Saturday, March 2, 2013

Continuing with Harry Potter portrait sketches

That wonderful challenge has ended, and I have a lot of new friends because of it!  I can't be sketching all the time, now... but will do so when the spirit moves me.  Since yesterday, it has moved me three times already!

I'm watching Deathly Hallows, part 2 for sketches.  Good thing I've seen this movie many times, because the stop-action for sketching is quite disruptive to the emotional tenor of the plot.  However, I am finding that in pausing at certain really good shots, I get more insight to what the character is thinking and feeling.  Sometimes the actor's expressions, frozen in the still, display elements the audience takes for granted, in the whole.  It can be a testament to good acting, good direction, even good editing, perhaps.

Helen McCrory's portrayal of Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mom, for instance:
She knows at this point that the only way she can rescue her son, and get him out of the battle, is at the head of a victorious army.  To accomplish this, she must lie to the most vicious, powerful, and vindictive dark wizard of all time.   It has been revealed that she does not have her wand; her son has borrowed it.  She would be helpless if Voldemort struck her down.  But she hides all her fears within, to think only of her son, and utters the one word Lord Voldemort wants to hear: "Dead."  So much of the rest of the story turns on that one word, and Narcissa's mothering instincts.






Her son, Draco, is in the castle, dealing with other dangers.
He has in recent months become disillusioned with his father, his childhood role model, as Lucius Malfoy falls from favor, and becomes weak, subservient, and derelict.  The Death Eaters march on the castle, confident in their victory, Draco's parents at the fore.
Draco has just watched one of his best friends die an horrific death, and was saved from the same fate by his former nemesis.  He is rethinking his status, as it is announced that the very same person who saved him is now dead.  His father calls to him to join them, and Draco doesn't move.  A pathetic, ineffectual repeated call by his father; Draco is still hesitant.  Only one voice will move him, now.  A soft entreaty by his mother, the last person he can trust, beckons to him.  Gently, simply, "Draco... come."  He has no inkling of what she has risked to get to him, but moves toward an uncertain fate, trusting that only she could know what is best.








Not long after, another emphatic statement about motherly love will play out.  

The completely psychotic Bellatrix Lestrange,  one of Voldemort's most trusted lieutenants, is dueling with three of the girls, in the castle.  She nearly missed Ginny Weasley with a killing curse, and Ginny's mother, Molly, stepped into the fight.  
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
Molly had already lost one child to Death Eaters that night, and she'd die before allowing it to happen again.  Either she or Bellatrix would triumph... but who?




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