Books and movies are a "few of my favorite things" and recently I have become aware just how big an impression these can have, whether you realize it or not. Take for instance my recent trip to Austria where I visited Salzburg & the UK, where I visited locations for world famous movies.
In Salzburg you can barely walk down the street without tripping over a Maria, or someone singing "Doh Re Mi" all due to the 1965 movie of
The Sound Of Music. Yes, I admit I had wanted to visit the city partly because of this much loved movie and it did not disappoint. The first evening there we sat in the setting sun at a Stiegl beer house, sipping that amber delight when suddenly all the thirty five churches began to ring their bells and I was transported into a "Maria moment"! So, it would seem I am as bad as all the other Maria wannabe's and from then on decided to embrace that geeky side of myself and enjoy! The Sound Of Music tour was booked and I threw myself, and my moderately reluctant husband, into the Von Trapp world of Salzburg. What a beautiful city! Dissected by the Salzach river, so named as it was once used to transport salt, with the towering medieval fortress of Hohensalzburg protecting the old city and the Alps wrapping around the valley bringing to mind another favorite book, Heidi, the city of Salzburg is breathtaking on a sunny day.
I wanted to dance along the streets with a guitar, splash my hands in the fountain with "Confidence" and skip around a gazebo but I managed to hold it together and enjoy the city for its other attributes which, of course, include being the birthplace of Mozart. We did take the guided tour which although took us to all the sites from the movie
Sound Of Music, sadly included the most boring individuals to ever take a SOM tour! Where were my dear friends Mary & Helen...they would have sung high on a hill with "A Lonely Goatherd" if we could have found one! We ended up, after a beautiful tour of the local lakes area, on the steps of the Mirabell Palace Gardens and I could contain the urge no more. Out came "Doh a Deer" as I attempted to reenact the scene...in my head I encapsulated Maria perfectly! I'm not sure what the other tourists felt!
Interestingly the basic storyline of SOM was not to too different from the actual story, just a little "Hollywoodized." Maria was a nun and did become the wife of Georg Von Trapp, she was a tutor to his eldest daughter who was bedridden with Scarlet Fever, one of 11 children, and did sing with them. They did hide in a cemetery and then escape, but to Italy by train..."climbing every mountain" would have led them into Germany! Not so romantic boarding a train I guess.
 |
The real Von Trapp family.
My other experience of the power of books and movies was in England more recently when I visited the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford. I was struck, as we entered Hogwarts Great Hall, by the looks on all the delighted faces around me...people of my age who had introduced their children to Harry Potter, young men and women of my son's and daughter's age who had grown up with him to the small children who had only known the magic through the movies. How wonderful that a series of books could have such an impact on childhood. Has there ever been any other book that has the same significance to a generation, and that set the spark to the flame of the love of reading? There are few people that you meet that don't know the term "Muggle" or "Expelliarmus." How other writers must yearn to find that special magic that JK Rowling found!
|
 |
| Entering Hogwarts |
It was
magic being on the studio tour, the place full of smiling happy faces..not a crying child in sight! The tour is not a Disneyworld type experience, it celebrates the ten years of making the Harry Potter movies and the incredible skills, craftsmanship and attention to detail that it involved. You cannot fail to be impressed by the dedication to detail that the team of set designers, costume designers, props, animatronics, painters, builders etc put into the creation of Hogwarts as you walk around. From the smallest prop, the Golden Snitch, to the movingly real Hippogriff, Buckbeak, the detail was incredible and really brought to life the books so loved by millions. Just a couple of facts I learned....17,000 wand boxes were placed in Olivander's shop, all labelled by hand with real peoples names, 40 kittens were brought on set for the moving plates in Professor Umbridge's office and then adopted by the unknowing general public, the interlocking parts on the vault door in Gringotts actually worked and, finally, the "crew" were all used as extras in the Ministry of Magic scenes and "loved every minute".
 |
| Gryffindor's Common Room |
 |
| Buckbeak was incredibly lifelike! |
My appreciation of the skills involved in making a movie such as
Harry Potter or
The Hobbit have increased and as I, my daughter and husband left the Studio Tour we were like children, all chattering excitedly about the visit, faces smiling. No, the visit did not spoil the magic.....I even bought myself a wand to try and make my own!
 |
The stunning1:24 scale model of Hogwarts
|
So the next time your child asks you to read to them, put aside that ironing, shut off Facebook and curl up in a chair and share the power and wonder of a good book, or even a well made movie .....those memories will be with you and them always...right down to the last "Doh Re Mi".
No comments:
Post a Comment