His Dark Materials

[andrewducker]

There's a very good piece here where Philip Pullman points out the ridiculousness of some of the discussion of that's being going around regarding the involvement of Christ Weitz with the trilogy.

First, I'm sorry that Chris is not going to direct the film. In the conversations we had last summer and the many communications since, I came to regard him as a safe pair of hands - someone who knew the story very well indeed, and whose vision of the way it should be told on screen matched my own. However, I'm glad he'll continue to be associated with it; I gather that he's going to write the screenplays for the other two films, so there will be a consistency of vision throughout.

I have to say that I've been rather annoyed by the various ravings of people who seemed to ignore what the creator of the materials wanted, in favour of ranting because the director once made a vaguely-gross comedy. Because, apparently, people aren't capable of having both an intellectual side and a gross-out side. As someone who loves both, I feel pretty offended by that.

Comments

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Peter Jackson springs to mind also...

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Hey, even Chaucer, Crowley and the and The Great Bob Wislon agree that sometimes you just cam't beat a good fart gag. Even that old hack Shakespeare slipped a few in now and again. Bodily functions are intrinsically ausing due to social taboos ergo high-brow and primary school humour still go together. Those of us who still laugh watching Airplane! etc will testify to that.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Christ Weitz ?

I know some directors like Mel Gibson have a messiah complex, but... ;-)