Magic at the movies...
Apr. 20th, 2007 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynA hopeful Sally writes:
Can anyone think of any films about witchcraft/wizardry etc other than Harry Potter? Right now, I've got a list of Practical Magic, the Craft, Constantine - what else is there out there? TV shows also acceptable.
Last nightpierot and myself got a DVD out. We wound up watching 'the Covenant' which is a fairly tatty but quite entertaining supernatural thriller about a group of teenage boys with magical powers - the back story is their their ancestors made some covenant with dubious forces, and in return the eldest son of every generation gets magical powers.
The film itself was marginally entertaining, but it got us talking afterwards about the ideas of magic in the film. In the film, there was no White Wolf stylee 'society of magic users' particularly. There were references to 'the laws' which Jeremiah suspected could have indicated that there was some kind of authority out there which went beyond these four families, but there was no big society, structure, hierachy and list of Traditions/Litany/Laws. Magic, in that world, was something which happened on a small scale.
We then got talking some more, mostly about the metaphysics of the world the film was based in. The Sons of Ipswich (the Covenant characters) got their magic as part of a compact with some force, by which the oldest sons gained magic, but it prematurely aged them. It occured to us that this didn't have to be the way magic worked for everyone - others could make different covenants. The women in Practical Magic, for example, effectively sacrificed a husband every generation if they ever fell in love. The girls in the Craft, obviously, made different deals. And all those films could, theoretically, take place in the same world.
I'm now looking for other films/books/TV shows which take place in that world. Jeremiah quite likes the idea of the Harry Dresden world loosely fitting in there* - Harry Dresden's mother basically sold him to a fairy in return for power, and it's implied that that is one of the reasons he may have his power too - and I think we both had doubts about the Buffy-verse due to its rather inconsistent attitude towards magic. I'm now running out of ideas, however. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
*there may be spoilers there - highlight if you want to read
Can anyone think of any films about witchcraft/wizardry etc other than Harry Potter? Right now, I've got a list of Practical Magic, the Craft, Constantine - what else is there out there? TV shows also acceptable.
Last night
pierot and myself got a DVD out. We wound up watching 'the Covenant' which is a fairly tatty but quite entertaining supernatural thriller about a group of teenage boys with magical powers - the back story is their their ancestors made some covenant with dubious forces, and in return the eldest son of every generation gets magical powers. The film itself was marginally entertaining, but it got us talking afterwards about the ideas of magic in the film. In the film, there was no White Wolf stylee 'society of magic users' particularly. There were references to 'the laws' which Jeremiah suspected could have indicated that there was some kind of authority out there which went beyond these four families, but there was no big society, structure, hierachy and list of Traditions/Litany/Laws. Magic, in that world, was something which happened on a small scale.
We then got talking some more, mostly about the metaphysics of the world the film was based in. The Sons of Ipswich (the Covenant characters) got their magic as part of a compact with some force, by which the oldest sons gained magic, but it prematurely aged them. It occured to us that this didn't have to be the way magic worked for everyone - others could make different covenants. The women in Practical Magic, for example, effectively sacrificed a husband every generation if they ever fell in love. The girls in the Craft, obviously, made different deals. And all those films could, theoretically, take place in the same world.
I'm now looking for other films/books/TV shows which take place in that world. Jeremiah quite likes the idea of the Harry Dresden world loosely fitting in there* - Harry Dresden's mother basically sold him to a fairy in return for power, and it's implied that that is one of the reasons he may have his power too - and I think we both had doubts about the Buffy-verse due to its rather inconsistent attitude towards magic. I'm now running out of ideas, however. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
*there may be spoilers there - highlight if you want to read
