THE GOLDEN COMPASS teaser poster.
© New Line Cinema

Related Links

1

GOLDEN COMPASS Director Answers Fan Questions

Last week, director Chris Weitz tackled some tough questions from fans relating to the upcoming adaptation of THE GOLDEN COMPASS. He was very forthcoming in terms of the religious aspects being taken out, changes to the film from book, etc. This week, MTV has published their "Part 2" of the Q&A session with fans of the novel series where he again answered some good ones. In this session, he answers about the length of the film, how much involvement author Pullman had with the adaptation and his thoughts on the controversy surrounding the film adaptation.

Here's a sample...

QUESTION #1 (from Kevin):
The relationship between daemons and people seems rather abstract, something that I’d think would be difficult to portray in a film that I’m assuming has no narration. How do you go about getting across the concept of “the great taboo” (aka people never touching other people’s daemons) and the strain one feels when his daemon is moving at a far distance?

ANSWER:
This is a really good question because it points out the difficulties of adapting the “rules” of a book of this sort into a film. It’s easy in a novel to be completely unambiguous about the relationship between animal and daemon simply by stating it outright; whereas you get very few opportunities to do this in an elegant way in a film. Establishing the ins and outs of the relationship between people and their daemons is difficult because they are so subtle, and attempts to provide “examples” could be so clanging.

The key I think is to find good occasions for being expository when you are. In the film, for instance, Lyra explains that something is “worse than touching a person’s daemon with your bare hands,” and though the reference is quick, it’s obvious that this is a bad thing indeed. When the golden monkey attacks Pan, not only does he hurt Pan physically, but he drags Pan away from Lyra, which obviously provides a psychological component to the pain as well as establishing the deep symbiotic bond in that it hurts Lyra so much. Ironically, although I worried a lot about this issue, people tended to pick up on it instinctually, just through the visual language of the film; it’s pretty obvious, for instance, that for a child to lose his or her daemon is a terrible thing, even though in theory such a child looks no different from a “normal” child in our world. Much of it is in the playing of the actor, as well as the reactions that the character evokes in the characters around him. I found there was no need for any “horror” style makeup to convey the horror of the experience.

QUESTION #2 (from Brian):
In regards to the trailers for the film, I noticed that the early teaser and Comic-Con footage referred to Lyra’s alethiometer as an alethiometer, but that the new global trailer only called it the golden compass. Was this changed just for the trailer to make it as understandable as possible, or have all references to the alethiometer been changed to golden compass for the final film? If so, did you or the studio have a say in the name change?

ANSWER:
The change was made only in the trailers, to make the storyline of the trailers more understandable. In the film it’s called both an “alethiometer” and a “golden compass.”

QUESTION #3 (from Juan):
How involved was Philip Pullman in the making of the film, and what does he think of it?

ANSWER:
Philip was very involved in the making of the film, from before I became involved myself. It’s been one of the biggest treats of working on the film, not just for me but for Deborah Forte, the producer, and for Ileen Maisel, our production executive in London, to get to know him. When I was pretty sure that I was going to get the job to adapt the script and to direct the film, I e-mailed Philip to introduce myself and to sort of give him a run-down of how I saw the film. At that point, if he hadn’t agreed with what I was saying, I wouldn’t have seen any point in continuing to do the job. I was adapting his book, which also happened to be one of my favorite books, and the whole thing wouldn’t work for me unless I could turn around at the end of the thing and feel that I had done it to his satisfaction.

Thereafter, I was in touch with him all the time, usually through email but sometimes in person (for a tour of Lyra’s Oxford, for instance, to get a feel for the place and how Philip saw it). Sometimes it was to check if something I was making up fit into his general scheme of things, sometimes to ask advice on how to tell the story. Often we would pass scenes back and forth and there are a couple of scenes on the film that are basically Philip’s writing, give or take a bit of stage direction on my part. Philip came down to Shepperton to look at the production design and costumes in process, and he came to the set during shooting several times. I have to say I am extremely grateful for his support and the support he gave the actors, especially Dakota. He is a very gracious man an so his opinions were always couched in the most generous way possible. I usually try to avoid meeting my heroes because they so often end up disappointing you, but in Philip’s case it has just been an extremely pleasant relationship. I think that, besides his good nature, he recognizes how much I care about the books.

At any rate, as to the second part of the question, what does he think of the film, you would of course have to ask him as any response on my part is bound to be biased; but he seems to be happy with the film and with the way we tried to be true to the spirit of the story; and especially, I think, to the fact that the movie is really a story about Lyra first and foremost.

To read more answers, click here.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS hits theaters December 7, 2007.