If you watch the trailer (or even the first five minutes) for The Golden Compass, set for release this Friday, you may not understand why churches, and particularly the Catholic Church doesn’t like it. Indeed, Phillip Pullman’s atheism is hidden, which is part of the criticism.
New Line Cinema softened Pullman’s sharp religious criticism into a common theme that actor Daniel Craig (aka, James Bond) expressed in a recent interview:
?He [Pullman] is a brilliant writer. He?s used children?s books to write very adult themes,? Craig said. ?They are about keeping promises, being faithful, finding good friends, keeping them, and being supportive. They are about fighting for the right causes.?
Hanna Rosin covered this in a long piece for The Atlantic Monthly. Contrast her description of the books with Craig’s:
in Pullman?s version, God is revealed to be a charlatan more pitiable even than Oz. His death scene is memorable only for its lack of drama and dignity: The feeble, demented being, called ?the ancient of days,? cowers and cries like a baby, dissolving in air. The final book climaxes, so to speak, in a love scene that could rattle the sensibilities of an American culture that tolerates even Girls Gone Wild, because in this case the girl is still a few years away from college.
Four years ago, before anyone worried about marketing a movie, Pullman wondered why his books hadn?t attracted as much controversy as the Harry Potter series?another Hollywood favorite. As he told The Sydney Morning Herald, he was ?saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.?
Is the movie itself atheistic? To judge from Rosin’s story and the trailers, probably not. Will it lead children to read the Pullman’s books? Hard to say. Should parents be aware of what’s in the books before they agree to let their children see the movie? Most emphatically, yes.
