24/7 customer support
Professional writers
No plagiarism
Privacy guarantee
Affordable prices
94% of return customers
Free title page
Free bibliography
Free formatting
Free of plagiarism
Free delivery
| Home |
| Order form |
| Contact us |
| Blog |
| Harry Potter and the Magically Transmuted Country |
|
by Craig Lancto
The movie versions of J.K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter books adhere faithfully to the spirit of the novels, and the locations used in the films are often stories unto themselves. Most moviegoers immediately recognize Big Ben when young Harry and his best friend, fellow wizard apprentice Ron Weasley, fly past it on their way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after missing their train in The Chamber of Secrets. But other settings, though usually rich in history, are less readily recognizable. Our pilgrimage to the sites of Harry Potter began in London. As Ron and Harry learned when they flew Mr. Weasley's car, the tower of Big Ben isn't easy to miss. We caught the 316-foot clock tower on what Lewis Carroll would call "a golden afternoon." Big Ben's gilt radiated reflected sunlight. Old pennies are used to regulate the massive timepiece, and the clock face looked as if it were surrounded by gold sovereigns from Harry's vault in the goblin-run Gringotts Bank. Checking to be sure that no flying cars wobbled overhead, we descended into the Westminster Underground station. We were bound for King's Cross Station, the usual departure point for Hogwarts-bound students. Upon arrival, we were dismayed by the ungainly structure slapped across the station's facade. It is whatever the opposite of strip-mining might be, a contemptuous shack plastered to the front of the Victorian building. Even the 120-foot clock tower doesn't redeem the exterior. Inside, the double train shed offers no such unpleasant surprise. The pedestrian bridge that Harry and his giant friend and magical-creatures teacher, Rubius Hagrid, cross in The Sorcerer's Stone stretches over the tracks in the main station. Potter fans will recall that access to the Hogwarts Express is at Platform 9 3/4. Access is through what appears to Muggles--nonmagical folk--as the solid pier of an archway. In fact, the magical entrance to Platform 9 3/4 was actually filmed at Platform 4. But the clueless pilgrim who crosses the concrete courtyard might well be disorientated by a sign attached to the exterior wall to the annex housing tracks 9, 10, and 11, marking that spot as the entrance to Platform 9 3/4. It should also be remembered that according to The Harry Potter Lexicon, Rowling was living in Manchester when she wrote the scene. She has said that she was picturing Euston Station when she described Platform 9 3/4. One other London location is prominent in the first film. For that, we took the tube (subway) back to the Strand. This is where the exterior appearance of Gringotts Bank (located at the end of the enchanted Diagon Alley) was filmed. The building has been known to Londoners as Australia House, Australia's embassy and tourist bureau, since King George opened it in 1918. With three major sites now accounted for, we were now eager to escape London, just as Harry was, for the magical world of Hogwarts School. Hogwart's many faces The Harry Potter movies are richer for a visit to Hogwarts. But movie locations for the school for apprentice wizards actually cover hundreds of miles from Gloucester, near Wales, to Alnwick Castle in northeast England. An illustration is in order: In one scene toward the end of The Sorcerer's Stone, Harry, Ron, and Hermione (the smart and saucy girl who completes the triad of student heroes) run from Hogwarts' grounds, filmed in front of Alnwick's twin towers, to Hagrid's hut near the "Dark Forest." The hut was constructed for the film and set in Black Park in Buckinghamshire, about three hundred miles south of Alnwick. With a little movie magic, the castle is still in view, behind the youngsters, as they talk to Hagrid. They then leave Hagrid to rush into the office of Professor McGonagall. She is the head of Gryffindor house, to which Harry, Ron, and Hermione are assigned. Although the exterior of McGonagall's office is shot at Alnwick, the interior of her classroom was filmed at the Chapter House at Durham Cathedral in the north of England, about 45 miles away. Thus, in three consecutive scenes, the youngsters cover about 600 miles between three locations that represent much of the cinematic Hogwarts. Other sequences in the movies have similar characteristics. When McGonagall greets first-year students on the front steps before leading them into Hogwarts' dining hall, she is standing atop the sixteenth-century staircase that leads to the Great Hall at Christ Church, Oxford. Although many other interiors for the Hogwarts school were filmed in Oxford's Bodleian Library, Hogwarts' hall replicates the hall at Christ Church. This is a place that echoes with historical references. It was here that Charles I held parliament during the English Civil War, for example. Among the Great Hall portraits are those of John Locke, W.H. Auden, John Wesley, William Gladstone and the dozen other prime ministers educated at the college, and Henry VIII, who established the college as University College when the original founder, Cardinal Wolsey, fell from grace. There is also a portrait of pacifist William Penn in armor. A visitor must wonder whether these ghosts inspired those who flit through the Great Hall at Hogwarts. There are even links between Alnwick and Christ Church. The current duke and his father, the eleventh duke, studied at Christ Church. Indeed, there are more literary and political connections to this college than we could discuss in an entire issue. We shall note that this is the same hall in which librarian and mathematics teacher Charles Dodgson took his meals. Under the pen name Lewis Carroll, which he had adopted as a reporter for his student newspaper, Dodgson wrote the Alice books, in which he recorded the fantastic tales he had told to amuse Alice Liddell and her sisters, the daughters of his dean, on their excursions. The Great Hall and, indeed, all of Christ Church--also known as the House--reveal many of the surroundings that Dodgson worked into the stories he invented for Dean Liddell's children. Should you visit, be sure to talk with the porters, those wonderful men in the funny hats, who can enrich your visit with the knowledge they have garnered during their service. Christ Church is unique among colleges in having a cathedral on the grounds. After the Great Hall, we visited Hogwarts' main building. This was primarily filmed about 250 miles northeast of Oxford, at Alnwick Castle, about 20 miles south of Scotland and 40 miles north of Newcastle. The Hogwarts we see in long shots is an embellished Alnwick, augmented with towers and additions by graphic artists. That is, while some close-up shots have added ornate towers, others show the castle as it looks today. This is illustrated when Professor Wood introduces her students to the fundamentals of flying brooms and the rudiments of quidditch, the high-flying, competitive, and dangerous school sport. In these scenes the castle background is unretouched. When class klutz Neville Longbottom inadvertently takes flight, he is snagged from his runaway broom by one of the many martial figures atop the castle's barbican. The actual figures are of varying ages, most from the nineteenth century, but some were erected specifically for the Potter movies. Historic hallways Unlike Hogwarts, Alnwick spreads across elevated ground, not craggy cliffs. There is no lake at Alnwick, although the fourth duke had the river Aln smoothed out to better reflect the image of his castle at about the same time he had homes cleared away to make the meadows beyond more aesthetically pleasing. In fact, Alnwick is the second largest inhabited castle in England. It has been home to the Percy family for the past 700 years. The oldest part of the castle dates to the eleventh century. One of the twin towers into which Hagrid drags a Christmas tree was the birthplace of Shakespeare's Harry "Hotspur" Percy (Henry IV), in 1366. When the Percys bought Alnwick, it had been in de Vescy hands for two centuries. Under Edward II, the first Prince of Wales and a weak and largely unpopular king, the last of the line, John de Vescy, died at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), which defeat resulted in four hundred years of Scottish independence. Henry, the first Lord Percy of Alnwick, was among the barons who killed Edward's hated favorite, Piers Gaveston. Edward was eventually murdered at Berkeley Castle. His wife, Isabella (whom he called a she-wolf), and her intimate friend, Robert Mortimer, had imprisoned him there after invading England. Edward was buried in Gloucester Cathedral (as, later, was Isabella's heart), the site of many memorable scenes in the Potter films. The cathedral cloisters frequently appear as Hogwarts corridors, most notably when the girls' lavatory flooded (for which a protective flooring was laid over the original). The magnificent ceilings are the world's first example of fan vaulting. The western side of the cloisters has a perfectly preserved lavatorium; on the west side, twenty carrels constituted the monks' scriptorium. A tiny entry off the southeast corner was transformed into the entrance to Gryffindor's common room. Other classroom scenes were filmed at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. Gloucester does not have exclusive claim to Hogwarts' cloisters, though. Many of the hallway scenes are from the Benedictine monastery at Durham Cathedral in the north, near Alnwick. While the Gloucester cloisters are remarkable for their vaulted ceilings and glass windows, the Gothic windows in Durham's cloisters are open to the elements. The center of the monastery's cloisters is seen as a snowy setting where quidditch players meet in the Chamber of Horrors, and, as noted earlier, the monastery's chapter house serves as McGonagall's classroom. A word of caution to visitors, though. We were chagrined to learn that vehicles require a special permit to drive to the vicinity of Durham Cathedral, and photographing the interior is permitted only with costly licenses that must be obtained well in advance. We would likely have skipped the visit if we had been aware of the restrictions. However, one marvelous surprise in this least hospitable of the Hogwarts venues is the tomb of the Venerable Bede (c. 673--735), the Benedictine monk whose Ecclesiastical History of England has provided detailed information for generations of scholars. Bede also wrote a biography of Cuthbert, a monk from Lindisfarne Island and Durham's patron saint, whose remains were reported to be uncorrupted when his casket was opened in 1104, before being reburied behind the high altar at the south end of the cathedral--with the head of the martyred king, Saint Oswald. For millions of fans, the Harry Potter films are a magical experience, but knowledge of the historical and geographical context of the sites adds immeasurable depth and richness to the experience. On the Internet: The Percy family and Alnwick Castle: www.alnwickcastle.com Gloucester Cathedral: www.gloucestercathedral.uk.com The Harry Potter Lexicon: www.hp-lexicon.org Durham Cathedral: www.dur.ac.uk/Law/c--tour/tour.html Christ Church, Oxford: www.visitchristchurch.net Craig Lancto is education editor of The World & I. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
24/7 customer support
Written from scratch papers only
Any citation style
Fully referenced
Never resold papers
275 words per page Courier New font