Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Now it’s time for me to weigh in on last year’s #1 conversation starter. I admit I’m at a huge disadvantage with the Potter films… I haven’t read the books, and I’m just not that into the movies. I’m probably the only Doyle aficionado who felt just casually interested that he’d gotten this assignment. It seemed a foregone conclusion to me that, as they were switching directors all the time, and the films were being made in Britain, eventually he’d wind up doing at least one of the films. (Not to mention that the series is now executive produced by David Barron, who has a longstanding involvement with Kenneth Branagh’s films.) And so it proved.

I had only seen the first two movies, and I still haven’t seen Azkaban (although I have heard the score), but I knew enough about the plots of the books and a general gist of the characters to think I didn’t need a refresher course before renting the film. However, with Goblet of Fire, it’s clear that if you haven’t already read the books at this late juncture, the screenwriter is not going to do you any special favors. So if you are like me and aren’t deeply invested in the Potter universe, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the first half of the film going “Huh? Where are they going now? Who are these characters arriving?”

Like the film, Doyle’s score is absolutely all business. There is little time (and perhaps little inclination on Doyle’s part) to do anything but make the briefest of references to Williams’ main theme, which disappointed more than a few Potter film fans and Williams fans, who complained the score didn’t evoke much magic. However, there really isn’t a whole lot of magic being evoked in the film, either (do we actually learn any new spells?) and there’s very little of the “Wow look at this!” factor in the story itself. (When something wondrous actually does happen - as with the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students, or the mermaid song in the bath - Doyle rises to the occasion in his own style.) But the movie is basically about taking what we have already seen and learned in the previous three films and putting it (and Harry of course) through the grim wringer.

Personally, as someone relatively unfamiliar with the Potter world, I could have benefited from Doyle’s score doing something more to take me in hand as a viewer from the start and get me in a Potter sort of mood. His score doesn’t do that, but it does come to the fore with tremendous effectiveness in the film’s closing half hour, creating a most un-Williams-like impression that signals, as Harry says, that “everything will be different now.” Regardless of who scores the next Potter film, this movie threw down a gauntlet for the series and there really can’t be any going back - dramatically or musically. (Can Williams get really, really dark? I am not so sure, but I’m sure he would enjoy the challenge.)

On a side note, I noticed that during the Oscar ceremony, during the reading of Goblet of Fire’s single nomination, the orchestra chose to play Doyle’s “Hogwarts March” instead of one of Williams’ themes from the film. I thought that was a nice nod to Doyle, and I’ll bet the orchestra was glad to play something perky and different from the usual sweeping themes they had to play for other nominated films.