Andrew Townsend shares some pictures from places which may have influenced C S Lewis’s works. “…we do have a quote in a letter from Lewis to his brother stating ‘that part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough is my idea of Narnia’.”
You and I have a list of things that we wished had been there… As you said, everyone has their favorite part that they wish made it in the movie. …whether you agree with everything in the movie or not, you will have to agree (I don’t know how you can not agree.) that these films are going to bring people to read the books who may have never read them otherwise.
Aslan is behind all of our stories, right?
…that here they are at a point in life where they need a teacher, and there’s not someone there to kind of give them the kind of things a teacher does—the encouragement, challenge, insight… And there’s that old saying: “When the pupil is ready the master appears.” And here comes Lewis’s works into their lives just at the moment when they are needed.
Brown: “Micheal Flaherty, it turns out, found my book when he was doing the first movie. He came to Asbury right after Caspian. He said, ‘I’m a big fan of your book.’ (I thought he was just being nice.) ‘Are you writing a third?’ I told him, ‘Yes…’ He says, ‘Can I take it with me when I go? Whenever we go in to talk about a chapter, I always read your chapter so that I kind of have some really good insights.’
Earlier this week, I had the wonderful privilege of talking by phone for around forty-five minutes with Asbury professor Dr. Devin Brown, author of the Inside Narnia series. In this first installment from our conversation, he talks about Asbury University’s Narnia Night and the documentary, Why C. S. Lewis Matters Today, which he was involved in creating.
Walking through the first three Chronicles with Dr. Brown has been been a rich experience. It reminds me that there is so much more to these stories than can ever be depicted in a movie.
We know that Tolkien sold the film rights to LOTR because he needed the money. But what about Lewis? Did he ever consider sequestering film rights to Narnia to prevent its potential bastardization? Many hands have been (pointlessly) wrung on that score.
Press materials repeatedly refer to the film getting us back to Narnia, restoring the magic of the franchise… which implies that the producers feel the series somehow got us away from Narnia, lost the magic. That’s quite an implication… or admission.
I ask a follow-up question about where the children find truth in Dawn Treader. In press notes, and even in Gresham’s initial reply on the topic, the implication is self-actualization… that it’s the children who overcome temptation, on their own.
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