My friend Isaac White magically came up with tickets to a preview showing of The Golden Compass, and we were both pleasantly surprised. We both knew Pullman’s superb novel for kids, and did not have high hopes that it would translate well into a movie. But we ended up quite satisfied with the results. Of course, changes were inevitable, because what works in prose often doesn’t work in film. In order to preserve the rather complex plot, the pace had to be quickened. The book has leisurely paced segments punctuated by occasional bursts of action. By necessity, the film compresses everything so that the action sequences dominate. But the important thing is that it preserves the integrity of the book.
And integrity is the right word. I’m talking about this on my blog page, because the film is already under vicious attack from all the forces of barbarism. The book is a profoundly moral one, with a sense of outrage at injustice, that urges its young readers to question authority, think for themselves, and rebel against tyranny. It has come along just when it is needed. The film preserves much of this moral strength. So it’s no surprise that the marching morons are out in force. I have read of numerous cases where schools are posting signs warning their students against seeing the movie, and there are boycotts being organized by various authorities who, apparently, have no trouble identifying themselves as the intolerant Magisterium of the film’s fantasy story.
Conformity, cowardice, ignorance, and groveling before authority are the prescribed cultural norms of the last thirty years, in both the United States and Canada. A whole generation has been raised in a kind of cesspool of Conservative immorality. That is the only word for it. Organized religion and government have combined forces to destroy the very idea of morality, which depends on the functioning of the independent, autonomous, reasoning individual mind, and substitute its own false gods: Superstition, and Blind Obedience. The Conservative ideal is always a world without morality, and without reason.
This film will, perhaps, offer a tonic, a bit of inspiration for children raised in the bleak amorality of a Conservative culture. Its symbolism is easy for any bright child to absorb. The “golden compass” of the story is a gadget, but it is clearly meant to symbolize the moral compass — the individual commitment to reason and justice that allows a human being to distinguish right from wrong, freedom from slavery, truth from lies, and honour from dishonour. People without a moral compass do what they’re told. They torture prisoners in Guantanamo when told to, they let meddling bigots manage their sex lives, they accept rigged elections, they don’t talk back to Those In Charge. They become amoral zombies, and that is what powerful religious organizations and governments have generally preferred human beings to be.
Historically, young people have usually found their moral compass through art. My understanding (and hatred of) slavery was first learned by reading Huckleberry Finn, as a child. It is invariably the books that touch on significant moral questions, that encourage the young to question authority and think for themselves that attract the attention of the censorious. Usually the reasons proffered to justify the attacks are spurious, whatever sounds most plausible at the moment, because the underlying reason is too ignoble to make plain.
