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    The Tonal Shift from Light to Darkness in the 'Harry Potter' Film Series

    By Timothy Sexton | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Sat, Jun 25, 2011
    This story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.
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    This is just a saga now. The classic quote from Papa Lazarou of "The League of Gentlemen" applies to the Harry Potter series of films and books. It has been a saga and as is always the case with sagas, one can sense a tonal shift in the source material if one is paying attention. That tonal shift is less explicitly notable in the books than it is in the movies and for a very good reason. The books all had one guiding hand behind them and the tone of the novels shifted as a result of the maturity of the characters. The tone shifts in the Harry Potter films are more a result of a change in the vision of the directors.

    Christopher Columbus

    The choice of Christopher Columbus to direct the opening salvos in the Harry Potter saga seemed relatively safe. Columbus had made his name by revealing a talent for directing children in such movies as "Adventures in Babysitting" and "Home Alone." Both those family movies contained a certain level of darkness just below the surface that made Columbus particularly apt for directing movies featuring Harry Potter and friends at their youngest and most naive. As a result, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" are the two lightest entries in the wizarding world of Hogwarts while still managing to reveal the coming darkness beneath that would eventually cast a dark shadow over the entire enterprise.

    Alfonso Cuaron

    The introduction of notorious murderer Sirius Black and the Dementors in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" forever blew the luminous sheen off the world of Hogwarts that was so carefully constructed by Christopher Columbus. The tonal shift toward a darker world of Potter and friends really kicked into gear with this third entry and Alfonso Cuaron brought the necessary street cred to the game. "Azkaban" was the first Harry Potter movie to be seriously considered too intense for some younger Potter fans, but it was a necessary movie made palatable by Cuaron deft hand that still left some room for light.

    Mike Newell

    Mike Newell seemed an odd choice to introduce to the world of Harry Potter. "Four Weddings and a Funeral" seems to have little in common with wizards except for its ability to make Hugh Grant seem likable. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was perhaps the most difficult book in the series to get tonally right as it combines moments of giddy silliness with a very dark edge over the course of the last fourth. "Goblet" is perhaps the least satisfying entry in the Harry Potter saga in part because Newell seems uncertain about how to unify the antagonistic duality present in the story.

    David Yates

    The tone of the Harry Potter movies turned its back on the incandescent origins provided by Christopher Columbus with "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." The darkness of this entry is provided most obviously by the allegorical element of totalitarianism taking place at Hogwarts. The world of Harry Potter at play in "Phoenix" bears little resemblance to the world offered in "Sorcerer's Stone" and that is a good thing. David Yates brought a political aspect to the story with the same kind of professional assurance with which he directed one of the greatest political miniseries of all time, "State of Play." With "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Yates brought the Potter movies series into the arena of art. The sixth Harry Potter film is the most aesthetically pleasing of the series and revealed Yates to be one of the most visually striking directors of today. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" completed the transformation of the series about the young wizard from mostly lighthearted kids' flicks with an underpinning of darkness seething just below the surface into a mature examination of the fearsome realities facing adolescents as they make their way into the world of adulthood.

    Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own articles.

     

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