Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the film adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name by English author Joanne K. Rowling from 2002 and directed by Chris Columbus , which was released in German cinemas on November 14, 2002. This second part of the Harry Potter series grossed 879 million US dollars worldwide and is number 67 (as of August 8, 2020) on the list of the world's most successful films and number 16 on the list of almost 9.7 million viewers most successful films in Germany (as of September 4, 2016).
action
Shortly before the start of his sophomore year at Hogwarts Wizarding School , Harry Potter receives a vacation from his relatives, the Dursleys , from the house-elf Dobby . He tries to dissuade Harry from returning to Hogwarts because there is great disaster threatening him. Dobby also admits that he intercepted letters from his friends at Hogwarts, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger , all summer long to pretend Harry had forgotten him. Since Harry refuses to listen to Dobby, Dobby gets him into trouble with his uncle Vernon. Thereupon Mr. Dursley locks Harry in his room to prevent his return to Hogwarts as well. However, in a night-and-fog operation, Harry is saved by the Weasley brothers Ron, Fred and George, who appear at his window with a flying Ford Anglia . When Ron and Harry are unable to get to the magical platform 9 mag to the Hogwarts Express a few days later, they manage again with Ron's father's flying car. When they arrive at Hogwarts, they end up in the whipping willow , which demolishes the car, breaking Ron's wand.
In this school year, the self-centered Professor Lockhart , who, as it later turns out, has only stolen his fame as a great magician and cannot teach the children, takes over the position of teacher in Defense Against the Dark Arts . Harry begins to hear a strange voice that no one but himself can hear. At the same time it became known that the so-called " Chamber of Secrets " had been reopened, which was causing a stir in the entire school. During a duel to demonstrate and practice the disarming spell, supervised by Professors Snape and Lockhart, it turns out that Harry has mastered the snake language Parseltongue . Through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, he is then suspected of being the announced "heir of Slytherin" who wants to kill all Mudbloods - wizards who, like Hermione, descend from Muggles. However, the victims found are never dead, only petrified.
To prove his innocence, Harry and Hermione and Ron investigate the "Chamber of Secrets" and find out that it is located at Hogwarts. From the enchanted diary of former student Tom Riddle, Harry learns that he was attending Hogwarts School at the time the chamber was first opened. It also seems at first that Rubeus Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets at the time. But the diary is stolen from him shortly afterwards. Hermione also falls victim to the unknown attacker and is petrified.
While Harry and Ron are secretly visiting Hagrid, he is arrested by the Ministry of Magic for his alleged connection with the Chamber of Secrets. However, he manages to tell Harry and Ron that they should follow the spiders. They follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest and meet Aragog, a giant spider that Hagrid raised. From Aragog they learn that Hagrid has nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets .
Harry and Ron find out that the entrance to the chamber is in one of the girls' bathrooms. Together with Professor Lockhart, who is supposed to help them, they go inside. Since the professor is a swindler and has not committed one of his glorious deeds himself, he now tries to get out of his situation with the help of Ron's wand. When trying to cast a forgetting spell on the two with the broken staff, the spell rebounds on him.
In the "Chamber of Secrets" Harry meets Tom Riddle, whom he knows from his enchanted diary. It turns out that Riddle is a manifest memory of Lord Voldemort , the student he once was before he gave himself his new name. Harry now explains to Harry that he could take possession of Ron's little sister Ginny, who got the book through Lucius Malfoy. The unconscious Ginny, who has been believed to have disappeared at Hogwarts for hours, is also in the chamber. Riddle gets stronger and stronger as Ginny's strength slowly fades. Once Ginny is dead, Voldemort will return.
Riddle now lets the basilisk - a giant snake whose gaze and venom is deadly - loose on Harry. This makes it clear that Harry always heard the voice of the basilisk before when it was moving within the walls of the castle and attacking students. Harry finally succeeds with the help of Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes , who picks out the basilisk's eyes and helps Harry with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, to kill the basilisk. Then Harry destroys Tom Riddle's diary with a basilisk tooth and thus himself and thus saves Ginny's life. He himself was bitten by the basilisk and the poison is now spreading very quickly in his body, but Fawkes can save him with his healing tears.
Since the victims of the basilisk, including Hermione, only saw the mirror image of the giant snake, they are not dead, but only petrified and are finally saved with the help of a magic potion made from mandrake .
Lucius Malfoy shows up at Hogwarts, accompanied by his house-elf Dobby. To help Dobby, who is badly treated by the Malfoys, Harry wants to free him with a trick: Since house-elves can only be free when their masters give them a piece of clothing, Harry sticks his sock in Tom Riddle's diary and gives Malfoy back. Since he in turn passes it on to Dobby along with the sock, Dobby is now free.
Differences to the novel
Like its predecessor, the film sticks closely to the book. However, as with the first film, characters and actions were left out or contradictions to the book arise:
- As in the first film, Peeves lacks the poltergeist and certain teachers like Professor Binns, who tells Harry, Ron and Hermione about the Chamber of Secrets in the book (in the film it's Professor McGonagall). Percy Weasley's friend Penelope Clearwater is also absent.
- The book begins on the morning of Harry's birthday, the film in the evening.
- In the movie, Harry sees Lucius Malfoy, after taking a used book by Ginny out of her cauldron, put a second one back in, which begs the question of why he's not telling anyone about it. In the book, after Lucius mocks Arthur Weasley, a fight breaks out between the two of them, and Malfoy uses the mess of the fight to hide Tom Riddle's diary in Ginny's book. He throws this to her after the fight. Harry only learns what Lucius has done through hints from Dobby and confronts him (unlike in the film) with it in Dumbledore's office.
- The film shows how Ron breaks his wand before the accident with the whipping willow when he tries to brake the car.
- While Harry and Ron meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall in the film, who takes them to Professor Snape's office, they are picked up by Professor Snape in the book in the castle park in front of the windows of the great hall.
- The 500th anniversary of the death of Almost Headless Nick on Halloween, the day of the first attack, does not appear in the film. There, the first attack occurred the evening Harry first heard the basilisk's voice.
- Professor Lockhart's Valentine's Day celebration, at which a singing dwarf accidentally destroys Harry's bag, does not appear in the film. Since Ginny learns on this occasion that Harry found the diary, this begs the question of how she found out about it in the film.
- While in the book Harry and Ron only follow the spiders into the forbidden forest a few weeks after Hagrid's arrest, in the film they do it that same night.
- In the book, Lockhart is disarmed in his office by Harry and Ron, but not in the movie. Instead, you can hear Lockhart drop his wand on the floor.
- Although the chamber is deep below the school, you can see how moonlight shines through windows on the side.
- While Harry puts his sock in the diary in the film to free Dobby, in the book he puts his sock over the book.
- Many scenes from the book did not make it into the finished film version, but are included on the DVD. This includes For example, how Harry sees in Knockturn Alley, how the Malfoys at Borgin and Burkes sell prohibited items or how Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley tell Harry that they are of Muggle origin.
reception
criticism
"Technically state of the art. A perfect, atmospheric and elaborately staged fantasy adventure, which is again based primarily on the external attractions of the book. Numerous fabulous, funny and bizarre details are juxtaposed with some exaggeratedly loud and noisy scenes as well as some that are quite threatening for younger viewers. "
Awards
- 2003: BMI Film Music Award for composer John Williams
- 2003: British Academy Children's Film & Television Award in the Kids' Vote category (audience award)
- 2003: Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards for Best Family Film - Live Action and for John Williams for Best Composer
- 2003: London Critics Circle Film Award for Kenneth Branagh for Best British Supporting Actor
- 2003: Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Emma Watson for Best Adolescent Actress in a Leading Role
- 2006: Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema Award at the Empire Awards for Harry Potter Films 1-4
The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the rating “valuable”.
useful information
- After the end credits , a short film scene is shown in which the confused Professor Gilderoy Lockhart speaks to himself in a magical picture frame with the caption “Who Am I?” (Eng: “Who am I?”) In a straitjacket. because he has cast a forgetting spell in the Chamber of Secrets.
- During production, the film was sold under the cover name Incident on 57th Street to prevent interference from curious fans.
- Well-known locations were Oxford University , King's Cross Railway Station , Glenfinnan Viaduct in Scotland and Leavesden Film Studios .
- In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK from the age of 6, in many other European countries, however, the film was given an age rating for young people from 12 years. To justify the age rating from 6 years, the German version has been slightly shortened. The attack by the whipping willow and the fight with the basilisk are longer in the original version, which is available in Switzerland. At the start of the film, criticism was repeatedly expressed in the German press that, for the sake of better box-office results, a release “from 6 years” had been pushed through, although the overall mood of the film was not suitable for children of this age. The FSK also approves films from the age of 6 if they are only suitable for slightly older children (approx. 9 years) because the jump to the next level “from 12 years” is very high. When the film was first presented by WarnerBros, the FSK gave it an FSK-12 rating. Warner then shortened the film in order to still receive an FSK-6 rating.
- The German version of the film was released twice on DVD . There is a version with a DVD and a double DVD with a lot of additional material. Both German releases are shortened versions of the film. In Switzerland, however, the film was released on DVD in the uncut German-language version. However, this DVD was banned from being imported into Germany by the producing studio WarnerBros. The unabridged FSK-12 version was also released in Germany on November 16, 2007 on HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc . The reason for this is the planned distribution of these HD versions outside of Germany, which has nine audio tracks (without audio comments). A UMD appeared unabridged in Germany when the DVD was launched.
- The cut version ran as a free TV premiere for the first time on December 23, 2005 on ZDF . The film was also cut on the Swiss broadcaster SF2. The reason for this was that WarnerBros did not submit the film to the broadcasters in full, so there was no way to broadcast the film in full.
- The uncut version was shown on German television on Premiere 2004 for the first time on pay TV. On November 19, 2006, the film was broadcast for the first time, also uncut, on free TV on the television station ProSieben . When it was repeated the following morning, however, the cut version was shown for reasons of youth protection, as FSK-12 films may only be shown on German television from 8 p.m. For ProSieben, a shortened broadcast would probably also have meant a problem with the program windows in Austria and Switzerland; Since the uncut version is the only one known there, the film would have been cut for the Swiss television broadcast that coincided with Germany. The simultaneous broadcast of different versions on ProSieben and ProSieben CH is unlikely. A separate acquisition of rights for the long version by ProSieben is therefore to be assumed, as the ZDF continues to only show shortened versions of the film.
- The controversy surrounding the shortening of an FSK-12 film led to a change in the Youth Protection Act since April 1, 2003 , which, following the American PG13 model, allows children between the ages of six and twelve to watch an FSK-12 film to be seen in the cinema, provided they are accompanied by legal guardians.
- When striking the Whomping Willow with the flying car the original voices of the actors can be heard briefly in the German version.
The flying Ford Anglia - In the soundtrack during the Quidditch game, motifs that John Williams had already composed for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (heard there during the bounty hunt via Coruscant) were reused.
synchronization
The German dubbing was done at FFS Film- & Fernseh-Synchron in Munich and Berlin . Frank Schaff wrote the dialogue book .
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Movie attendance numbers
| country | Visitor 2002 | Visitor 2003 | Overall 2002/2003 |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 42.413.157 | 1,638,754 | 44.051.911 |
| Great Britain | 10,558,221 | 1,621,543 | 12,179,764 |
| Germany | 8,767,962 | 889.228 | 9,657,190 |
| France | 7,177,346 | 1,573,575 | 8,750,921 |
| Spain | 4,216,804 | 899.620 | 5,116,424 |
| Italy | 3,313,757 | 617.142 | 3,930,899 |
| Netherlands | 1,477,718 | 405.718 | 1,883,436 |
| Poland | - | 1,711,933 | 1,711,933 |
| Belgium | 1,331,486 | 35,183 | 1,366,669 |
| Sweden | 805.887 | 158.026 | 963.913 |
| Turkey | 872.336 | - | 872.336 |
| Switzerland | 754.200 | 108.123 | 862.323 |
| Austria | 719.945 | 74,376 | 794.321 |
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, May 2003 (PDF; test number: 92 088 V / DVD).
- ^ Certificate of Release to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, September 2009 (PDF; test number: 92 088 V).
- ↑ Top Lifetime big things. Box Office Mojo, accessed August 8, 2020 .
- ^ Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ a b c Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on October 23, 2014 .
literature
- Joanne K. Rowling : Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Carlsen, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 978-3-551-55168-9 .
- Sabine-Michaela Duttler: The cinematic implementation of the Harry Potter novels. Kovač, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-3314-1 .
Web links
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the online movie database
- Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets inrotten tomatoes(English)
- Discussion of the film music
- Comparison of the cut versions FSK 6 - Uncut CH , Theatrical Version - Extended Version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at Schnittberichte.com
- Sound carrier with the film music