Wild About Harry
Hogwarts redux again, with a difference
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN | Directed by ALFONSO CUARÓN | Written by STEVE KLOVES, based on the novel by J.K. ROWLING | Produced by DAVID HEYMAN, CHRIS COLUMBUS and MARK RADCLIFFE | Released by Warner Bros. Pictures | Citywide
Querying Cuarón: A word with Harry’s new potter
Jet-lagged to the gills and exhausted by the two grinding years it has taken to make Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuarón still has enough energy to talk about his debts to author J.K. Rowling and to Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Harry Potter movies and co-produced the new one. “I set out to be faithful to the spirit rather than the letter of the book,” the 41-year-old Mexican director tells me over the phone. “On the other hand, I wanted people who hadn’t read the book to enjoy it too. And I wanted to give continuity to the franchise.”
Cuarón clearly loves CGI effects, but deploys them sparingly alongside more traditional devices. “There’s a tendency in film to be very showy with effects,” he says. “We tried not to be. For example, I wanted to use an amazing underwater puppeteer named Basil Twist for the Dementors. But though they tested beautifully, it ended up too complex and we had to use CGI. For the Knight bus, though, we used the oldest technique on planet Earth. We undercranked the camera so that it looked as though the [very slow-moving] cars were going at normal speed and the bus was going very fast.”
Though there’s no obvious connection between the subject matter of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Cuarón’s two previous movies, A Little Princess and Y Tu Mamá También, the director considers them thematically all of a piece. “So far all the films I’ve made have been about the search for identity, about children and teenagers moving toward adult status,” he says. “The temptation in Harry is to find a mask, but then he has to deal with the fact that he had a flawed father. The search for identity is a lifelong process, and whoever tells you that they’ve found their identity is talking rubbish. What they’ve found is a comfortable mask.”
—E.T.
Now Showing
Find capsule reviews, showtimes & tickets for all films in town.
Join My Voice Nation for free stuff, film info & more!
Now Trending
