Sightlines · how to watch

How to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

2011 · David Yates · Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 on Sightlines

5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.

On a first viewing

1. Watch the color drain out of Hogwarts. (light)

   Eduardo Serra works in ash and slate: cold blues, grays, firelight. In the worst hours the image is close to monochrome. The storybook warmth of the early films is entirely gone.

   Payoff: Ten years of darkening arrive here. The palette tells you what kind of story this has become.

2. Look at what the Great Hall is being used for. (staging)

   Stuart Craig built that room for the first film and kept it standing through eight. Here the tables go back, stone dust hangs in the air, and the courtyards fill up. The staging is siege cinema.

   Payoff: Nobody explains what the room means. The film gets its feeling by breaking architecture you already know. In the reading: empreinte. The reading calls this the imprint: a person and a place have marked each other so long that damaging one damages the other.

3. Listen to how quietly the film starts. (sound)

   Desplat opens on Lily's Theme, a wordless soprano line tied to Harry's mother. No fanfare, just one voice.

   Payoff: The biggest franchise in the world opens its last film with one voice. The score says goodbye before the plot does.

4. Track the three things happening at once during the siege. (cutting)

   Mark Day keeps the hunt for objects, the defense of the castle and the private duel running side by side. The film breathes out to the whole battle, then back in to one line of action.

   Payoff: You never lose the through-line inside the spectacle. This is old convergent cutting, run at franchise scale. In the reading: respiration-space. The reading calls this respiration-space: the film breathing out to the whole battlefield and back in along one taut line of action.

5. Notice that the film starts in the middle of something. (structure)

   There is no setup. One novel was split in two and this is the second half, so it opens mid-quest and assumes you carry everything. From the first minute the picture is rising action.

   Payoff: The film spends nothing on explanation and everything on consequence. Ten years of setup are its first act.

The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".

Carry this in: The film is almost all climax. Watch the color drain from the castle and see how rarely the pace lets up.

A Deleuzian reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 →

How Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was received →