Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Narnia Week: The Life and Faith of C.S. Lewis

The Life and Faith of C.S. Lewis: The Magic Never Ends is another one I spotted incidentally at the library, and as I have been going through a bit of a Lewis phase lately, reading his work more widely than I have in the page, I thought I'd check it out. Also it's only an hour and twenty minutes, so I didn't think it could be that much of a waste of time.

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Well, it wasn't THAT much of a waste of time, though frankly, I was pretty disappointed. This movie is like... for Christians who have never heard of C.S. Lewis? I guess? I'm not really sure what they were going for here, although maybe they weren't sure, either, and that's why the video was so generally disorganized. It skipped around through time AND theme, not really settling on anything long enough to be interesting. The interviews with people who flinched away from the details of Lewis's life were actually embarrassing after Laura Miller's direct and respectful analysis of how his personal life influenced his fiction.

I wouldn't recommend this unless you are a huge Lewis fan, and if you are a huge Lewis fan, this video doesn't have anything new. There are interviews with both his stepsons, which was interesting for a moment. But every time they started to get past the basic plot of one of his book, or talk about a little more detail of his life, the video veered away into the next topic, and I'm sorry, but I just don't need you to tell me the plot of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

I say this AS a Lewis fan, but honestly, the best parts of this video were the harp music in the menu, and Ben Kingsley narrating.


2 comments:

  1. Ben Kingsley is a fantastic actor. Sorry (but not surprised) to hear that his narration doesn't redeem the movie.

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  2. Oh, yeah, love Ben Kingsley. He wasn't even IN the movie, just his voice.... I don't know. This was a really, really weird film, and I can't think what they were thinking when they made it. So disorganized and strangely political (in a religious way). I DID enjoy the narration but that's such a minor part of it! :)

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