From Page to Screen
Andrew Adamson’s
The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

by Anita L. Burkam

Those of us who love children’s books and love movies could not help but be pleased at the 2001 advent of Walden Media, the brainchild of Cary Granat, who “always wanted to find a way to ignite a sense of fascination, discovery and wonderment through the marriage of entertainment and education.” The company’s adaptations of Holes and Because of Winn-Dixie have been acclaimed for their high-quality production values and accurate translations from story to screenplay. In addition, Walden assiduously courts teachers through workshops, conferences, and online communities, and bestows on them an array of curriculum support and professional development materials toward the end of raising the impact, prestige, and enjoyment of children’s books in the classroom.

My assessment of Walden’s latest project, a movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, can be summed up in a single word: faithful. (The pun referring to the story’s Christian allegory is intentional, although religion has no greater or lesser presence in the movie than in the original book, Walden’s Passion of the Christ–style church marketing campaign notwithstanding.) In plot, casting, costumes, scenery, theme, and tone, the movie is in every way as close a rendition of the book as possible. Director Andrew Adamson gets so many details just right. William Moseley, his clear English-schoolboy looks teetering on the edge of young adulthood, seems perfectly cast as Peter, oldest of the Pevensie children, whom Aslan taps as general in the war against the White Witch’s forces. His transformation from frightened youth to resolute warrior is clearly visible in his onscreen demeanor. Bookishly cute Georgie Henley puts in a wonderful performance as Lucy, the youngest Pevensie; her assimilation into Narnia retains the quality of complete absorption in imaginative play that children her age can achieve, and her chemistry with Tumnus the Faun (played with great charisma by James McAvoy) is an utter delight. Tilda Swinton tosses off a convincingly frosty White Witch, and Liam Neeson supplies the voice of Aslan — his resonant tones credibly convey the blend of awesome grandeur and gentleness with which Lewis tried to invest his divine lion. In this post-Harry Potter era, the costumes and props are not merely adequate reproductions of medieval clothing and furnishings but idealized, Disneyfied versions of the same, creating a larger-than-life visual impact. And New Zealand stars as Narnia, sealing its reputation as the land of fantasy after its stunning role as Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings.

The BBC made a live-action TV production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe back in 1988, but it is almost painful to watch for its wooden acting, glacial pacing, and laughably ludicrous Toys-R-Us–style animal characters. Portraying talking, personified animals is the greatest challenge any live-action Narnia faces, and in the new production, Adamson’s special-effects crew passes the test. Most effective is the use of animal actors whose mouths are animated digitally à la the Taco Bell Chihuahua. (At one point Edmund’s steed rears; he cries uncertainly, “Whoa, horsie!” and the horse turns its head around and replies, “My name is Philip.”) Other animals — the helpful beavers, for instance — are rendered mostly via computer-generated imagery (CGI). Though fluid, their motions lack an ineffable beaver-ness; still, the technology is far enough advanced that animated characters can be incorporated into live-action sequences without a noticeable change in values, and that gives the movie-makers much more flexibility. Several of the CGI creations, like the gryphons, are quite believable as they flash through the sky. On the whole, the animal portrayals are good enough that the audience isn’t constantly taken out of its immersion in the story, and that’s the real test.

The ways the movie differs from the book show how films differ from books as a storytelling medium. The narrator’s avuncular voice and Kipling-esque direct address are absent from the movie (as is Professor Lewis’s editorializing on the proper roles of boys and girls, which is a decided improvement). Lacking narration, the movie requires much more dialogue to tell its story, since feelings and thoughts (of, say, jealousy or shame) that were reported omnisciently by the narrator must now be hinted at through the characters’ words and interactions. A one-sentence explanation from the book’s opening paragraph about the children being evacuees from the London Blitz is expanded into several scenes in the movie, beginning with bombers releasing their loads and the Pevensie mother and kids running for the backyard shelter. Not only does this help contextualize the children’s banishment for younger audience members (web links and book suggestions on the Walden Media site offer further historical information), but it starts the movie off with a literal bang and creates a high-drama crucible in which the screenwriters can introduce sibling dynamics through quick dialogue. (During the air raid, Edmund returns to the house to retrieve a photo of their absent soldier-father; Peter goes after him at great risk and shouts, “Why can’t you ever do as you’re told?”) There are several other points where the movie chooses higher dramatic tension over sticking exactly to the book. For example, when Peter, Susan, and Lucy must flee the beavers’ home to escape the wolves the Witch has set on them, the book has the children enduring a long, cold hike and hiding out in a cave — but that kind of extended, steady-on survival won’t work on the big screen. Adamson has to go with a chase scene instead, and he knows that an onscreen threat must be actually in sight in order to be frightening — and the closer the threat gets to the characters, physically, and the more unstable the characters’ own situation is, the more menacing the threat. Hence the movie has the children trapped in the beavers’ house with the wolves snarling outside; the children escape through a tunnel just as the wolves break in; they flee through the woods but the wolves are getting closer and closer; and finally the wolves surround them as they attempt to cross a frozen river that is starting to break up in the thaw. Talk about peril on peril!

Structurally, the most significant time the movie diverges from the book comes at the end. Aslan’s death on the stone table and subsequent resurrection are the heart of Lewis’s climax, and for theological reasons, one suspects, he is very efficient about wrapping things up once that resurrection has occurred — the reanimation of the stone creatures and the battle afterwards are falling action, with the battle swiftly won and its events revealed in retrospective dialogue. In a movie, though, it would be unthinkable not to show the battle. There must be eye-popping battle animation (the aforementioned gryphons, among others), and dramatically choreographed fights. The result is a double climax: first, Aslan’s sacrifice, which has a diminished impact because of its penultimate position; and second, a more effective climax involving the two armies clashing, the centaurs and minotaurs beating the living daylights out of each other, and Peter and Edmund taking on the White Witch. (Her actual death is glossed over on both page and screen; in the movie, the battle ends with the foes ghosting off the battlefield as transparent streaks.) Whether religious viewers targeted by the church advertising campaign will object to the demotion of their allegory to second best, or whether they’ll be mollified by the elevation of righteous smiting (with all its current geopolitical implications) in its place, remains to be seen.

The Chronicles of Narnia, the movie, is exquisitely done, an achievement on the order of Lord of the Rings (though Lewis’s work of imagination is on a smaller, more nursery-friendly scale). With charisma to burn, the actors bring the story to life on the screen, and reviewers are lining up to praise it. But when the best word to describe a movie is faithful, it runs the risk that audience members will find it a little ho-hum. There are few surprises, and a movie needs surprises: it shouldn’t simply retell the story, it should renew it. CGI eye-candy aside, the ones who will get the most pleasure from Narnia will be those who have not read the book — which then raises the question, Is an entirely faithful movie version meant to enhance reading, or supplant it?

Anita Burkam, until recently associate editor of The Horn Book Magazine, is a writer and moviegoer living in Maryland.

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