Narnia on the Big Screen: An interview with Robert and Linda Banks
By Dr Gordon Preece
This interview was first published in abridged form in Alive (February 2006) and it will also appear in full in the July edition of Zadok.
Robert and Linda Banks have had a long-standing interest in the life and work of C.S. Lewis. They have visited his home, The Kilns, in Oxford, and, in conjunction with the Bible Society NSW, they have developed a film resource pack for churches on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film. Robert is a well-known, prize-winning author of many Christian books, and during his time as Professor in Ministry of the Laity at Fuller Theological Seminary, he was founding Director of the City of Angels Film Festival in Los Angeles. Linda was, for many years, a staffworker with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, she worked with the Anglican Education Commission, and she has been on the ministry teams of Anglican and Baptist Churches. Gordon Preece, current director of the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute interviews them.
Remembering C. S. Lewis:
Q: As it's now been more than 40 years since he died, in case some people don't know much C.S. Lewis, can you tell us something about him?
Rob: C.S. Lewis is the best-known, most widely read and most quoted advocate for the Christian faith in the last half-century. He was an academic, based first in Oxford then in Cambridge. From his conversion in 1931 until his death in 1963, he wrote more than 30 books, most of which were overtly Christian contributions. These include evangelistic and apologetic works, for example Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain; children's fantasy and science fiction novels such as The Chronicles of Narnia and his so-called Cosmic Trilogy; and imaginative theological and devotional writings such as The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters. He also wrote poetry, literary criticism, educational philosophy and an autobiography.
During World War II, Lewis recorded several programs for the BBC, making his voice the best-known in Britain after Winston Churchill's. The latter part of his life—his marriage to author and poet Joy Gresham and her subsequent death—has become well known through the stage play and film, Shadowlands.
Q: What more can you say about Lewis' background to help us understand how he came to create the world of Narnia?
Linda: Lewis's life was a fairly privileged one. His parents were both upper middle class university graduates who encouraged reading and creative activities. Their home in Belfast was stacked full of books. He—or “Jack”, as he was called—and his elder brother, Warnie, spent a lot of time reading myths and legends and playing them out. Jack grew up loving the writings of popular children's authors like Beatrix Potter, Edith Nesbitt and Kenneth Grahame.
When he was 10, he lost his mother, and her death came as a tremendous blow. His father became more remote as he tried to deal with his wife's death. As a result, Jack and Warnie grew closer together. They retreated into an imaginary world of their own creation at an early age. They called this “Boxen” and their youthful stories and drawings about this were later published. While Lewis was at boarding school, at age 16, a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella in a snowy wood came into his mind. Many years later, this became the initial image for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Even though he was a bachelor for most of his life, Jack had many friends with children. Owen Barfield—who, along with J.R.R Tolkien and others, were members of their Oxford pub group called the Inklings—had a daughter named Lucy. Lewis dedicated The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to her, and of course Lucy is the name of the central character. He took child evacuees from London into his home, the Kilns, during the War. He also cared for his stepchildren during Joy's battle with cancer and after her death. So critics who claim Lewis was a stuffy old academic who knew nothing about children and therefore should not have been writing children's books don't know much about his life.
Q: What got you both interested in Lewis's life and writings?
Rob: As a young adult, I read some of Lewis's more apologetic books, and these gave me a stronger intellectual basis for my growing Christian faith. Initially, I thought The Chronicles of Narnia were just for children, so I didn't read them until later. When I began to run regular “Agnostic Anonymous” groups for outsiders, I found Lewis's writings a great basis for discussion. At Fuller Seminary, I included Lewis in a course I taught on “Influential Lay Christian Thinkers”.
Linda: When I became a Christian in my teens, like many, I read The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. Some years later, while working in a university church, a colleague and I put together a week-long “Wonderful World of Narnia” holiday program, focusing on one of the Chronicles each year. This was largely attended by local children. As they entered into the world of Narnia through drama, craft, music, film and props, they ultimately came face to face with the Great Lion, Aslan himself, and some learned to follow him.
First Reactions to the Film
Q: I hear you used to play the part of Jadis, the White Witch. Were you as scary as Tilda Swinton in the movie?
Linda: The children thought I was quite scary. In the books, Jadis is a white-faced woman with long dark hair and big red lips, but the director, Andrew Adamson, makes her an ice queen. Both descriptions are rather terrifying, but in some ways the subtlety of Tilda Swinton's portrayal is ultimately more evil.
Q: Given your familiarity with The Chronicles of Narnia, how did you react to the film when you went to its premiere?
Linda: We knew beforehand that the key people making it had loved the book as children and wanted to do the right thing by it. We were also in contact with C.S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, co-producer of the film, who was committed to remaining as faithful to the book as possible. But the film actually exceeded our expectations. It's a great story that has been brought beautifully and magically to life, and it retains the many parallels to the gospel story that underlie it.
Because I have mainly used Narnia with children, I was wondering how it would work with adults. Those attending the premiere were predominantly young adults without church connections, and people connected with the film industry—including some of the Australian crew who made the film. You could tell from the atmosphere during the film and their reactions afterwards that all these groups responded really positively. The reason is not difficult to find, for the story taps into very human longings and aspirations for another world—a world with deeper values and a divine reality.
Q: Two rows down from me there was a Muslim family. I kept wondering whether the film could get the message of the cross and resurrection through to them in a way that more direct methods could not, only succeeding in raising their guard. Could this be the way forward in our increasingly multi-religious and post-Christian world?
Rob: For sure. The problem today is twofold. Some people know a bit about Christianity but this is influenced too much by sentimental or stained glass views that hide its real nature and power. Others know less but are affected by false impressions of it, or they just write it off as irrelevant. Lewis realised that the best approach was an indirect one. As with Jesus' parables, it is more effective to create stories that capture people's imaginations and emotions in a way that disarms them and opens them up to the possibility of the supernatural and, ultimately, God.
Differences between the film and the book
Q: While, as you say, the film is generally faithful to the book, what did you think of some of the changes that were made?
Rob: It's important to recognise that, as film is a different medium, it communicates more visually, and, unlike a book which you can pick up and put down, it tells the story in a single sitting. So unless some changes are made, the end result is too talky and slow.
Linda: In addition, some changes are merely cosmetic touches. For example, in the book, the White Witch has dark hair, whereas, in the film, she is blonde. In the climactic battle scene, she drives two polar bears rather than two reindeers. Names are given to some characters in the film, for example, most amusingly, Philip, Edmund's horse. New characters also appear, like the fox who seeks to protect the children after they leave the Beaver's house, the commanders of Aslan's and Jadis' armies, Oresius the centaur and Otmin the minotaur. The language the children use at points is also more contemporary. Such changes are either just playful creative touches or they help make the story more accessible to today's audiences.
Rob: Other changes were more for dramatic effect, for example, the more extended and graphic account of the blitz in the opening scenes. Also the addition of a new sequence—the thawing and cracking of the ice—in the middle of the film vividly portrays both the breaking of the Witch's power and the prophecy of her final defeat possibly coming unstuck through the death of one of the children. There is intercutting of the resurrection of Aslan and the final, more epically staged, battle with the Witch's forces. We felt that each of these changes only heightened the dramatic appeal of the story and that the new sequence was very much in the spirit of the book.
Linda: Another difference is that the film contains more character development with the children. More time is given to the effect of the war upon their family and the new roles they are expected to adopt. This helps us to understand the conflicts that arise between them and the motivations for some of their actions in Narnia. Though this goes beyond the more minimal portrayal of the children in the book, it enables those viewing the film to identify more closely with them.
Q: One reviewer of the film—Rob Johnston, who spoke at the Zadok Conference last year—felt that, as a result, themes like forgiveness and sacrifice were more connected to human relationships and family solidarity in the film, and that there was a danger of making the sacrificial and forgiving role of Aslan less central. Others felt that Aslan was not portrayed as impressively as they remembered him from the book.
Linda: This opens up the area of thematic emphases. There's no doubt that, in the film, Andrew Adamson wanted to highlight such virtues as forgiveness and sacrifice between the children, and the importance of commitment to the family. Our sense was that this was still within the framework of Aslan's greater sacrificial and forgiving action, as well as his empowerment of the children for their struggle and his honouring them through their coronation.
As for how impressive Aslan appears, we wondered if some people were judging the film by the more comprehensive picture they have of of him through reading all the books in the Narnia series. Interestingly, both at the beginning of the film, in the scene where Tumnus is playing his flute, and at the end, when the Professor speaks in the break during the credits, there are additional references to Aslan not found in the book! These are not the only places where this happens.
Rob: We have now seen the film three times and found that the more you relax from comparing it with the book all the way through and, instead, take it on its own terms, the more impressive it becomes. Presumably this is in part why it has been such a huge success around the world, out-distancing all its competitors over the Christmas and New Year season.
Comparing Aslan and Jesus
Q: Speaking of Aslan, how strictly allegorical do you think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is?
Rob: This issue has often been misunderstood—first, by those who assume Lewis was crafting an overtly Christian message, and second, by those who think that he was simply using ancient myths to tell a good, ethical story. Lewis himself said about the Chronicles, “Some people think that I drew up a list of basic Christian truths and then hammered out allegories to embody them. I couldn't write that way at all. At first, I had very little idea how the story would go. Then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. But once he was there he pulled the whole story together and the other six books after it.”
Linda: But if someone started to understand the Christian element in the story—and Lewis found children often saw this quicker than adults—he would reply, as he did to an 11-year-old called Hilla, “As to Aslan's other name, well I want you to guess. Has there ever been anyone in this world who: a) arrived at the same time as Father Christmas; b) said he was the son of the Great Emperor; c) gave himself up for someone else's fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked men; d) came to life again; e) is sometimes spoken of as a lamb. Don't you really know his name in this world? Think it over and let me know your answer.”
Rob: Even then, however, we should not look for precise one-to-one correspondences between the Bible and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The connection between the two is more like an analogy than an allegory. Aslan is not exactly the same as Christ but rather, as one writer says, “As Christ is to the Gospel story so, in a measure, is Aslan in Narnia.”
Linda: My experience is that if you over-allegorise the Narnia story before people are ready for it, it loses its wonder, it stops them asking questions and ultimately that reduces its spiritual value.
Q: Finally, tell us about your new booklet on the first of the Narnia series.
Linda: We are very excited about the five-session discussion guide we've developed called The Wonderful World of C.S. Lewis' Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Our deep desire is to bring the Bible world and Narnia world into conversation. It's designed for small groups of adults or teenagers to equip them to better understand the book and film (now released on DVD) as well as talk more effectively with others about it—especially those who do not have any definite Christian connections. It is published by the Bible Society NSW and the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute, and is available from them through their website. For us, this discussion guide is the first in a series on all The Chronicles of Narnia; the next one is coming out in the middle of 2007 before the release of the film of Prince Caspian.
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, NARNIA, and all book titles, characters and locales original thereto are trademarks of C.S. Lewis Pty Ltd. and are used with permission. © DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC. and WALDEN MEDIA, LLC. All rights reserved.
