I will not be seeing the new movie, The Chronicles of Narnia. I love the books too much …
Film is a wonderfully creative medium, capable of conveying meaning and conjuring beauty in ways unmatched by any other art form. I do love a good movie! But film by its nature limits imagination, while literature by its nature (if it is good writing!) stimulates imagination. The powerful images that have inhabited my mind and soul from childhood, Aslan and Lucy and Caspian and Shasta and Puddleglum and Reepicheep — I will not permit these beloved and edifying images to be reshaped by someone else’s imagination!
I have been told that the movie is faithful to Lewis’ book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That may well be true. But I am certain that too much will be made of “action scenes,” which play a very small role in the book, and not enough of the subtleties of character, of character being forged in the face of doubt and temptation and fear. It would be difficult indeed for any movie to capture the keen and simple beauty of Narnia, a place that is as much spiritual landscape, as it is an imagined world.
And I know they will not get the lion right. Aslan is not a tame lion. He is terrible and tender, aweful and awesome. He is a lion, but not a lion, something larger, something Other. Only imagination can perceive him as he is, just as only faith can perceive Jesus as he is.
Go see the movie if you will. But do read the book. Read the books! May Narnia be a place where you encounter and learn to love better the One who in our world is called by a different name …
