Tea at Trianon: Coraline (2009)

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 13, 2009

Coraline (2009)

A review from author Debra Murphy.

As for the take-your-kid-to-the-movies part, my fifth-grader enjoyed the film, for the most part, but told me outright afterwards that he thought it should have been rated PG-13, not PG. In a few places, he confessed, he was a little creeped out. As for me, I couldn’t agree more, and I’m at a loss to understand how the filmmakers managed to finagle a PG rating. Granted, the market for animated films are child-centered, so I can see why a PG rating was desirable, but Coraline contains a couple of elements that for my money (and I’m a fairly relaxed parent when it comes to these things) crossed the line into scarier and more adult material.

Lucy said...: Personally, I think it's a desensitizing scheme...and too often we get caught up into it. No wonder everything becomes 'normal' after a while. This is sad for our children- especially when they're not the ones asking for all of the sensationalism to begin with; but once it's there, then it slowly becomes acceptable- the norm. Thanks, Elena.; March 13, 2009 at 12:50:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I agree, totally.; March 13, 2009 at 1:40:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: I haven't seen the movie, but I have read the book and in that, at least, the scary elements are not at all the desensitizing sort. From my own experience as a child, if something scares you, it doesn't desensitize, quite the contrary. It's graphic violence that has little or no emotional impact- that's thrown in as a kind of filler or padding- that desensitizes. The movies that scared me most as a child: Watership Down, Neverending Story, etc. are precious to me as having shown me the importance of fighting against evil, even when evil is overwhelmingly terrifying.

"The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." -G.K. Chesterton

As a side note, Neil Gaiman, the author of the book Coraline, is a big fan of Chesterton and in fact quotes those words in one of his other books.; March 16, 2009 at 12:15:00 AM EDT
Alexandra said...: Thanks for the heads-up. My fifth grade son saw the previews and said he thought it might be too scary. I told him he was right!; March 18, 2009 at 12:23:00 AM EDT