In November 2001, three children of around ten instantly rose from anonymity to global stardom: for millions of people, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint became Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Over the next decade, they grew up, through their teenage years and learned acting in front of the cameras, watched by countless fans and as the heroic trio created by JK Rowling.
20 years ago, Harry potter at school wizards, by Chris Columbus, became the first installment in a series of eight films that grossed over eight billion at the box office – making it the third highest grossing franchise (after the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the saga Star wars).
A bit like he did for the series Friends, the Warner studio has decided to celebrate this anniversary by organizing a reunion with the participation of actors who have had outstanding roles in feature films and the directors who have directed them.
Very nice, funny at times and touching in others, Harry potter 20e birthday. Back to Hogwarts (VF of Harry potter 20thAnniversary: Return to Hogwarts), a documentary of nearly two hours, will bring back many memories … but will however not teach much to those who followed, with the passion that we know, the release of each film.
But above all, this reunion is marked by the pandemic and the controversy.
Because of the premiere, this festive and eventful documentary, embellished with often crisp archive extracts, smacks of distance: gathered in the Gryffindor common room, the three young actors had no choice but to keep between them a physical distance which, wills, does not want, removes a little spontaneity and heart from their exchanges.
As for the other participants (actors Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Jason Isaacs, Tom Felton, Helena Bonham Carter, Gary Oldman, twins James and Oliver Phelps, etc; directors Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, David Yates; producer David Heyman), they’re somewhere else. They are sometimes found interacting with one of the members of the trio; or solo, to address the camera held by directors Casey Patterson and Joe Pearlman. The festive atmosphere that should or could have illuminated this reunion gives way to a feeling of “together, but alone …”
The one-whose-name-must-not-be-pronounced
Then there is the elephant in the room. The almost total absence of She-whose-must-not-pronounce-the-name: JK Rowling, now persona non grata in her own universe because of comments deemed transphobic posted in 2020 on Twitter – following which Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, among others, disowned her.
His presence is limited to about two minutes of excerpts from an interview dating – it is clearly indicated on the screen – from 2019. And even if the anniversary celebrated is that of the series of feature films (the publication of the novels , she began in 1997, the following year in French translation), the absence of the creator of Harry Potter does not go unnoticed.
Indeed, anyone who has seen the interviews broadcast at the time of the release of each of the films knows that the name “Jo” was omnipresent in everyone’s words. Her knowledge down to the smallest detail of the world she created, the people who inhabit it, the places where the story takes place and the concepts she invented, was essential to everyone, in front of and behind the camera. It was said, repeated, praised. There are only very faint echoes left here, not much more than a few words from Daniel Radcliffe, Robbie Coltrane and Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley).
Suddenly, the tour de force directed by Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Wonder boys), which has beautifully scripted seven of the eight feature films, also goes by the wayside. In short, it is as if we were trying to erase the original material and the work that allowed us to move from the page to the screen. It’s bitter, that taste of “Where are the words?” ”When we know the importance of these novels which have given a taste for reading to millions of children. They will become (if they are not already) classics. Status that, beloved as they are, will not achieve feature films – with the possible exception of the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Alfonso Cuarón.
Of humor and friendship
Thanks to extracts from the archives, Back to Hogwarts allows us to see how much the young distribution has, over the course of the productions, gained in playing experience… and in very down-to-earth knowledge. Impossible not to laugh when Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), more experienced than his peers since he had started his career in 1997, recounts the moment when Emma Watson, who was taking his first steps on a film set, asked him ” What is this ? »Pointing… the microphone boom.
Another nice moment than when Emma Watson and Rupert Grint relate the famous first kiss exchanged by Hermione and Ron in Harry Potter and the Relics of the dead. Part 2 by David Yates. Uneasiness in the two young people who had known each other for a decade and had developed a fraternal relationship. They laugh about it today, as they laugh at the fact that, as Daniel Radcliffe points out, they all look better today than in the epilogue of the saga – where they had been artificially aged. We will not contradict him on this.
During their conversation, the doubts they had when, once adolescence arrived and because of the media weight, they no longer really knew who they were, Daniel or Harry, Emma or Hermione, from Rupert or Ron. Also appears, in particular for the first two, the love of this profession which they learned on the (famous) heap, in contact with directors experienced in the art of working with children (Chris Columbus in the lead) and of “British royalty in the gaming world”.
Because if they weren’t aware of it initially, it was with the older ones that they ended up sharing the screen – think of Richard Harris (Dumbledore), Alan Rickman (Snape) , John Hurt (Ollivander), Dame Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), David Thewlis (Lupine), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange), etc.
A tribute segment is also devoted to the first three and the other actors who are now deceased. The emotion is there, real. And it bounces back at the end of the journey, when the once inseparable trio prepare to return to their bubble – of life, of career. And possibly COVID.