Posted on 12/08/2004 4:39:48 AM PST by burlywood
THE Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullmans trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, is being rewritten to remove anti-religious overtones. Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the Authority, the weak God figure, will become any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual.
The studio wants alterations because of fears of a backlash from the Christian Right in the United States. The changes are being made with the support of Pullman, who told The Times last year that he received a large amount for the rights.
Weitz, a rising Hollywood star who directed American Pie and About A Boy, said that the studio, Nine Line Cinema, had expressed concern that His Dark Materials perceived anti-religiosity might make it an inviable project financially.
In Pullmans Carnegie Medal-winning books, religion is spared no indignity, with nuns turning into atheists and the church described as wrong and bad. The film trilogy, the first of which is expected in 2006, has already run into difficulty after Sir Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-winning playwright, was dumped from the project and his draft shelved.
Although he is not directly involved with the film, the author has had many meetings with the team and has seen a treatment, or outline, of the first of the three films.
Pullman was unavailable for comment yesterday, but his agent, Caradoc King, said that he was happy with the work so far. Of course New Line want to make money, but Mr Weitz is a wonderful director and Philip is very supportive. You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bushs America, he said.
In an interview with The Times last year, Pullman was asked whether turning his books into films would compromise his vision. Why say yes when they come to you with large amounts of money? I cant imagine why, he replied, laughing.
Weitz made these controversial remarks in an interview with bridgetothestars.net, one of the many His Dark Materials fan sites. He said: New Line is a company that makes films for economic returns. You would hardly expect them to be anything else. My job is to get the film made in such a way that the spirit of the piece is carried through to the screen and to do that I must contend with the fears of the studio.
Needless to say, all my best efforts will be directed towards keeping the work as liberating and iconoclastic an experience as I can. But there may be some modification of terms. You will probably not hear of the church, but you will hear of the Magisterium. Those who will understand will understand.
He said that he shared Pullmans view that the Authority could represent any repressive establishment political, totalitarian, fundamentalist or communist. This gives me a certain amount of leeway in navigating the very treacherous issues that beset adapting His Dark Materials for the screen.
Fans have reacted with outrage. Writing on the same website, one said: Do we really dare let someone with such a stunted imagination take on our beloved trilogy? Or rather, do we dare shun the opportunity to fight someone who will sacrifice content for net profit?
In the interview, Weitz said that the daemons would be largely filmed with animals and he was hoping filming would take place in Worcester College, Oxford, East Anglia and possibly Iceland. He insisted that he was not tempted to dumb it down.
The books have already been turned into a highly successful two-part production at the National Theatre.
He WOULD make a great Metatron.
Another movie I won't see.
You know what kind of "freedom" he is talking about here. The freedom for people to indulge every glandular urge without being reminded of the short and long term consequences. Some freedom.
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."...quote from Jesus Christ. The truth that Jesus speaks of here is that sin itself is what enslaves people. Following Jesus does not mean enslaving yourself to a man-made institution. If you believe that God is the creator then you must acknowledge that he knows what is best for his creation. Trying to live apart from God is like pouring orange juice into your gas tank.
And God does not want "religion" as it is designed and organized by men. He wants relationship. The fellowship of like-minded believers is the church. A high degree of organization has some benefits for outreach and service, but it has a lot of dangers too.
It sort of help when an author come out out and explicitly says he was trying to write the anti-Narnia.
At least, that's what tipped me off.
Fruit salts.
His Dark Materials was created, I have read, as an antidote to C. S. Lewis' timeless, wonderfully positive, Christian series The Chronicles of Narnia. It was an anti-Christian vision. Assuming that's an accurate assessment, it's sad if you're disappointed that the film won't be as vitriolically God-haunted.
Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
Biblical Christianity message board
Biblical Christianity BLOG
Cures flatulance.
Pullman is an evil man. I suspect that removing the references to God was not entirely voluntary.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_5_54/ai_83591416
Perceived?? Um, you mean the part where the heroine kills God? The part with the assorted flavors of whacked-out angels? The whole trilogy and its "everything Christians hope for is a lie at best and a repressive plot at worst"? Yeah, I tend to perceive a little bit of a bias there.
in plainspeak: the revived Christian voice will boycott the film and it will be box office poison
I'm not gonna see it; Pullman annoyed me sufficiently with his interviews alone that I decided against putting any money in his pocket. Too bad; I enjoyed the first book and parts of the second, but never bothered with the third.
Hmmm...
It's about money. They know it would fail otherwise. (It sounds like it will anyway.)
Apparently there is a character named Coulter in the series!
From it:
Philip Pullman is made of more strident stuff. He wants, he once told the Washington Post, "to undermine the basis of Christian belief."
Dan
Check posts 29 and 34.
Dan
He didn't even have the *guts* to do a proper ending; instead, he put in some namby-pamby pander-to-the-library-associations plot snarl that was just *stupid.* The author gave up his integrity *long* ago, before he ever signed a movie contract.
I'm sure the film will be a special-effects fest and a great success. Unfortunately.
Oh, then you missed the *best* parts, then. The third was one long screed that, at the end, completely lost its nerve and reverted to the worst conventions of "young adult" fiction.
So I've heard. I liked the first one purely for the concept of daemons (does it ever say what creature Pan winds up as?) but wasn't terribly impressed with the rest. I ended up rereading Diane Duane's original Young Wizards trilogy to get the bad taste out of my head. :-) (I don't think she's Christian, but the end of Deep Wizardry makes me bawl nonetheless.)
Is that the whale one? I loved that book when I was a kid! And, yes, it made me bawl, too :)
. . .yes, a freedom that in reality is an enslavement to ones senses. Also, that kind of 'freedom'; is a choice; you are free to join a Church or not; to live by a 'faith' or not. . .
OTOH. . .the reality of enslavement ie totalitarian enslavement to a religion or political idiology does not seem relevant here. . .
Amazing the delusions these Libs live with. . .I mean just for starters; who do they think invented the great mind/social control of political correctness?
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