Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

After Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, it became necessary to accept that the four films to follow would have to contain considerably less material than the novels from which they were culled. For those of us who love books, it is always with trepidation that we consider how stories we have loved in print will be botched if they are made into movies. (Atlas Shrugged is either my favorite or second-favorite novel of all time, depending on my mood, and I dread the day it is made into a film. So much will be left out that no one who loves the book will be able to stomach the movie, and no one who hasn't read the book will have any idea what's going on.) It was especially difficult to imagine how Phoenix the novel was to be turned into Phoenix the film, given that it is the longest and most densely plotted of the Harry Potter novels.

Phoenix: 138 minutes
Goblet: 157 minutes
Azkaban: 142 minutes
Chamber: 161 minutes
Stone: 152 minutes

The average of the pre-Phoenix films is 153 minutes - or to put it another way, the average Harry Potter movie so far has been 15 minutes shorter than Phoenix, which was adapted from the longest of the novels. Surely an extra 15 minutes could have been added at some point along the line - perhaps in Hagrid’s tale of going to the Giants (who could use some help since Tiki Barber retired)...or in the expository elements at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place...or in the telling of how Fred and George leave Hogwarts (indeed, if you have not read the novel, this scene might leave you somewhat dissatisfied, as it is somewhat open-ended)...or in the expository elements that describe what Harry is seeing when he has his little spells throughout the picture (in the novel, it is explained that Harry, via his connection with Voldemort’s mind, is seeing the ways in which Voldemort is trying to gain the prophecy - this is explained in the film, but not well).

Be that as it may, the film actually flows pretty well, despite being stripped of most of its subplots and asides. The focus in the film is on the crackdown by the Ministry of Magic to hush up the “rumors” that Voldemort has returned in the flesh. They go to great pains to besmirch the names of both Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore in the process, and install a Ministry stooge (Dolores Umbridge, played exquisitely by Imelda Staunton) as a teacher at Hogwarts to keep the students (especially Harry Potter) in line.

In turn, an anti-Voldemort group called - naturally - the Order of the Phoenix - is working just as hard to get information on Voldemort and prepare for the moment when Voldemort will reveal himself in the open. They know what Voldemort is after in the Department of Mysteries, and they work to keep that object safe. They acknowledge that war with Voldemort is coming, but they prepare themselves to face it, rather than launch preemptive strikes against “the enemy” and lower themselves to the Dark Lord’s level.

Indeed, this might be the most interesting thing to be taken from Phoenix the film - the allegory concerning good and evil, which is which, and how each demonstrates itself. It is a lesson the Bush administration might like to have had before they went running into Vietraq with no post-Saddam plan and no exit strategy. In fact...if you think about it...Harry Potter has the intelligence (on good authority, having gained it himself) that Voldemort is back. This is not, however, what the Ministry wishes to hear, so they suppress that intelligence and try to make Harry look bad.

In real life, it was Joe Wilson who had the intelligence (on good authority, having gained it himself by traveling to Niger) that Saddam Hussein was not trying to buy yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons from that African country. The Bush administration did not want to hear that, because it would have weakened their already flimsy case for invading a country that had not attacked us and presented no threat to us. So they struck back at Wilson and outed his wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA agent.

Jo Rowling, however, has a better sense of justice. In her world, the Minister of Magic was sacked for his actions. George Bush has fired no one - and has even commuted the jail time of the one man convicted of a crime in the case. Scooter Libby - whom Bush will, of course, pardon at the end of his presidency - did not leak Valerie Plame’s name, but he lied about what he knew and when he knew it. (So did Nixon, but whatever.) Bush lied again - by allowing a convicted felon to go free after he promised that anyone in his administration who had anything to do with the leak would be held accountable. (Technically, of course, Libby was not on Bush’s staff - he was Darth Cheney’s chief of staff. But that’s how Bush always gets around the issue of accountability - by relying on technicalities.)

Not that Bush could have read Phoenix the novel in enough time to have been convinced of the error of his ways before invading Vietraq - the book came out in the summer of 2003, after we had already gone to war. Nor could it be said that Rowling wrote the book precisely as an allegory concerning the American President and his criminal actions.

It can be said - and is true - that Phoenix the film can be read as an allegory of the failed policies of the worst President in the history of the United States of America. I see it that way, and I can’t be the only one - although rank and file Americans are pretty fucking stupid, having voted for this piece of shit twice - and I hope that I am not the only one that sees it this way and writes about it (though I probably will be).

I also hope that George Bush sleeps well at night, knowing that he is responsible for more dead Americans than Osama bin Laden.

But I digress. I also hope that the acting career of Evanna Lynch, who plays Luna Lovegood, takes off. Not in any of the previous films has the acting of any of the child stars been worth mentioning - apart from the fact that Daniel Radcliffe does a decent job (and in this film really begins to show some understanding of facial expression and nuance). But Lynch as Luna is inspired, playing the quirky character with a breezy air that illustrates her quirks without making them off-putting.

In fact, the only thing I really didn’t care for is something that could in no way have been improved upon. With all due respect to Michael Gambon, the character of Albus Dumbledore simply does not sparkle on screen the same way it did when it was played by the late Richard Harris, whose Dumbledore filled the screen, his robes billowing all about, and brought an air of power and importance to every scene he was in. The costumes worn by Gambon - again, not his fault - by contrast, are shabby and meek. This is supposed to be the greatest wizard of the age, but he carries himself like a stranger coming out of the rain.

I am not as disappointed in what was left out as some people - say, my wife, for instance. I know that not everything from the books can make it into the movies, especially since we have passed the point when the books could be thought of as short (though neither of the two remaining books is as long as Phoenix the novel). But I feel bad for the people who don’t know the back story that isn’t revealed in the films. For me, these films are a treat because they let me see someone else’s vision of what I have been seeing in my head since I started reading (and re-reading and re-reading) these books. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have to run with the assumption that the vast majority of their viewers will be people who have read (and re-read and re-read) the novels. The assumption is true, of course, but that does nothing to diminish the fact that there are people watching these films who are missing much of what makes the stories so captivating. And that is a shame.