A new director has been announced for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

July 22, 2002 8:14 PM

A new director has been announced for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban For this third installment of the franchise, Chris Columbus will be stepping down to producer, and Alfonso Cuarón has been announced to fill the director's chair. Now if they'll just get somebody else to step in for Rowling actually get the next book written....
posted by LuxFX (23 comments total)

Alfonso Cuaron directed Y Tu Mama Tambien, a great movie if you haven't seen it. He's an interesting choice to direct a Harry Potter movie. I can see where he'd inject more maturity and coming-of-age themes into the storyline.

Although if he does with Harry and best friend Ron Weasley what he did for the Mexican boys in Y Tu Mama we might end up with a shower scene at Hogwarts.
posted by stevis at 8:26 PM on July 22, 2002

Now if they'll just get somebody else to step in for Rowling actually get the next book written....

Somebody did
posted by gazingus at 8:32 PM on July 22, 2002

I've heard his remake of A Little Princess was far better than anyone expected.

Not that it takes a genius to improve upon the guy who did Home Alone, but it's hopeful.
posted by fujikosmurf at 8:44 PM on July 22, 2002

The Harry Potter books maintained this wonderful sense that there was much more going on than was shown on the page: the world was bigger than Hogwarts. There was a short scene in the first book -- almost an aside -- when we encounter the centaurs in the forest: some of them are on Harry's side, some are ambivalent, some are downright hostile, but they all had their own motivations and reasons for behaving as they did; you got the sense of a complete world, with real mystery and complexity.

That same scene, as directed by Chris Columbus: "Hello, Harry. I'm your friendly neighborhood centaur. Here's what you have to do to get to the next scene. Good luck, Harry. We're all counting on you."

Thud.

In other words, any change is an improvement. Now if we could just get Chris to stop directing films altogether...
posted by ook at 9:01 PM on July 22, 2002

When I first read a Harry Potter book, I thought "when they make the movies, they need to get the guy who directed A Little Princess". Then they got the Bicentennial Man guy. He did a better job than I was expecting, but I think this bodes very well for the third film.

Now if they can just satisfy my fanboy yearnings and cast Anthony Stewart Head and Ewan MacGregor as Lupin and Black.
posted by toddshot at 9:11 PM on July 22, 2002

eesh. this guy makes one of the best films of the last decade and in hollywood all he seems to have access to is children's movies.
posted by dobbs at 9:14 PM on July 22, 2002

Y Tu Mama Tambien was about the worst film experience I've had this year. I've never seen a more tedious, dusty and unfunny comedy. At least I have a few years' notice that I can avoid Potter #3.
posted by neuroshred at 9:14 PM on July 22, 2002

darn, stevis beat me to the punch
posted by isobars at 9:23 PM on July 22, 2002

And "Home Alone" was the shallowest coming-of-age movie you've ever seen, eh?
posted by muckster at 9:26 PM on July 22, 2002

Although YTMT had its funny moments, I'd hesitate to call it a comedy. Maybe you were seeing it through the wrong lens. Its portrayal of Mexican society, culture and politics, just as a minor theme, was dead-on.

I'm with dobbs. YTMT was complex, at times dark and uncompromising. Its a shame directors have to leave hollywood to make their greatest films.
posted by vacapinta at 9:27 PM on July 22, 2002

Cuaron sounds good. I would have tried for Fincher, Burton, or Jeunet.
posted by muckster at 9:42 PM on July 22, 2002

Its portrayal of Mexican society, culture and politics, just as a minor theme

I enjoyed YTMT, but it couldn't live up to its "greatest ever" hype. I'm surprised how everyone praising it picks out its undeveloped and incidental ("minor theme") moments of acknowledging the discordant and complex world of Mexican society outside of two wank-happy teens and Maribel Verdu. These moments were not pulled off with the brilliance it would have taken to have made them profound, penetrating, or even insightful or vaguely nagging.

Now, Amores Perros, that lived up to its "breakthrough" hype and truly does show you what the Mexican cinema can be. (I think a New Yorker piece made the astute comment that Cuaron may have been inspired by the mold-shattering example of Amores Perros to try something different and make his best film in YTMT.)
posted by Zurishaddai at 10:01 PM on July 22, 2002

(I think a New Yorker piece made the astute comment that Cuaron may have been inspired by the mold-shattering example of Amores Perros to try something different and make his best film in YTMT.)

perhaps AP opened the doors (whether that be for financing or distro) but i think that YTMT easily has more staying power.

outside of the two films being mexican and having the same actor i can't see many similarities. the mold-breaking inspiration for YTMT obviously lies in Jules et Jim.
posted by dobbs at 11:42 PM on July 22, 2002

just to be clear, with my last post, i meant filmic similarities, not thematic or story similarities.
posted by dobbs at 12:01 AM on July 23, 2002

<hijack>
Now if they can just satisfy my fanboy yearnings and cast Anthony Stewart Head and Ewan MacGregor as Lupin and Black.

NICE....though Lupin and Black are supposed to be the same age...closer to Head's age, I would suppose, than MacGregor's. I'm waiting for John Hannah to pop up somewhere...I think he'd make a good Lupin...let's have Head be Black.

But I'm sure there's someplace better we should be discussing this :P.

</hijack>
posted by taumeson at 4:45 AM on July 23, 2002

I swear to you that when I heard that Chris Columbus, my choice for the most inept, cynical, no-values director in Hollywood, was going to direct "Harry Potter", I sneered and said "That figures." I assumed he was going to make a piece of s**t on the order of "The Goonies", "Young Sherlock Holmes", "Home Alone", etc. But when the great reviews finally drew me in to "Harry Potter", I was bowled over. It was terrific! What this goes to show you is that you never can tell. Nobody knows anything.
posted by Faze at 6:50 AM on July 23, 2002

oh, come on...

had YTMT been an american-made film starring jason biggs and sean william scott, then we would have dismissed it as the teenage sex romp it was. there is nothing dark or profound about it, apart from the intermittent interjections from the disembodied narrator who can't leave off talking about death and its many fate-filled flavors. but foreign films are elevated above the bar simply because they are, well, foreign.

the underlying message of the movie? "tequila is bad and might make you sleep with your best friend."
posted by grabbingsand at 7:41 AM on July 23, 2002

...outside of the two films being mexican and having the same actor i can't see many similarities. the mold-breaking inspiration for YTMT obviously lies in Jules et Jim.

Wow, dobbs, you are so very right about that, and I can't believe I hadn't noticed it earlier. Right down to the narration, which is delivered with a very similar timbre and cadence. And I'd even go one step farther than you and say there are thematic and story similarities: the unusually (almost awkwardly) close male friendship, the love triangle, the ending (to some extent). Goddamn, even the actors look alike, in their builds at least. I can't remember rightly--are there any freeze-frames in YTMT?
posted by mr_roboto at 11:17 AM on July 23, 2002

mr roboto, not sure i understand your post. are you saying there are thematic and story similarities between YTMT and AP? that's what i was "denying". (though there are similarities--modern mexico, socio-economic disparages between characters, etc.--i just don't think one inspired the other, thematically). there are considerable story and theme crossovers with the Truffaut film, though, which was my point.

i don't recall any freeze frames in YTMT but yes, you're on the money with your other comments: the narration, the ending, the relationship, the tone...

to be honest, after seeing YTMT i was shocked by the lack of comparisons from critics between it and the truffaut. i did a search and found nothing and the points of reference are glaring, imo. i'm sure others have mentioned it, i just haven't read any critiques that have done so.
posted by dobbs at 12:14 PM on July 23, 2002

oh, come on...

had YTMT been an american-made film starring jason biggs and sean william scott, then we would have dismissed it as the teenage sex romp it was.

nonsense. first off, YTMT WASN'T an american made film. though it may seem ridiculous to state the obvious, it clearly wasn't obvious enough for you to notice it. to compare YTMT to an american teen movie hints that you're unaware of the narrative conventions utilized in YTMT and usa'n teen flicks. the two are not comparable.

but foreign films are elevated above the bar simply because they are, well, foreign.

not necessarily true. my favorite films are american made (specifically from 1966 - 1977). i value the films i like for what they say to me, not based on where they were made.

the underlying message of the movie? "tequila is bad and might make you sleep with your best friend."

hmm. well, clearly you saw a different YTMT. to me the film was about the purposes of the relationships in our lives--particularly the formative ones of our youth. it asked questions about our relationships with friends and lovers, and the differences and similarities between them.

more specifically, it was about the moments that, to paraphrase scott spencer, divide our lives and the experiences that inform our views on love, life, and the future. it did all this without being patronizing or condescending.

it was simultaneously mature and free-spirited. it paid homage to and commented/expanded on the themese of an earlier cinematic classic (jules et jim). it raised more questions than it answered.
posted by dobbs at 12:37 PM on July 23, 2002

but foreign films are elevated above the bar simply because they are, well, foreign.

I think the opposite is true. Because of the difficulties of getting a native audience interested in a foreign film and the resulting difficulties in distribution, only the really stand out foreign films even get a showing.
posted by Summer at 1:43 PM on July 23, 2002

Summer: I think it's not the really stand-out films, so much as the films that distributors think will sell to American audiences. That is, you're right about the difficulty of getting an American audience interested in foreign films, but that doesn't mean that the best films are the ones that are going to make the cut. The converse (?) is also true: what the rest of the world sees as typical American cinema is actually our lowest-common-denominator action/sci-fi/softcore stuff.
posted by bingo at 2:26 PM on July 23, 2002

If anything, "the difficulties of getting a native audience interested in a foreign film and the resulting difficulties in distribution" would ensure that only the most mainstream foreign films make it to the US.
posted by kindall at 3:08 PM on July 23, 2002