One hundred and eighty thousand dollar vanity project

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2016)

The J.K. Rowling backlash starts right here, but it should have started a long time ago. J.K. Rowling is a wonderful story teller, absolutely. . But... How do you measure excellence in the arts? Well, there's the rub, because there is no quantitative measure, it's all generally subjective, so basically within science 2+2 make 4, and Mt Everest is just over 8,000 metres high, but really the only number we can put on a Jackson Pollack painting is how much somebody will pay for it, the only number we can put on a film is how many people go to see it. Without doubt zeitgeist, the emotions of one's contemporaries effects perceptions - why the hell do you think they put laugh tracks on TV programs?, what is advertising? What I am saying is we all 'go with the flow' Some perhaps more than others, but generally we just can't help smiling back if someone smiles at us. To capture the public's imagination I would suggest that, in general, it really helps if an artist has some talent to start with. There are many artists with some, if not immense talent. For recognition beyond one's own village however, the most important ingredient (with exceptions) is luck. Luck may manifest itself in many ways, but often it might be being in the right place at the right time. Elvis Presley was good, but really, if it hadn't been him it would have been some other young white kid with a twinkle in his eye who could sing black. It certainly wouldn't have been a black kid. Elvis presented a persona who was not at all dangerous yet people could pretend he was. Far from threatening white America he stole swathes of alt culture and assimilated it for the benefit of the ruling group. But I'd bet my bottom dollar he wasn't even the best singer in Tupelo. So back to J.K. Rowling. Quarter of a century ago she wrote The Philosopher's Stone. It was a great read. It was funny, imaginative, eminently 'readable', sufficiently complex to delight without being to obtuse to alienate, It had a character for everybody, It could be picked up and put down easily, would fit in a reasonable pocket, the goodies and baddies had recognisable demarcation, yet leaving just enough ambiguity in some, and it to the standard tried and tested trope of David and Goliath and ran with it quite exquisitely. Over her first three books Harry Potter became a global phenomenon, Elvis had competition, Rowling, was the kids, if not total literature market, and you know what? Good for her, 'cos those three books kept up the pace. The Prisoner of Azkaban nailed it. Now I delve into hypothesis. By the time of her fourth book Rowling was the absolute golden egg. She could do what she wanted. And I suggest what she wanted was greater editorial control, i.e. more of her writing left in, and, whereas the first three books would have had considerable editorial input, from professionals with vast experience in pruning work to present a more marketable product, by the time we get to Goblet of Fire, J.K Rowling, in addition to her undoubted talent had two more things going for her, the absolute undivided devotion of millions of fans (sources of revenue) and the consequent level of control over her work. And like any artist she was unlikely to think that her work could be improved by a mere muggle. Consequently the subsequent books became much larger, and, at least for me, a little unwieldy, because hell, she could do what she wanted. I'm not saying they were bad books, I'm saying that there will have been people at Bloomsbury secretly wishing, but NEVER admitting that they could perhaps just miss out a little bit here or fix a bit of continuity there. And then the film series.. And now Fantastic Beasts... It is one of the most expensive 60 films ever made, and it is, in effect a $180,000 dollar vanity project. Oh hell, I know there is a demand for it, and I'm not saying this is Ghostbusters 2016 or anything like that, I quite enjoyed it, but it is merely a moderate story populated by a cast that as individuals are sometimes interesting but more often padding for those that are. Newt Scamander is frankly boring, and the whole lingo/naming thing just seems a little trite. Granted the special effects are truly special, but give me Colin Farrell sitting on a Belgian bench with Brendan Gleeson any day over him watching some ball of smoke trashing entire avenues of New York. Fundamentally, in Harry Potter, we had personalities driving the stories. In this it is .. magic! That is not meant to be a compliment, it is a moan that the whole shebang seems like ""I know, let's put something here that is .. magic!, just wave a wand and .. say ""smoothinox fluffy flora"" .. and pow .. oh golly .. wide eyed wonderment .. cute critter ... yawn." Guess you've got to go and watch it, but if you know J.K. Rowling stop sucking up to her so much. She's great, but so are lots of people around her.