Forever in their favour
Sep. 5th, 2012 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSince a few days, I'm in possession of a shiny Hunger Games dvd. Now originally, the first time I had watched the film in the cinema, I hadn't read the novels, and thus was happy to review it from a film only basis. Then I read the novels, and now it was the first time I rewatched the film with the knowledge of the books in mind.
A few thoughts:
1.) I can't say enough about Jennifer Lawrence's performance. Seriously, she's so very very good. Two scenes in particular: Katniss saying farewell to her mother and sister; the terse, spare dialogue (appropriate to the situation) only gives us a few hints, but the way Katniss looks and speaks to her mother gets across so much about their backstory and her anger and buried affection that what I later read in the novels only confirmed what the film scene already had made me conclude. And then the scene between Katniss and Cinna just before she's transported into the arena. You really feel how very scared Katniss is, which is all in the body language and expression, and thus Jennifer Lawrence sells us on the emotional reality of the situation. Katniss is an introverted, stoic hero type of character, who in this particular situation would not say "I'm afraid" even to a tentative friend like Cinna, and there are no voice overs from the novel filling us into her thoughts, but the acting is so powerful that none of this is needed. (Also, the quiet tenderness of Cinna putting his forehead against hers makes my throat constricted.)
2.) Rewatching the film after marathoning through two seasons of the gorefest that is Spartacus was interesting in that I think Hunger Games wins when it comes to making the mutual slaughtering shocking despite observing the restrictions for the PG 13 rating. There is so much blood, guts and gore spilled in Spartacus that yet another beheading just exudes a shrug. (It's the emotional violence that still maintains the ability to shock.) Whereas the sequence directly after the Games start, which gets across the "various teenagers murder each other for public entertainment" premise point across just via few jump cut, utter lack of musical soundtrack and showing the results afterward; the brutality of these games thus shocks me in a way the overt gore over at Spartacus does not.
3.) Knowing now what's to come allows me to admire the cleverness of working in some elements from the later novels so that the film audience will have the set up, without needing much screen time for it. (For example: the Tributes all getting injected with a tracker.) Otoh some of the foreshadowing is painful (in novel and film alike), like Peeta saying to Katniss on the roof that what he's afraid of most is getting changed into who the Capitol wants him to be. (Ouch, Mockingjay. Triple ouch.)
4.) Giving us scenes outside of Katniss pov (the biggest difference between novels and film) will probably come in very handy in both Catching Fire and Mocking Jay) where crucial stuff happens when she's not around and which she finds out only later via reports. (See also: Peter Jackson sparing us Gandalf reporting what happened to him at the Council of Elrond by showing what happens to Gandalf when it does instead.) In this film, it not only allows for the reality tv satire/dig to be sharper but also sets up President Coriolanus Snow as the main antagonist via his scenes with Seneca Crane. Which, according to the extras, was the result of Donald Sutherland writing a lengthy and intelligent letter to director Gary Ross about dictator psychology (the letter is preproduced in the extras), and this in turn inspired Ross to add scenes to the script. If I know my actors, it was meant to, but hey, it was to the film's benefit. As Sutherland writes, in the novels, Katniss thinks about Snow a lot but you can't reproduce that on screen by visual means, so you need show, not tell ways to get across who he is in a film.
5.) On a similar note: showing us Haymitch working the sponsors, arguing with Crane and silently watching Capitol children playing arena, none of which is in the novel because of the restriction of Katniss pov (though of course she tells us this is what Haymitch does).
6.) In both novel(s) and film, I still dig the reversed gender clichés of making Katniss the stoic, efficient warrior and Peeta the one more openly expressing emotions and good at camouflage while lousy at fighting. Also, given that the ability to manipulate the media, to work with image etc. is nearly always coded as evil or at the very least morally ambiguous in heroic fantasy and sci fi, letting Peeta be a natural at working the media without being condemned for it was such a refreshing choice.
A few thoughts:
1.) I can't say enough about Jennifer Lawrence's performance. Seriously, she's so very very good. Two scenes in particular: Katniss saying farewell to her mother and sister; the terse, spare dialogue (appropriate to the situation) only gives us a few hints, but the way Katniss looks and speaks to her mother gets across so much about their backstory and her anger and buried affection that what I later read in the novels only confirmed what the film scene already had made me conclude. And then the scene between Katniss and Cinna just before she's transported into the arena. You really feel how very scared Katniss is, which is all in the body language and expression, and thus Jennifer Lawrence sells us on the emotional reality of the situation. Katniss is an introverted, stoic hero type of character, who in this particular situation would not say "I'm afraid" even to a tentative friend like Cinna, and there are no voice overs from the novel filling us into her thoughts, but the acting is so powerful that none of this is needed. (Also, the quiet tenderness of Cinna putting his forehead against hers makes my throat constricted.)
2.) Rewatching the film after marathoning through two seasons of the gorefest that is Spartacus was interesting in that I think Hunger Games wins when it comes to making the mutual slaughtering shocking despite observing the restrictions for the PG 13 rating. There is so much blood, guts and gore spilled in Spartacus that yet another beheading just exudes a shrug. (It's the emotional violence that still maintains the ability to shock.) Whereas the sequence directly after the Games start, which gets across the "various teenagers murder each other for public entertainment" premise point across just via few jump cut, utter lack of musical soundtrack and showing the results afterward; the brutality of these games thus shocks me in a way the overt gore over at Spartacus does not.
3.) Knowing now what's to come allows me to admire the cleverness of working in some elements from the later novels so that the film audience will have the set up, without needing much screen time for it. (For example: the Tributes all getting injected with a tracker.) Otoh some of the foreshadowing is painful (in novel and film alike), like Peeta saying to Katniss on the roof that what he's afraid of most is getting changed into who the Capitol wants him to be. (Ouch, Mockingjay. Triple ouch.)
4.) Giving us scenes outside of Katniss pov (the biggest difference between novels and film) will probably come in very handy in both Catching Fire and Mocking Jay) where crucial stuff happens when she's not around and which she finds out only later via reports. (See also: Peter Jackson sparing us Gandalf reporting what happened to him at the Council of Elrond by showing what happens to Gandalf when it does instead.) In this film, it not only allows for the reality tv satire/dig to be sharper but also sets up President Coriolanus Snow as the main antagonist via his scenes with Seneca Crane. Which, according to the extras, was the result of Donald Sutherland writing a lengthy and intelligent letter to director Gary Ross about dictator psychology (the letter is preproduced in the extras), and this in turn inspired Ross to add scenes to the script. If I know my actors, it was meant to, but hey, it was to the film's benefit. As Sutherland writes, in the novels, Katniss thinks about Snow a lot but you can't reproduce that on screen by visual means, so you need show, not tell ways to get across who he is in a film.
5.) On a similar note: showing us Haymitch working the sponsors, arguing with Crane and silently watching Capitol children playing arena, none of which is in the novel because of the restriction of Katniss pov (though of course she tells us this is what Haymitch does).
6.) In both novel(s) and film, I still dig the reversed gender clichés of making Katniss the stoic, efficient warrior and Peeta the one more openly expressing emotions and good at camouflage while lousy at fighting. Also, given that the ability to manipulate the media, to work with image etc. is nearly always coded as evil or at the very least morally ambiguous in heroic fantasy and sci fi, letting Peeta be a natural at working the media without being condemned for it was such a refreshing choice.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 03:17 pm (UTC)Re: scene, yes, exactly. I really believed this was a teenage girl who knew she could and very likely would die any second now.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 04:16 pm (UTC)Cripes! Etc.