A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

For bird lovers, this film is near perfection. For kids who need action, talking and humans in their movies, “Winged Migration” may prove to be the equivalent of elevator music – something to ignore in the background.

However, if you have children who are nature lovers, or if you’ve taken to observing birds at your backyard feeders, I can’t say enough good things about this movie. First, the wordless narrative draws you in, slowing the viewer down to appreciate the wonder of birds in flight. That part seems obvious though. The filming is equally impressive. This team of French film makers and ornithologists, natural history experts and aviators (400 in all) spent four years and 15,000 hours of filming to create 90 minutes of exquisite, close-ups of all sorts of migratory birds. Not only that, the team literally bred and raised every bird in the movie from egg to adulthood, creating “imprinted relationships” with the birds so that each species would follow and fly with the film makers without fear because they saw the team as their parents and guardians. The “making of” documentary in the extra features is every bit as riveting as the movie itself.

A good fire, some tea and snack cake, as well as a quiet afternoon make the perfect combination for appreciating six continents worth of birds’s migratory habits. Enjoy~

My kids went on a Disney rampage over Christmas. I purchased the Disney Scene It DVD game (worth every penny) for Jacob for Christmas and that jumpstarted a trip down memory lane. We’ve been watching Disney movies round the clock, enjoying listening to the soundtracks of those musicals and playing the game whenever we can.

One of the rabbit trails we followed was re-watching Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. My daughter’s high school is also producing the stage version this spring so we are especially excited about the songs. I had forgotten just how brilliant the lyrics are. What a wonderful chance to look at what songs do to advance plot! The opening scene must establish the narrative arc in three minutes: must show Belle to be from out of town, must show why she doesn’t fit in with the townsfolk, must introduce Gaston as both comic relief and villian, must foreshadow Belle’s encounter with the beast and must leave us sympathizing with her desire for adventure. That’s a tall order in three minutes!

The DVD special edition is also a great opportunity to watch the behind the scenes clips which show the evolution of the story – how the Disney team took the bare narrative from fairy tales and transformed it into the full-bodied story we love today. It’s a great message to give to children that the finished product they enjoy was not fully formed from the start. In this case, the development of the storyboard, the creation of characters, the design of the animated cast, the song writing and more took decades of reflection and attempts before the animators and story-writers felt they had a success on their hands. Think about that. Decades of work for one written product.

If you don’t own the DVD, most libraries have it. So does Blockbuster, Hollywood video and Netflix. Enjoy!

The most recent version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” features Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. It’s just been released on video in the last month. If you’ve not seen this movie, it would be a good one for kids who don’t mind fantasy and who can tolerate weirdness. (I mention this since as a kid, I couldn’t handle either very well.)

One of the benefits of a newer version of the film is that there is an older version that can also be viewed for comparison! The 1970s version of the same story (which is a novel by Roald Dahl) is called “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and stars Gene Wilder.

If you read the book and watch both versions, you are now practicing a principle that I like to call “multiple exposures.” One of the best ways to increase your facility in the ability to analyze literature, art, music, even nature is to encounter the same story, song, style or setting in multiple interpretations.

How is Johnny Depp’s interpretation of Willy Wonka different than Gene Wilder’s? Which is truer to the book? What characteristics do they each choose to emphasize?

Now consider the actors who plays Charlie in each film. What choices do these actors make in how they portray Charlie that work? Which don’t work?

Which movie is more faithful to the original novel? Do you prefer one to the other? Why does either (both) of them alter the story for the sake of the movie? Does it work?

Notice the artistic conception of the factory and the costumes and Charlie’s home. What do the films have in common with each other and what is different? Do you like the Oompa Loompas better in one than the other?

Don’t turn this into a report. Simply converse using some of these questions as dialog openers. This is the kind of questioning that lays a foundation for skills like compare and contrast. It helps to be intentional about noticing the choices both writers and directors make in telling the same story. Over time, these skills translate into comparing and contrasting ideas, and making critical judgments in writing.

It’s always a good idea to read the novel on which a film is based too. And just so you know: I don’t think it matters one whit if you see the movie before reading the book or not. I never cared to read the LOTR series or any Jane Austen until I had seen them in film. My enjoyment of those books was not diminished at all.

Sometimes film catalyzes an interest in reading and sometimes reading catalyzes an interest in viewing. Both are good. 🙂