Lyra goes to Hollywood
by Philip Pullman
The Sunday Times
March 11, 2007
From a storytelling point
of view, the novel and the film aren’t so different ... in both the novel and
the film you can use that great narrative device, the close-up, which is
impossible in the theatre. And David Mamet said that the basic question each
film director has to ask is “Where do I put the camera?” — which is exactly what
the novelist has to think about with every sentence.
However, I didn’t want to write the screenplay for the film that’s going to be
called The Golden Compass. It isn’t a complete story in itself; it’s the first
part of a long story published in three volumes. The whole thing took me seven
years to write, and the last thing I wanted to do when the film rights were
sold, quite early on, was to take it all apart and put it together differently.
I was happy to let someone else do it ...
When I heard that the script was to be written by Tom Stoppard, I was interested
to see how he’d go about it. ... When the next name appeared, that of Chris
Weitz, I watched his film About a Boy on DVD, from which I could tell that he
knew how to direct children, and what’s more he put the camera in the right
place. I was pleased that he was going to direct as well as write.
Meanwhile, ... I wanted Nicole Kidman for the part of Mrs Coulter, and Laurence
Olivier (c 1945) for Lord Asriel. ... Kidman has the extraordinary quality of
being able to play cold and warm, terrifying and seductive, passionate and
calculating, all at the same time; and she is perfect in the role of Mrs
Coulter. Asriel was actually a difficult part to cast ... When the name of
Daniel Craig was mentioned, I leapt at the idea ... But the central part would
have to be played by an unknown actress, and the search for the right Lyra
involved looking at no fewer than 10,000 girls. ...
So it’s possible to say already, at this early stage, that the film will look
spectacular, that the cast is superb, and that it sticks pretty closely to my
story.
Edited by Andrew Ross
Far From Narnia
by Laura Miller
The New Yorker
December 26, 2005
Every year at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich,
England, a guest is invited to speak on the subject of religion and
education. ... This year, the auditorium was filled, and another room, with
a video feed, had to be set up for those who couldn’t fit into the main
hall. The speaker, Philip Pullman, is fervently admired for his
sophisticated trilogy of children’s novels called, collectively, “His Dark
Materials.” In Britain, his books have sold millions of copies ...
In his books, fantasy is a springboard for exploring cosmic questions about
the purpose of human life and the nature of the universe. Nevertheless, the
selection of Pullman was surprising: he is one of England’s most outspoken
atheists. In the trilogy, a young girl, Lyra Belacqua, becomes enmeshed in
an epic struggle against a nefarious Church ...
another character ... describes Christianity as “a
very powerful and convincing mistake.” Pullman once told an interviewer that
“every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting
other people and killing them because they don’t accept him.” ...
Pullman loves Oxford, but he’s far from donnish. His books have been likened
to those of J. R. R. Tolkien, another alumnus, but he scoffs at the notion
of any resemblance. “ ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is fundamentally an infantile
work,” he said. ... When it comes to “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C. S.
Lewis, Pullman’s antipathy is even more pronounced. Although he likes
Lewis’s criticism and quotes it surprisingly often, he considers the fantasy
series “morally loathsome.” ...
One afternoon, at the converted seventeenth-century farmhouse where Pullman
and his wife live, ... Pullman came bounding back into the kitchen, waving a
letter. It had arrived at his door despite the fact that the correspondent
didn’t know the street address. He was beaming. The envelope read “Philip
Pullman, The Storyteller, Oxford.” “I couldn’t ask for anything better,” he
said.
Edited by Andrew Ross