'Harry Potter' film truly lives up to acclaim
• Harry Potter critics say, 'it's cool'
• For some, 'Potter' peddlers cast pall rather than spell
By Marshall Fine
Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News
For director Chris Columbus, the chance to make "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" wasn't about hopping aboard a ready-made hit and riding it to box-office heaven.
Rather, the puckish filmmaker saw it as a chance to reconnect with the kind of movie-making that attracted him early in his career.
"I wanted to go back to the kind of films I wrote in the '80s: films with darkness and adventure," says Columbus, 43, who wrote "Gremlins," "Goonies," "Young Sherlock Holmes" and part of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." "I thought this was a genuine extension of that."
It was also an opportunity to move away from films that had earned Columbus a reputation for making soft, sentimental movies, a tag he admits he earned.
"Those movies were a reflection of the things I was dealing with in my own life," he says. "I had kids so I wanted to make movies about being a father ("Nine Months," "Mrs. Doubtfire"). My mother died of cancer and so I wanted to deal with that ("Stepmom").
"But with 'Harry Potter,' I was able to rediscover what I loved about filmmaking. 'Harry Potter' made me feel hungry again. You want to always have to fight because it makes you a better filmmaker. When things get too easy, you wind up in a downward spiral. You get soft."
So, even though he has directed one of the top-grossing comedies of all time ("Home Alone"), Columbus was willing to go through what amounted to a job interview to win a shot at bringing J.K. Rowling's best-selling novels to screen. Frankly, he was just happy to be considered.
"When my daughter first gave me the book to read, I could see the movie in my mind — which is a rare thing — and I knew I had to make this film," Columbus says, sitting in a Manhattan hotel suite, sporting a gray crewneck sweater, a small "HP" monogram on one sleeve.
Then he discovered Steven Spielberg was going to direct it.
"'I thought, 'Well, he would never let this go.' So I started talking to people about directing 'Spider-Man.' When I told my daughter, she said, 'Well, it isn't 'Harry Potter,' is it?'"
Then Spielberg passed on the project to direct "A.I." and Columbus was chosen as his replacement.
The massive interest in the movie is expected to break all box-office records, propelling "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" past "Star Wars," "E.T." and "Titanic" to become the highest-grossing film ever made. Columbus knows this may be the most highly anticipated book-to-film transfer of all time.
"I guess the closest analogy would be 'Gone With the Wind,'" Columbus says. "I certainly don't want it to be considered in a league with 'Bonfire of the Vanities.'"
But, as he made the film, Columbus didn't want to think about the intense anticipation that accrued to the cinematic version of "Harry Potter."
"If you think about the scrutiny you're going to be under, you wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning," he says. "I had to keep my eye focused on the work."
The film challenged Columbus more than any previous film he'd made, including the effects-laden "Bicentennial Man."
"I worked harder on this than on any film in my life," he says. "I didn't want to disappoint myself and other people, although I know you can't please everyone. I wanted to make a movie that would please fans of the book but would also please people who hadn't read it. I hope they would be inspired to go out and read the books."
The visual effects that create the magic world of "Harry Potter" are part of virtually every scene — and almost every shot — but Columbus knew they were mere filigree to the larger task at hand.
"The characters are what drive the books," he says. "It was so important to get the characters right. We previewed the film in Chicago and the effects weren't finished — and the audience loved it, because of the characters. I look at the effects as the icing on the cake, even though there are 730 of them."
Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves had to condense and distill Rowling's magical world, while trying to fit in as much of the story as possible. Naturally, there were elements Columbus was sorry to lose.
"We weren't able to use the character of Peeves (a mischievous ghost at Hogwarts School)," he says, "but that was more because we weren't happy with the design of the character. In fact, once we lock in on the design, we may put it back for the DVD.
"But you have to understand that, for three or four months, Steve, Jo (Rowling) and the producer and I sat in a room and went through the book and the script. We were all incredibly obsessed with that world. And, with every novel, Jo has another book's worth of description and character history to go with it."
Columbus is basking in the glowing reviews from an early-November press junket in England, where the film had its premiere ("Even Roger Ebert liked it — and he's never liked anything I've done"). But there was one critic in particular whose approval Columbus was most concerned about: the book's author.
"I had never understood the meaning of fear before I showed it to her," he says. "That was my best review, when Jo Rowling put her stamp of approval on it. She loves the film; she got very emotional about it."
