Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

 

Movie-goers who crave quality entertainment that doesn’t compromise moral values received a gift this Christmas season with the release of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. From the opening air raids in WWII London to the culminating battle scene in which the forces of good creatures--unicorns, centaurs, fauns, assorted animals, a few human children, and ultimately the lion Aslan--fight an evil White Witch and her malevolent followers, this movie is packed with action. Viewers also enjoy fantastic creatures and gorgeous scenery in this delightful film, based on C. S. Lewis’s classic fantasy novel for children.

 

When the Pevensie children—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—are sent from their London home to the country to keep them safe from the air raids, they encounter challenges and dangers surpassing those they had left behind. Exploring their rambling new home, young Lucy stumbles through a wardrobe and into an amazing new world of Narnia, filled with all kinds of fantastic creatures and the evil White Witch who makes it always winter, but never Christmas. In one of the most magical scenes of the movie, and one of the few times the pace slows for even a moment, Lucy takes in this most unexpected destination. Her wide-eyed wonder at the breathtaking sight illustrates how aptly Georgie Henley was chosen to play a character known for her innocence, faith, and joy. 

 

Other characters are also well-cast. Lucy’s siblings are believable in their skepticism over her accounts of the new world and in their journeys to become the kings and queens of Narnia they are destined to be. Tilda Swinton makes coldly regal White Witch—equally effective when seductively tempting Edmund with Turkish Delight, demanding Aslan to comply with the law of the Deep Magic and give up the traitor whose blood was her property, or gloating over her apparent victory. 

 

With a fairy-tale plot simple enough for children and drama enough to appeal to an adult viewer, this movie is fun for the whole family. (Parents of children under eight may want to consider whether the violence—though never a bit gory—might be too intense for their youngsters.) It’s entertainment that Christians can enjoy guilt-free, too. Not only does the movie lack the common bad boys of profanity, illicit sexuality, disrespectful repartee, and blood & gore, but positively good values ring through the movie’s themes. Though his siblings’ pain at Edmund’s betrayal is palpable, their determination to rescue him shows that family sticks together, even when a member behaves badly. Edmund’s transformation proves that traitors can reform.    The amazing power of love comes through in Aslan’s redemption of Edmund. At the nighttime sacrifice, with knife poised for the kill, the Witch tauntingly desires Aslan to look where love got him, but the audience sees the joyful triumph of self-sacrificing love that comes with his resurrection in the morning. These potent lessons are not sugar-coated pills foisted upon viewers with a heavy hand, either, but are woven smoothly into the action of the movie.

 

A question that lovers of the Narnia novels must have: Is the movie true to the book? The filmmakers promised a “faithful, fantastic” adaptation, and to a great extent, they delivered. The book’s essentials of plot, characterization, setting, and theme come through in the movie. In any adaptation, some minor changes are necessary to make the story work in the new medium. Starting with a scene of the London air raids was a smart move to make the context real and reasonable for an audience far removed from World War II. The concerns the Pevenskie children in the movie have for their absent parents, Susan’s rationalism, and Peter’s doubts about his leadership ability add dimensions to their characterization, while some dialogue changes bring in the one-upmanship quips common to contemporary movie protagonists. The Lucy of the book, who accepts Peter’s apology for not believing her tale of discovering Narnia with a simple “of course” and handshake might serve as a better exemplar of Christian forgiveness, but the girl who turns her siblings’ words against them in mild taunts before making peace with them would be more recognizable and admired by most members of today’s audience, while her sweetly mischievous grin takes the sting out of her words. 

 

The biggest changes between the movie and book versions of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe lie in the much brisker pace of the movie’s action and the diminished focus on Aslan and the power behind the magic governing Narnia. Those unfamiliar with the novel would have to work to find grounds of complaint against this good, entertaining movie, but the book-lovers might regret the omission of favorite scenes such as the game of tag after Aslan’s resurrection or the curtailment of drama and humor in scenes such as Aslan bringing back to life the creatures the Witch had turned to stone. Admittedly, doing justice to these episodes would have detracted from the tension the movie was building toward the final battle between the Witch’s forces and those of the good Narnians—a battle covered in just a couple pages in the book, but comprising an exciting twenty-minute climax to the movie—but the missing scenes would have offered joyful and colorful cinema at least equal to the battle footage that replaced them. An earlier scene from the book, in which the Witch has sharpened her knife and is seconds away from executing Edmund when a rescue party arrives--which seems verymuch in keeping with the movie’s focus on suspense--was omitted, perhaps considered too intense for a family film. Whether the plot changes made for the adaptation are good, bad, or neutral depends on the taste of the viewer.

 

Though less immediately obvious than the movie’s increased emphasis on suspenseful action, the diminished focus on Aslan’s power is perhaps the most significant change, for Orthodox Christians, in this adaptation of Lewis’s novel. Despite both widespread faith-based promotion of the movie as a Christian film and sometimes virulent attacks from secular reviewers for its Christianity, Christian elements in the book are consistently downplayed in the film.  Director Andrew Adamson states, “the book has been interpreted by different people according to their own individual belief systems, and I think we’ve made a movie that’s the same. . . . Whatever you got from the book, I do think you’ll get from the movie.” Similarly, producer Mark Johnson notes that Lewis himself said that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was not a “Christian” book, adding, “if you want to find all kinds of Christian symbolism in it, it’s certainly there, and if you don’t, you don’t” (http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2005/thechroniclesofnarnia2005-interview.html). Certainly, interpreting The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as merely Christian allegory in which Aslan = Christ, the White Witch = Satan, and so forth would be misguided, diminishing the majestic scope of the Gospel and detracting attention from many aspects of Lewis’s imaginative fantasy as well. Yet Lewis wrote from a Christian mindset and an imagination baptized in orthodox (if not Orthodox) Christianity, and many aspects of Aslan’s character indicate that the lion is indeed a Christ figure. 

(In an Again article, the Rev. Robert C. Stroud explores Lewis’s relationship to Orthodoxy: http://www.conciliarpress.com/again/content/view/25/9/9/; Herman A. Middleton’s recent article in Again magazine describes Lewis’s use of the literary device “supposal” to illustrate eternal truths in his stories and illustrates Aslan’s role as a Christ figure: http://www.conciliarpress.com/again/content/view/76/27/9/9/.) 

 

The Aslan from the movie is a wise, caring mentor, a noble king, and Edmund’s savior—but much of the power and authority he bears in the book is shorn from him.   Prophecy of Aslan’s return and the resulting defeat of wrong and sorrow is cut from the Beaver’s dialogue, as is all mention of Aslan’s father (and source of the Deep Magic), the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. The movie-Aslan inspires much less awe, especially from his enemies, than does his book counterpart. When he goes, in the book, to make his willing sacrifice, the horrific ogres, hags, and other evil creatures send up “a howl and a gibber of dismay,” fearing to seize their unresisting prey, yet scarcely a tremor is seen in the movie. Indeed, the White Witch is presented in terms almost of equality with Aslan. Both Witch and Aslan refer to the Deep Magic that governs Narnia, which Aslan tells the children governs their destiny and also his own, and both are acknowledged to have been present at the beginning of Time, when the laws of the Deep Magic were inscribed on the Stone Table. After Aslan’s resurrection, he muses that the Witch had “interpreted” the Deep Magic incorrectly, and thus failed to anticipate his overcoming death. In the book, however, we learn that while the Witch’s knowledge extended to the dawn of Time, Aslan knew of a deeper magic from before Time began. 

 

These comments about the reduced Christian implications of the Narnia movie should not detract from all the good of the movie. While the filmmakers didn’t present the full majesty of Lewis’s Aslan, they did capture most aspects of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and did so in an entertaining movie well worth viewing.   Any movie that gives us a compelling story of love, redemption, and an innocent savior who suffers for another’s sin, and, in doing so, overcomes death, defeats evil, and restores life to the world is a gift that must bless our society. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go. Encourage your friends to go. Make the movie such a success that more episodes of the Chronicles of Narnia will be filmed. Talk about the fun, the fantasy—and how the story can make you think about your faith. And if the Magic of Narnia stirs your imagination, pick up Lewis’s novel and glimpse the deeper magic in its pages. 

 

And then attend Divine Liturgy and encounter Truth more amazing than any fantasy and a King far greater than Aslan.