when the characters begin to come alive.

When it comes down to it. I’m pretty excited to see the film. The initial news that the Magisterium would be so completely changed in the film, obviously, made me dubious. And the so-so reviews I think can be understood more as a (still to this day) lack of appreciation for fantasy work than a real disregard for the film itself. Say what you will about Rings or Narnia or Potter, there still exists a definite resistance against fantasy as a viable form of entertainment, let alone art. More than anything, the Ebert and Turan reviews give me hope that I, who also read and loved the books, will connect with the film.

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