I think viewing Harry Potter as a masterpiece for film is different from viewing it as a textual literary masterpiece because film also has its own criteria and literature has its own. The criteria for a film does not only tackle the narrative but the overall composition of a motion picture. While in Literature, narrative, language and its form are the some of the foremost criteria.
The films itself, even if you have not read the books are of good quality and created an enormous marvel of magic, wizardry and battles. The visuals too are rich and impressive as well as the cinematography and the acting performance, although there are lots of scenes cut due to the time constraint. Yates, as the director, has done the last film so well compare to the other previous films. His vision as the director is noteworthy, from its pacing to its design. I think even without reading the books, audience can still appreciate the Harry Potter films. To think also, the first Harry Potter film popularize first before its books.
In Harry Potter 7 Part 1, apart from other Harry Potter movies, the spectacle of Hogwarts is apparently no longer present. The excitement and thrill of the Quidditch match or the typical scenarios of adolescents in a boarding school has been over. Harry, Ron and Hermione are all grown up and without the guidance of Dumbledore; they have been set on their own in finding the horcruxes. In this film, based on a perspective of an audience who just watched the film without reading the book, the film showed its more mature and darker side. The focus was no longer on the magic (although it still plays an important role in the film), but rather on the development of the main characters and their last journey which is set in a quite ‘realistic’ setting. As also a coming of age story which brings another complexity of the film narrative. Instead of only showing the fantastic vision of Hogwarts and magic like in the previous films, in this film, it depicts the quests of heroes even outside their “boarding school of wizardry”. That is also crucial for the main characters, because this time they are not only ‘tested’, but they are already thrown into their own realities and facing the Dark Lord. And for a story, narrating as vast as that magnitude with a lot of twists and complexities, it is commendable for being a masterpiece.
However, I think Harry Potter can be a masterpiece if its yardstick is of children’s fantasy literature but not of Tolkien’s epic fantasy because that will cause discrepancy due to the variation of their genres, although Rowling created a number of allusions to Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings and it somehow follows the standard rule of the fantasy genre. Rowling’s imagination is extensive and brilliant as so as her creation of characters and settings. Nonetheless, that is still quite debatable since it is not as poetic as Narnia. However, her imagination and creativity could suffice the predominant criteria of being a masterpiece. J.K. Rowling creates another world, different from Narnia’s alternative world and from Lord of the Rings’ Mythological Past. She created a world bridging our world and the world of wizardry which I think is another laudable idea she embedded in her series.
Nonetheless, its flaws are evident on the books, especially on the inconsistencies and vagueness in its rules as a fantasy text and its narrative. And so as its prose style which as Harold Bloom and A.S. Byatt criticized as “full of clichés”. But I think, labeling a text as a masterpiece does not necessarily means that it should not be unflawed. Of course, to a certain degree, it has its own errors but why not take a look on its strength as both literary text and film? Take in consideration too of its tremendous impact worldwide. It is a cultural phenomenon globally that linger for almost a decade, as of now, and even translated in over sixty languages. And by cultural phenomenon, it does not mean that it lacks its literary significance like what the normative ideology usually says. Thus, for me, it can be considered as a children literature’s masterpiece of our age in film. However in books, I am in no position to judge it since I only read the first two books.
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