"Perhaps because Harry's life, on the page and, even more luridly, onscreen, was measured out in highlights, as the plot demanded, whereas Mason is revealed in a string of lowlights, or in those episodes which seem dim and dull at the time, and only later shine in memory's cave."
— Lane, Anthony (b. 1962)
Author
Work Title
Date
July 21, 2014
Metaphor
"Perhaps because Harry's life, on the page and, even more luridly, onscreen, was measured out in highlights, as the plot demanded, whereas Mason is revealed in a string of lowlights, or in those episodes which seem dim and dull at the time, and only later shine in memory's cave."
Metaphor in Context
One evening in 2005, Mason and Samantha, suitably gowned, line up at a bookstore, like millions of kids, to get their midnight copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," leaving us with a difficult question: We traced the arc of Harry's youth, too, in even greater detail than Linklater can furnish, so how come we feel that we know Mason so much better? Perhaps because Harry's life, on the page and, even more luridly, onscreen, was measured out in highlights, as the plot demanded, whereas Mason is revealed in a string of lowlights, or in those episodes which seem dim and dull at the time, and only later shine in memory's cave. A haircut, in short, matters more than a Quidditch match. We happen upon ourselves when nothing much happens to us, and we are transformed in the process; that is why the Mason with the earring from whom we take our leave, on his first, blissed-out day of college, both is and is not the affable imp of seven, or the mumbler who bumped his way through puberty, and that twin sense of continuity and interruption—of life itself as tracking shot and jump cut--applies to everyone. Just like the final fade.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Anthony Lane, "Balancing Acts" The New Yorker (July 21, 2014). <Link to newyorker.com>
Date of Entry
07/25/2014
