AmericanPapist Comments
I'd encourage everyone who would even consider letting their children see this film to look into Pullman's views. He's a horribly sad, disturbed individual.
In the opening bits of the novel on which the film is based, Pullman establishes that John Calvin (yes, that one) is Pope. That begins to give you an idea of his views of the Church.
Googling Pullman vs. Lewis will give you several articles on what spurred Pullman to write the His Dark Materials trilogy.
Bottom line? Stay away. Far away. In many ways, Pullman is worse than Dan Brown, since he's pitching his tripe to children.
Message to Nicole Kidman: You are not the pope of me!
But seriously, I had no idea this type of book even existed. I will have to put out an all-points bulletin to my friends in education. Thank you very much for the heads up.
I have heard of this movie, but only that Daniel Craig & Nicole Kidman were in it. Thanks for posting about this. Had no idea there was a book. Thanks for the heads up as well!
Oh man, I was looking forward to seeing the movie.
I had no idea. I saw a movie trailer at Comic-Con and even posed with the polar bear at it's movie booth.
Have you ever seen a movie called 'Equilibrium' with Christian Bale? It's something similar, if not as explicit in terminology.
Phillip Pullman wrote his novels specifically to create a "mythology" that had NO ROOTS in Christianity. He truly is distrubing and subversive.
(On the other hand, the climax of this novel is an act of self sacrificial love, so, he can't get too far away from the Christian archetype.)
This is all just LOtR / Narnia Redux, whatever anyone says. See the flick if you want; anyone who's going to take it as some sort of morally guiding theological work is probably lost anyway. I just think we invariably draw more attention to these things when we get het up about them.
And Thomas, I do think you mean "corroborate" instead of "collaborate", although the reviewers may have been collaborating as well. ;-)
Re Layla's comment: In Pullman's novels Pope John Calvin moved the seat of the Magisterium to Geneva from Rome. He was the last pope, the Church now being controled by a bunch of evil bishops with much infighting. There are thinly desguised references to the CDF and the 'Board of Inquisition' is refered to with 'shudders'.
If you want a very clear example of Pullman's anti-Christianity (and anti-Catholicism in particular) you need only take a look at his parallel Oxford: Jesus College and Corpus Christi College do not exist; renamed or subsumed into other Colleges. No doubt he would desire such a situation in the real Oxford.
I listened to that trailer with one thought on my mind: what it would sound like if "Catholic" was replaced with "Jew" and "Magisterium" with "Temple."
If you do that, the bigotry will be shocking clear to even the most liberal Barnes and Noble bookseller. But then again, if Pullman did that, this would only be found in neo-nazi skinhead mosh-pits and at KKK rallies alongside the Turner Diaries.
Although I havent read the book myself, I've heard some say that it includes many elements of Gnosticism.
Well, if I may say so Mrs. P., that's sounds an awful lot like what more than a few *faithful Catholics" said when a movie came out about a recent novel that a lot of people were reading. Help me out here...anyone remember what it was called?
By all means, let's just all not get "het up" and say anything aimed at setting people straight about Pullman's worldview.
It's only a movie. It's only a movie. It's only a movie... ;-)
But it is only a movie. And frankly, no-one needs to guess at Pullman's beliefs or sympathies--he's quite openly anti-Christian. There is simply no debate about that. Good for him. He can get in the queue of people taking potshots at the Church--that line is very, very long. Yet here we are.
I assume you're referring otherwise to Harry Potter. Loved the first four books. Haven't seen any of the films. Don't seem to have turned into a Satanist yet, somehow.
If people cannot be bothered to consider their own, and their children's, spiritual and intellectual growth and complexity to a sufficient degree to keep the Pullmans of the world from actually become some sort of leaders to them, well, off they go. The arguments on both side are very clear.
Actually, I'm amused that you think I was referring to the Harry Potter books/movies, of which we are fans here in my household.
I was referring to that still-reverberating book and movie behemoth: The Da Vinci Code. It succeeded in part thanks to an appalling lack of basic catechesis out there among Catholic audiences, not to mention widespread misunderstanding about what the Catholic Church teaches and why (among general audiences).
I'm not advocating a boycott of the upcoming films based on the Pullman novels. I think boycotts are almost always counter-productive in these situations. But I salute those like Papist and Carl Olsen and Sandra Miesel who are shedding light on the crap that Pullman is peddling. Good grief, even the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have been sucked in by Pullman, and he has always struck me as a very reasonable person (he issued some excellent public commentary on DVC, for example).
Sit back and ignore it if you like, Mrs. P. I say, why help Pullman sell more books and tickets to unsuspecting children and parents? Get informed and speak up, even if it is only in your own playgroup or neighborhood.
As I have no children, and seldom see my neighbours, I'll have to settle for rolling my eyes if anyone happens to mention this "event".
I hadn't even thought of _The Da Vinci Code_, you're right. I don't think anyone here in Canada saw it; we were all under the impression that it was a flop. Not just wrong, but something much, much worse from the average person's point-of-view--a bad movie.
I tried to read the Golden Compass and its sequels in high school. I made it to the second book before the nauseau got to me. And I was hardcore Protestant at the time!
I really liked the Golden Compass, thought the second book was exciting but worrisome, and found the 3rd book to be a big disappointment, illogical, and upsetting. I had been hoping that the growing anti-God sentiment in the first two books would be flipped around in the third, but instead, it turns out the bad guys of the 1st book were somehow justified, because God is a meanie. It's not atheist; can't really be, if there are souls and angels and God. Instead it picks nirvana over heaven within a poorly rendered Judaic religious framework. Because, as far as I can tell, Jesus or a Christ figure is never mentioned. God is the baddie who tricked people into thinking he created everything and kicked some angels out of heaven, but there's no mention of him supposedly dying for people. I always figured that was because Jesus would be too difficult to take on, because he's not just about his own power. I thought the "God" figure in the books was more like Odin or Zeus, anyway, though he had the trappings of Christianity in the followers, because he really doesn't resemble God very much at all. What bothered me most was that simply by fighting this enemy, the humans who tortured children are somewhat excused. It's like if Lucy found out Aslan was really bad, so she just had to join forces with the White Witch even though she had already turned Tumnus to stone. Or if when Harry Potter finds out Dumbledore is no saint, he takes down Hogwarts with Bellatrix Lestrange. For crying out loud, have the kids take on everyone at that point... I found it problematic that typically rebellious children who have SEEN certain characters do bad, and are then TOLD that other characters are even worse, accept that testimony without much need for proof. That's the train of thought I'd think most atheists would very much dislike, but then, Phil Pullman has a rather messed up worldview. It just seemed kind of forced.
I've read these books, and they seem fairly innocuous at first. But by the time the series comes round to the third book, the plot is that the protagonists are the hero's of a huge fight against the 'usurper' a male deity who overthrew the peaceable mother goddess at the beginning of time, and restore the woman god to her rightful throne. Really evil stuff...
I bought a copy of the 3-in-1 book to read through the series, both to make a report for my husband, who teaches Children's Literature among other things (NOT that he was or is planning to add it to his course - just wanted a comparison), and to be able to discuss it. I didn't expect to like it much. In a literary sense, Pullman is quite a good writer - certainly much better than Rowling, probably almost as good at fiction as Lewis (though not *quite*). But the story is so relentlessly depressing - and I'm only halfway through "Northern Lights" (aka "The Golden Compass" - NL is a much better title)! I started reading in early June and just had to put it down.
Pullman has said that his trilogy is an inverted "Paradise Lost", which is fine I suppose if you think Milton is the be-all and end-all of English Lit and you personally are a raging atheist. As a Catholic who doesn't think Milton's all *that*, perhaps I am not the ideal audience. Also, young Lyra is obviously supposed to be, in some sense, a "New Eve", but I skipped around a bit to try to relieve the depression (it didn't help) and darned if I can figure it.
Clearly the movie people are thinking, "We'll make a movie based on an epic children's story, and rake in the money like Narnia!" Which goes to show that Hollywood *still* doesn't understand why the first Narnia movie made money (and why the others will, I'm sure). Parents may take their kids to see this *once*, but I'm sure there will be little repeat business, and little word-of-mouth, either.
Side note: After we saw the trailer this summer, I leaned over to my husband and whispered, "Honey, I forgot - where exactly were the polar bears in 'Paradise Lost'?"
I saw the trailer recently in a theatre with a friend and her daughter. A number of trailers for children's movies were playing in a loop. Emma wanted to several of them, even the scary-looking "Spiderwick". But her comment about the trailer for "Golden Compass" surprised me: "It's not really for kids. It's for adults but has kids in it."
When I re-watched the trailer, I saw she was right: The focus is on the adults, including the "Magesterium". So maybe not as many young and impressionable children will be watching this one.
As for the books, I found them progressively duller as they went and could kind of see the skeleton of the story sticking out, so to speak. By the time the cowboy died, I was tired of the emotional manipulation and I laughed aloud when the bear ate the corpse. (To tell the truth, I might be tempted to watch it on DVD if the movie has that scene.)
Even in the first book, the protagonist Lyra wasn't very likeable but was supposed to be trusted and adored by everyone. And she was supposed to be tough just because she smoked and threw rocks at other kids, but it didn't come off as very believable. The same thing with Mrs. Coulter - a toughie in the first book and suddenly a deranged-but-doting mother in the next books. Pullman has the same problem with a previous series he wrote, in which the female characters are strong in the first book and have complete personality transplants in the second. (Can't remember the name of those books, either.)
Well, if I may say so Mrs. P., that's sounds an awful lot like what more than a few *faithful Catholics" said when a movie came out about a recent novel that a lot of people were reading. Help me out here...anyone remember what it was called?
I thought you were referring to the DVC. I never read DVC, and could only sit through about ten minutes of the movie in a hotel ppv before I was bored to tears and shut it off. Biggest difference between DVC and Pullman is that Pullman is actually a pretty good writer (so I hear), and the movie will likely be better as well (cinemagraphically impossible to be worse). FWIW.
"Well, these types of movies always generate a renewed interest in the original titles. In the case of the LOTR and Chronicles of Narnia, this is great. In the case of the Golden Compass, this is a problem."
What are you saying here? That it's OK for your beliefs to be subversively featured in children's films, but not for anyone else's?
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