Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on January 17, 2008 at 03:03:16

In Reply to: RE: Someone like Chris Columbus or Martin Campbell would have been better choices IMO.... posted by TWB on January 16, 2008 at 19:46:24

I'm shaking...whew. The very thought of CC makes me quiver in dread.

No offense, please, but those guys are just lateral moves IMO.

Chris Columbus, the hack, the pedestrian, the non-visual director would have been another disaster IMO. Very literal director, not the man for a mulitlayed spritual quest story IMO. Fantasy is not his forte. Even with a Steve Kloves script HP I & II barely survived him (yes I know they made obscene amounts of money) to be resurrected by Alphonso Cuaron. David Yates did rather well on the lastest HP but as good a director as Mike Newell nearly sank Goblet of Fire.

New Zealander Campbell is an odd fish - of his many projects I quite liked last year's very good Casino Royale and an episode of the TV miniseries Reilly Ace Of Spies way back when. But I loathed the Zorro movies - the last was positively painful.

So yes, those two had some commercial success with "fantasy", but no critical acclaim in the genre (quite the opposite), and approaching material like His Dark Materials as blockbuster pap is the totally wrong angle IMO. Just cheapens the material, no focus, loses direction, satisfies no one - oh wait, that's what Weitz did. At least the movie looked good - we wouldn't have even had that with Columbus.

You need a director who can shape complex material and is a strong visual storyteller who isn't intimidated of literary material. In thiese kind of endeavors, what you leave out is nearly as important as what you leave in. And you also need somebody with an edge, who understands the underlying darkness in much of the books. Someone who can make you feel what's at stake.

So who would I have chosen? Probably the usual suspects which would've been two of the Three Amigos (del Toro and Cuaron) both of whom were way too busy with other projects, or The Others helmer Alejandro Amenabar.

Actually...I'd have probably approached someone way out in left field...the prolific Michael Winterbottom for example, who makes a film every year it seems and is comfortable in many genres and styles but is fircely intelligent. Another thought would have been Peter Weir, who undoubtedly would have turned it down, though maybe not with the Stoppard script attached.

I'm sure there's others, I'm just not awake enough yet to think about it.

But Columbus...dear God.