This Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 "Consider..." FYC booklet arrived in the mail a couple of days ago so I thought I'd read it with you. Aren't I considerate?! I can't scan it in as it's too heavy and bound tight to open flat. Expensive paper but then with those billion grosses they've got plenty of money to burn on a campaign.
So here we go...
I wish that you could see Melissa Leo in a fur coat reflected in his lenses!
okay, let's write this thing up. Click to continue if you'd like to read along... as it's long and photoriffic.
The first thing you see when you open it up is dark bluish gray epic shot of Voldemort at the school with students neatly organized on either side with this Manohla Dargis New York Times quote, (the emphatic type is how the ad is displayed):
A grave, DEEPLY SATISFYING movie. It isn't often in the summer that you enjoy the intense pleasure of a certain kind of OLD-FASHIONED CINEMA EXPERIENCE. The sort that sweeps you up in sheer spectacle with BIGGER-THAN-LIFE IMAGES and yet holds you close with INTIMATELY OBSERVED CHARACTERS and the details that keep your eyes and mind busy.
The next page ... i.e. two pages (it's always laid out like an album gatefold) is all inky black with a silhouette of Snape lonely to the right and quotes to the left "MASTERFUL" from Richard Roeper and this one from Elizabeth Weitzman at the Daily News
EPIC and HEARTBREAKING. Every scene carries a heavy sense of important with some eliciting tears and others terror."
I'm not sure I'd count a perpetually heavy importance as a good thing. Yes, the Deathly Hallows sounds grave but does it have to feel that way in every scene? I like my movies with a bit more tonal range, thanks. And though you already know I'm a muggle I did find the increasing self-seriousness of the Harry Potter franchise off putting. Magic should sometimes be, you know, fun. Azkaban and Phoenix are my favorite films from the franchise, because they're the most beautiful and the most fun, respectively.
Here's Manohla again scribbled over the Death Eaters
The film is often BEAUTIFUL, washed in gray and so drained of color that at first it looks as if it's in black and white."
Great image on that page. But you could say the same thing about J. Edgar but I don't consider "drained of color" a plus. If you want to make a black and white movie, Clint, make it black and white. Stop hedging. Oops. Wrong topic.
The next fold lays it on thick emotionally with two hands in closeup reaching for each other [gag] with a quote from Carrie Rickey that's so effusive with its "induces euphoria" and "movement in a symphony" that you'd think this was Singin' in the Rain or The Godfather Part Two! The following page is a Harry alone at the beach in the sand with a quote about how beautifully bleak the cinematography is. Eduardo Serra is super-duper talented but I'll readily admit that I'm having a harder time judging cinematography these past few years since virtually every shot in 50% of new movies looks processed by computer; how can you tell how well the cinematographer lit the scene?
After multiple pages that were leaning toward inky black, we get the bright white of Harry sitting with Dumbledore in the 'you're not really dead!' portion of the movie. I have to admit that this page is really effective because it's so bright just as your eyes are drooping from all the "heavy importance" and the quotes make the movie sound like the unqualified masterpiece of masterpieces from Lisa Schwarzbaum (EW which is owned by the same mammoth conglomerate as Harry Potter) and this one from Nick Schager from The Village Voice (who I know personally though honestly I had no idea he liked these movies this much.)
David Yates' latest boats an almost CLASSICAL ATTENTION to mood and composition conveying emotion through careful framing and imbuing his centerpieces with GRACE and MAJESTY."
On the next page we're back to the dark nearly black and white palette as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) holds a dying Snape (Alan Rickman) with a quote from King of Blurb Whores Peter Travers. I can't believe they restrained themselves for seven gatefold pages before getting around to him!
Blending YOUNG TALENT with BRITISH ACTING ROYALTY has always given the series distinction."
That is totes true but it's also one of the oldest tricks in showbiz. Pair the young'uns with respected talent and the prestige and larger-than-life glamour can rub off. Some young stars are very savvy about this: it was no accident that Tom Cruise worked with so many older cinematic legends in the 80s and early 90s (Hoffman, Duvall, Newman, etcetera); Anne Hathaway repeated the trick in the 00s going from Julie Andrews to Meryl Streep on her way up. [Editor's Note to all aspiring young stars: this only actually works for the long haul if they don't blow you off the screen. If you're not a Cruise or a Hathaway, proceed very carefully.]
The next page is the Malfoy family with the mom and son out of focus and a generic FYC from the USA Today about the direction and writing. None of the Malfoys are being campaigned for supporting gold though many of the other players are (more at the bottom of this page on that.)
Then we get a Voldemort spread with a quote about how he's an ICONIC villain. Duh! At first I was like "oh, there's a pretty fire behind him" but then I realized it was that protective bubble that Maggie Smith and the other good guys surrounded the school with and now it's half burned away. That whole visual works with a capital W. Stunning... or should i say...
That one particular visual effect is STUNNING. They lean on it a lot. Otherwise it's the same sort of generic CGI energy blasting from wands and floating death eathers as f/x go."
- Nathaniel Rogers, The Film Experience.
I suck as a blurb whore.
Next we have Hagrid carrying dead Potter ("he's only mostly dead!") with a quote from Carrie Rickey again about EMOTIONAL THROUGH-LINES and how great Steve Kloves is. Sometimes I feel so alone... so utterly alone because I was really really invested in Steve Kloves having a career when I was a baby cinephile because of his brilliant debut film (The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1989) and his interesting though far less successful follow up (Flesh and Bone, 1993) and now all he does are these movies and I think it's just such a waste of someone who had such promise. Though I'm sure that his own vault at Gringotts begs to differ with my wish that he had kept making those small dramas starring melancholy blonde movie stars.
We continue on to see a bunch of the Weasleys amongst Hogwart's rubble with another quote for the casting. I must deduct points for this page for placing Maggie Smith so close to the binding that she gets swallowed. If this were Star Wars she'd be at the tail end of that trash compactor scene. Don't crush our beloved Dame!
We finally get a smidgeon of color in the book that's not in the black and white or greyish blue families: ORANGE. It's another wide shot of that disintegrating bubble, the movie's single best image. And here, Travers really goes for it.
Director David Yates marshalls his technical team to produce VISUAL MARVELS. OSCAR ATTENTION must be paid."
Traver is so bossy! But they will obey him. Easy nod for visual effects right? Or will all those superheroes try and snatch Harry's wand away?
The next page is nearly all black with half of Snape's face illuminated so you can notice his single tear. The quotes are about the great acting from Alan Rickman and Ralph Fiennes.
Which is followed by a beach image from early in the film featuring one of those house elves -- in my imagination elves are beautiful like Legolas so I have a hard time with the Potterverse's conception of them. The quotes call the makeup effects "SENSATIONAL" and because there is no way to illustrate a musical score using film stills, Alexandre Desplat's FYC shares this page by naming his "SUBDUED REVERENCE" for John Williams original themes as the main draw. Not sure that reverence for another score is a good campaign strategy but then John Williams is one of Oscar's favorite things so maybe.
Finally Ron & Hermione show up on page 15. Emma is out of focus and Rupert looks determined and appropriately ginger in the orange light. Lou Lumenick gets this page.
The acting is UNIFORMLY SUPERB. Emma Watson and Rupert Grint bring their 'A' game to the finale."
We're back to visual effects pushing with a shot of the Gringott's freed dragon (our heroes are riding him though they're hard to spot). The FYC blurbs are focused on the visuals again.
Gatefold 17ish belongs to everyone's favorite decaying porcelain doll, Helena Bonham-Carter with another quote about how awesome the casting is. Seriously Warner Bros. Bring your 'A' game. There is no casting Oscar and this is an expensive FYC ad.
The following page completely baffles me, both in visuals and quotes. It seems to be selling the idea that we should celebrate the out of series character 3D release with an Oscar nomination for... something? The page looks out of focus and the pink/green wand clash between Harry and You Know Who reminds you of those hateful glasses. And then this quote from Kenneth Turan.
The willingness to do whatever it took to bring Stuart Craig's EXCEPTIONAL PRODUCTION DESIGNS to life no matter how painstaking the task is cenral to the new film's success.
So... it's obviously an FYC for Stuart Craig, the most likely recipient of an actual gold statue for this franchise. But somehow it doesn't look that way.
Voldemort gets another page, this one is like a mirror to the Snapes page with Fiennes's eyeball getting the illumination this time. Manohla and Lisa drool on Ralph Fiennes in the pull quotes. So many people have drooled on Ralph Fiennes over the years that perhaps his skin is now as slimy as Naginis?
We're nearing the end of the book and there's a great widescreen image of the bridge with our trio of heroes looking like they're going to go all Zhang Ziyi on us and leap into the clouds. I don't remember this moment specifically but I haven't seen it since July and I barely remember the book (yes I did read it.). But I'm sure fans of the series felt the "OVERWHELMING EMOTION" that Justin Chang from Variety reminds us of in the blurb.
A page for Daniel Radcliffe who Christy Lemire says "HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER". Then the final page has Ron Hermione and Harry (crushed in the binding) holding hands on the bridge and the last pullquote is from Joe Morgenstern and all it says is
The BEST possible end."
A rather canny quote to end with. BEST what exactly? BEST EVERYTHING!!! When you close the book you get the whole FYC list. And for those of you who are always interested in who campaigns for what the actors divvy up like so. I've included the number of photos they get in the book to themselves and shared like so (#/#) just for implied hierarchal fun.
BEST ACTOR
Daniel Radcliffe (3/7)
Rupert Grint (0/4)
BEST ACTRESS
Emma Watson (0/4)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Helena Bonham Carter (1/0)
Maggie Smith (0/1)
Campaigns are often up to actors or their contracts but the fewer people reaching for honors the better, really, just from a vote splitting perspective so it's interesting that the supporting actresses listed are so few and the supporting actors so many... though the Malfoys who get a whole page in the book are not campaigning.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robbie Coltrane (0/1)
Ralph Fiennes (2/1)
Michael Gambon (0/1)
John Hurt (0/0)
Matthew Lewis (0/0)
Gary Oldman (0/0)
Alan Rickman (2/1)
David Thewliss (0/0)
If one were to divvy up the implied Oscar nomination requests from each blurb, it'd go like so:
BEST PICTURE - 7
RALPH FIENNES -4 (wow... I thought they'd lean harder on Alan Rickman.)
DIRECTOR & VISUAL EFFECTS - 3 each
CASTING - 3 we can take this to mean all of the supporting players, I take it.
ALAN RICKMAN, SCREENPLAY, CINEMATOGRAPHY - 2 each
EMMA WATSON, RUPERT GRINT, DANIEL RADCLIFFE - 1 each
ART DIRECTION, MAKEUP, and SCORE - 1 each. (hmmmm. methinks they need to push harder for Art Direction since they could actually win the Oscar there.)
But before we go, let's fix the cover of the book.
YES! Much better. May the LEOgend live on.
What do you make of Harry & gang's Oscar chances for the grand finale?