Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Movie - Bridge to Terebithia
The setting (place) seemed very appropriate and complementary to that of the book, and the characters in the movie seemed to fit the parts well. It seemed, however, that the setting should have been in earlier times with more of the "down home simplicity" to portray the characters and situations more in line with the author's purpose. The implications of modern conveniences seemed to get in the way of that simple-life feel. The monsters in the woods and their comical appearances added some levity to the story line, but they seemed to detract from the movie-watcher's sharing of Leslie's and Jess's imaginative creations. The movie producer seemed to have done an effective job of portrying Jess's grief and his surfacing from it by showing him as more assertive and passionate about sharing his Teribithia dream with young May Belle. Though there are expected differences between a book and the movie I think the theme was captured well in the movie to positively reflect that of the book.
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2 comments:
I could not agree more about the place vs. time. The place was perfect. The time was way off. I can imagine a class watching and discussing the movie. Not many kids today can imagine one truck for a family of six - there aren't enough seat belts! And running off for hours without telling your parents where you are is a thing of past generations, not this one. The book is from a previous time period and there is no way to tease that out of the story.
I, too, think the themes from the book were captured well with writers of the movie. I agree that some of the imaginative aspects that were put into the movie, that were not in the book, were a bit far-reaching, but I enjoyed getting a chance to see into someone else's imagination for a minute in time. I have often wondered, as I watch my third graders play far-fetched reality games, what they are really seeing and how their imaginations work. For a moment, in the movie, I got to see Lesleigh's vivid mind create indescribable characters and I got to see Jess' mind go from imagining nothing, to seeing Terabithia in all it's complex beauty.
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