Dream Casting for The Night Circus

This is The Night Circus:

Erin Morgenstern's highly imaginative debut novel, which began as a NaNoWriMo project. Summit Entertainment bought movie rights to the book not long after its publication with Harry Potter producer David Heyman set to produce. No casting has been announced for the film yet, so in honor of NaNoWriMo I thought it would be fun to present my dream cast for the film:

Emma Watson as Celia Bowen

Iain De Caestecker as Marco Alasdair

Bryan Cranston as Hector Bowen (a.k.a. Prospero the Enchanter)

Alan Rickman as Alexander H.

Lily James as Isobel Martin

Johnny Depp as Chandresh Christophe Lefévre

Rila Fukushima as Tsukiko

Elle Fanning as Penelope "Poppet" Murray

Robbie Kay as Winston "Widget" Murray

Jared S. Gilmore as Bailey Clarke

Christoph Waltz as Herr Friedrick Thiessen

Kiera Knightly and Natalie Portman as Tara and Lainie Burgess

Dan Stevens as Ethan W. Barris

Shohreh Agdhashloo as Mme. Ana Padva

Director: Ang Lee

And there is my dream cast for an awesome film adaptation of The Night Circus.

How Frozen Should Have Begun

I've heard that Anton Chekhov's method of writing plays consisted of writing one act of the play and then throwing out the first three pages. I am currently reading a book on writing mystery novels, and the authors seem to agree that the best way to star a novel is in the middle of the action. The authors also agree that the beginning is the most important part of a novel because a good beginning hooks the reader and compels him/her to read on. Movies, like novels and plays, attempt to capture their audience to create enough interest to want to move forward. Also, it is important to be wary of sharing too much information right at the beginning of a book, play, or movie; it is the withholding of information that makes an audience want to uncover more.

With this in mind, I thought of the movie Frozen and how it could have benefited from throwing out the first few pages. I thought, what if the movie began with "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" Here we see a conflict between two sisters and another conflict between a young woman and her parents. Then as the story unfolds, the prior events of Anna's accident could be revealed.

Or, better yet, what if the movie actually started with Elsa's coronation? And then, as the story progressed, the back story got worked in as well. For some reason, I made a connection between this method of opening a story to the Harry Potter books. When the first scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone opens, how much back story already occurred? A lot. And if J. K. Rowling revealed the whole back story right away, the elements of mystery and suspense that make the books so intriguing would be gone. However, as the story of Harry Potter continues throughout seven books, the back story is slowly revealed. Furthermore, the back story is so crucial that it moves the present events forward. Frozen definitely could benefit from a similar plot device.

Another benefit of Frozen opening in one of the suggested ways is that it would eliminate the "Frozen Heart" number, a song which makes absolutely no sense and does nothing to compliment the story. Beginning with "Do You Wanna Build A Snowman" paves the way for opening with a musical number that actually carries the story along, OR opening with Elsa's coronation makes way for a new musical number about the coronation which establishes setting and character.

Here are some great opening lines (both spoken and sung) from other Disney movies which make great hooks to capture an audience:

"Slave in the magic mirror, come from the farthest space." -Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

"Once upon a time in a far away land, a young prince lived in a shining castle." -Beauty and the Beast

"Oh, I come from a land from a far away place where the caravan camels roam." -Aladdin

"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba" ("Here comes a lion, Father") -The Lion King

"This is the story of how I died." -Tangled

Compare these with "Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining, this icy force both foul and fair has a frozen heart worth mining." Nope, I don't get it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Frozen hater. I enjoyed the movie and bought it when it was released on DVD; however, there is room for improvement. Luckily, Frozen will come to Broadway in the near future, so the writers have the opportunity to make the beginning more enticing.

On Bullying

"What kind of world do you want?

Think anything,

Let's start at the start,

Build a masterpiece.

Be careful what you wish for;

History starts now."

-Five For Fighting, "World"

This post is in response to this picture one of my friends posted on Facebook a few weeks ago:

As I thought about it, the more I was able to see the validity in the argument. In the past few years, I've seen a lot of stuff going around the internet about bullying and bullying prevention. My thoughts as I read these articles/blogs were "AMEN!" and "I wish this stuff was around when I was a kid." Being bullied is a terrible experience and it is not something I would wish on anyone. Also, being bullied as a child can lead to harsh, negative effects that can last a lifetime. It can make children feel useless and worthless, and I've heard it said that we can never really escape the things we learn in childhood. For these reasons I am a strong advocate of bullying prevention.

However, just like everything else, there is a flip side. Schools can create all of the anti-bullying rules they want, but if someone really wants to bully another person, rules will not stop him/her. We have laws against murder, theft, and rape, but laws themselves do not prevent people from doing them. We can pass whatever laws we want, enforce them however we want, and punish the perpetrators any way we want. But that will never stop anybody.

As I said before, we (theoretically) cannot escape what we learn in childhood. If children learn how to stand up for themselves and/or cope, then they will carry those lessons with them for life. The thing is that life is hard. (Shocking, I know.) We won't always have school rules to protect us, and we won't always have other people to rely on for support when life (or people) try to bring us down. As we help children stand up for themselves and cope, then we are preparing them for the real world, and they will be stronger and better off for it. 

I fully understand that there are certain personality types that do not easily allow people to stand up for themselves or cope, but that is all the more reason to push for teaching strategies to help children take a stand and/or cope. Personalities are inconstant and malleable. If you think that personalities do not change, I'm willing to bet your personality is different from your 4-year-old, 12-year-old, 17-year-old, etc. selves. Furthermore, bullies target those who appear weak to them, such as kids who feel powerless to stand up for themselves or cope with the situation. And these are the people who most need to learn to take a stand and/or cope, and learning to cope and stand up for yourself are valuable life skills to learn.

I should know; I naturally have one of those personalities. Elementary and middle schools were hell on earth for me because of the bullying I experience. Although my school pushed anti-bullying campaigns, they had no effect. In my fifth grade year, my school incorporated a program called "Peacebuilders" aimed to prevent bullying, and I saw more fights break out that year than in any other school year. For the longest time, I considered myself a victim. I thought my experiences with bullying crippled me and made me less able to succeed. I never learned to cope as a kid and I was too afraid to stand up for myself (which is another thing anti-bullying rules indirectly teach: if you stand up for yourself you will suffer the same consequences as the bullies even though standing up for yourself and bullying are too completely different things). It took me twenty-six years to overcome some of those effects, and I'm not sure if I've fully overcome. As a child, I never learned to take a stand or cope. I learned how to sulk, which is different from coping. It may have taken m a long time to overcome, but overcome I did and I am much better off because of it. Had I learned this at a younger age, I could have been better off at a younger age.

Whether you're a parent or a teacher, let us not teach our children to be victims. Let us teach our children to be strong. Let us teach them the valuable life lessons of taking a stand and dealing with hardships.