Persistence of Vision

If you've been following the Harry Potter series, you'll know that as it builds, it becomes increasingly focused on issues of freedom. By the final two novels in the series, the entire wizarding world is caught up in Voldemort's totalitarian bid for power--individual liberty no longer exists, and people are imprisoned, tortured, and even killed for insisting on their rights to free speech, to free association, and to personal choice in their manner of living. The final volume of Rowling's series culminates in a revolutionary battle for freedom, and explores in depth what it means to risk one's health, one's happiness, one's security, one's future, and one's life for a cause. It's complex and worthy of careful treatment--so it's good to know that the final film of the series will actually be two films. "It is simply impossible to incorporate every storyline into a film under four hours long," Rowling wrote on her website. It's also tough to mine the philosophical questions Rowling's series raises--always subtly, by way of the story lines--while compressing those story lines. Everybody wins this way--audiences get to see a thorough treatment of the final installment, and Warner Brothers stands to increase its profits by something on the order of $1 billion.