"It's raining outside in Market Chipping"
Feb. 12th, 2006 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zoetropeAs you must all know by now, I'm a complete London geek. I love walking on streets that people have been walking on for hundreds of years, going to markets that have been there since Medieval times...
The City of London is the oldest area, original London if you like, and covers the area now used mainly for banking. The city of London, this part of modern-day London, was first founded by the Romans in 43AD.
They built the first London Bridge - which was the only bridge across the Thames until 1739 (the first stone London Bridge was built in 1176). The modern London Bridge was - according to recent excavations - built just yards from the much older bridges on the site.
The city built up around that, as a trading port, and in Medieval London the streets were cramped and bustling, each named after what the traders on that street sold. There was one street for chickens, one for tailors, one for bread and more and more... Today these streets are called Poultry, Threadneedle St, Bread St... in fact, many many of them have remained.
In 1666 Londoners were nervous about the bad omen of the numbers in the year. This was justified when, after a hot dry summer, a bakers shop in Pudding Lane (see how that works?! *g*) caught fire... and took the rest of London with it. The flames spread quickly through the narrow streets and wooden houses and decimated the city. In five days 87 churches and 13,200 houses had been destroyed.
Samuel Pepys wrote:
"So I rode down to the waterside, . . . and there saw a lamentable fire. . . Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies, till they some of them burned their wings and fell down."
In the end, the only way they could stop the first was to use gunpowder to blow up houses so that the fire had nothing to consume. By the end of the fire, four fifths of the city had been destroyed - including the wooden St. Pauls Cathedral - and many people lost all their belongings. Though fire was so destructive, it is also thought to have saved the city from the scourge of the Black Plague, which had killed almost 20% of the population the previous year.
Because so many people were homeless, the King had no choice but to order the rebuilding to happen as quickly as possible - his only proviso that the buildings be made only of stone, not wood, as a preventative measure. Therefore, the streets were rebuilt as-is, and a map of London before the fire is as recognisable as a modern map.
I was just googling for old maps of London, and came across one that I decided to compare to a recent map:
1593:
(See the full map here.)
2005:
(The main duplicate streets are highlighted in yellow.)
When![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cincodemaygirl came to visit, she said she was amazed by how much history there was here, something which I had taken for granted to a certain extent. I frequently catch the bus down Bishopsgate and along Moorgate, past London Wall, streets that have been there for more than 500 years - and probably closer to 1000 - and each time try to remember the history that is all around, hoping to never again take that for granted.
And that's just another reason why I love London.
Past waxing lyrical about London.
So, I went to see Howl's Moving Castle...Don't read if you loved the film and don't want me to harsh your buzz.
Now, please bear in mind that I'm writing this as a Diana Wynne Jones fan, not a Hayao Miyazaki fan. I'm not a huge fan of cartoons even, so I braced myself for feelings of vague displeasure with the genre before I went into the cinema.
I have to say, I can't imagine having been more disappointed. Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favourite Diana Wynne Jones books, one that I have read a hundred times, and so you could argue that my enjoyment of this movie was doomed from the outset. Butdivine_miss_j told me had told me that, as a person who had read the book but didn't remember it all that well, she enjoyed it. So I had high hopes that even if it missed out my favourite scenes or slightly misread the characterisation, it would still be enjoyable. It would still be recognisable.
But it wasn't. While the film itself was obviously made with extreme artistry and talent - visually stunning - it wasn't the story that I wanted to see told. But - with the possible exception of Calcifer - the characters weren't the characters I loved. Sophie was no longer that woman with such strength of character that she can literally give life to things. No longer a woman who just needs a little freedom from what she believes herself to be, to become what she is. Instead she's a mousy little thing who Howl shapes into someone stronger. From their first scene together he sweeps her up into himself, and she goes along meekly. Nowhere do we see the Sophie of the book who tells the castle to "Stop!", who throws weed killer at Howl and tells him off about his tantrums. This Sophie timidly chases the castle and jumps on board, she goes to cry about how she's not pretty instead of telling him off, she is given a garden instead of creating one herself.
I felt very strongly that the Sophie of the movie was completely disenfranchised - it would be interesting to take both texts and analyse them from a gender-authoring standpoint - how much does the gender of the creator of each version change the character arc Sophie goes through - I would say it's a whole hell of a lot.
But this change of her character made little sense to the plot as well. How on earth is this Sophie able to separate Howl and Calcifer?! She has almost no personal power at all - by the time that scene rolls around, the only power she has is her pretty-pretty love for Howl. To be frank, I missed to no-nonsense grumpy Sophie that Howl falls in love with in the book. Someone who cuts up his suits and gives him no quarter. Here we constantly see glimpses of pretty, sweet Sophie. In the book, I don't think Sophie's like that even when she is young.
As far as the plot goes, as with any adaptation there were parts that I could understand the changes made, could understand the need to condense plot, miss out key character scenes, etc. But I couldn't understand this butchering of Sophie's character - she is so very beloved to me - and I couldn't understand some of the other plot changes made. Why stop the Witch of the Waste being the bad guy? Why make the scarecrow into a happy little fellow instead of the very sinister figure he is in the book? All these changes seemed to lessen the impact of the movie, not strengthen it. We learn that the Witch of the Waste's heart was also taken by a demon - so why do we never see that demon? And, I'm sorry, but what was with the giant bird?!
Yeah, it just really wasn't my kind of thing. While I did appreciate the visual artistry, I felt that the plot went through such huge and unnecessary changes that it quite simply wasn't the film I wanted to see. I'm sure that if you're watching it as someone who isn't as familiar with the book as me - and someone who is a fan of the genre, even better - then it's a film that deserves all the accolades that have been heaped upon it. But personally, I spent most of the film looking in bizarre wonder at Howell Jenkins from a little village in Wales suddenly turning into a big bird-beast and flying with big winged bomber planes.
I came out quite deflated.
The City of London is the oldest area, original London if you like, and covers the area now used mainly for banking. The city of London, this part of modern-day London, was first founded by the Romans in 43AD.
They built the first London Bridge - which was the only bridge across the Thames until 1739 (the first stone London Bridge was built in 1176). The modern London Bridge was - according to recent excavations - built just yards from the much older bridges on the site.
The city built up around that, as a trading port, and in Medieval London the streets were cramped and bustling, each named after what the traders on that street sold. There was one street for chickens, one for tailors, one for bread and more and more... Today these streets are called Poultry, Threadneedle St, Bread St... in fact, many many of them have remained.
In 1666 Londoners were nervous about the bad omen of the numbers in the year. This was justified when, after a hot dry summer, a bakers shop in Pudding Lane (see how that works?! *g*) caught fire... and took the rest of London with it. The flames spread quickly through the narrow streets and wooden houses and decimated the city. In five days 87 churches and 13,200 houses had been destroyed.
Samuel Pepys wrote:
"So I rode down to the waterside, . . . and there saw a lamentable fire. . . Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies, till they some of them burned their wings and fell down."
In the end, the only way they could stop the first was to use gunpowder to blow up houses so that the fire had nothing to consume. By the end of the fire, four fifths of the city had been destroyed - including the wooden St. Pauls Cathedral - and many people lost all their belongings. Though fire was so destructive, it is also thought to have saved the city from the scourge of the Black Plague, which had killed almost 20% of the population the previous year.
Because so many people were homeless, the King had no choice but to order the rebuilding to happen as quickly as possible - his only proviso that the buildings be made only of stone, not wood, as a preventative measure. Therefore, the streets were rebuilt as-is, and a map of London before the fire is as recognisable as a modern map.
I was just googling for old maps of London, and came across one that I decided to compare to a recent map:
1593:
(See the full map here.)
2005:
(The main duplicate streets are highlighted in yellow.)
When
cincodemaygirl came to visit, she said she was amazed by how much history there was here, something which I had taken for granted to a certain extent. I frequently catch the bus down Bishopsgate and along Moorgate, past London Wall, streets that have been there for more than 500 years - and probably closer to 1000 - and each time try to remember the history that is all around, hoping to never again take that for granted. And that's just another reason why I love London.
Past waxing lyrical about London.
So, I went to see Howl's Moving Castle...Don't read if you loved the film and don't want me to harsh your buzz.
Now, please bear in mind that I'm writing this as a Diana Wynne Jones fan, not a Hayao Miyazaki fan. I'm not a huge fan of cartoons even, so I braced myself for feelings of vague displeasure with the genre before I went into the cinema.
I have to say, I can't imagine having been more disappointed. Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favourite Diana Wynne Jones books, one that I have read a hundred times, and so you could argue that my enjoyment of this movie was doomed from the outset. But
divine_miss_j told me had told me that, as a person who had read the book but didn't remember it all that well, she enjoyed it. So I had high hopes that even if it missed out my favourite scenes or slightly misread the characterisation, it would still be enjoyable. It would still be recognisable. But it wasn't. While the film itself was obviously made with extreme artistry and talent - visually stunning - it wasn't the story that I wanted to see told. But - with the possible exception of Calcifer - the characters weren't the characters I loved. Sophie was no longer that woman with such strength of character that she can literally give life to things. No longer a woman who just needs a little freedom from what she believes herself to be, to become what she is. Instead she's a mousy little thing who Howl shapes into someone stronger. From their first scene together he sweeps her up into himself, and she goes along meekly. Nowhere do we see the Sophie of the book who tells the castle to "Stop!", who throws weed killer at Howl and tells him off about his tantrums. This Sophie timidly chases the castle and jumps on board, she goes to cry about how she's not pretty instead of telling him off, she is given a garden instead of creating one herself.
I felt very strongly that the Sophie of the movie was completely disenfranchised - it would be interesting to take both texts and analyse them from a gender-authoring standpoint - how much does the gender of the creator of each version change the character arc Sophie goes through - I would say it's a whole hell of a lot.
But this change of her character made little sense to the plot as well. How on earth is this Sophie able to separate Howl and Calcifer?! She has almost no personal power at all - by the time that scene rolls around, the only power she has is her pretty-pretty love for Howl. To be frank, I missed to no-nonsense grumpy Sophie that Howl falls in love with in the book. Someone who cuts up his suits and gives him no quarter. Here we constantly see glimpses of pretty, sweet Sophie. In the book, I don't think Sophie's like that even when she is young.
As far as the plot goes, as with any adaptation there were parts that I could understand the changes made, could understand the need to condense plot, miss out key character scenes, etc. But I couldn't understand this butchering of Sophie's character - she is so very beloved to me - and I couldn't understand some of the other plot changes made. Why stop the Witch of the Waste being the bad guy? Why make the scarecrow into a happy little fellow instead of the very sinister figure he is in the book? All these changes seemed to lessen the impact of the movie, not strengthen it. We learn that the Witch of the Waste's heart was also taken by a demon - so why do we never see that demon? And, I'm sorry, but what was with the giant bird?!
Yeah, it just really wasn't my kind of thing. While I did appreciate the visual artistry, I felt that the plot went through such huge and unnecessary changes that it quite simply wasn't the film I wanted to see. I'm sure that if you're watching it as someone who isn't as familiar with the book as me - and someone who is a fan of the genre, even better - then it's a film that deserves all the accolades that have been heaped upon it. But personally, I spent most of the film looking in bizarre wonder at Howell Jenkins from a little village in Wales suddenly turning into a big bird-beast and flying with big winged bomber planes.
I came out quite deflated.
