Harry Potter and the "difficult teen phase"

Since the first Harry Potter film (The Philosopher’s Stone) came out in 2001, families everywhere have been to see every installment up until the final one (The Deathy Hallows Part 2), a decade after they began.

On Wednesday James Russell's lecture on Harry Potter was a sold out. He's a comical and enthusiastic speaker. He set out to show how and why the Harry Potter films have changed over the years, as well as their development from early ideas to the cinema.

The crowd was treated to a few clips and images from the early and latter films to show the distinct differences between them. Russell, openly not a fan of the early films as he felt they were 'an advert for not having children', explained how he preferred the later ones as they become increasingly darker - an effect achieved by a 'silverscreen' colour scheme and art-film like visual suggestion.

James Russell went on to give details about the mechanics of the film process, and how they came into being, starting with production manager David Heyman's acquisition to the final finished cut. As well as this, we were shown that the freedom given to the four directors was largely responsible for changes in the films.

As the crowd left their seats, many will, I’m certain, watch the films with new awareness thanks to the insights of James Russell.

Grant Cole

Why Germany lost

Richard Evans, author of the Third Reich trilogy, begins his talk on World War II in front of a completely packed-out lecture hall. Right from the off, the room is silent with everyone entirely attentive, laughing at every joke and paying attention to every word. We look too, as the lecture accompanied by pictures from the period.

Evans splits the loss into different reasons including the economy. Germany found it impossible to keep up with the production of the British Empire, the USSR and the USA.

As well as this, Evans claims that the aims of Germany were so large they could never be achieved. Hitler was said never to be rational and this came across throughout the talk. As Richard finished there was a large round of applause from the interested crowd.

I'd been looking forward to Richard Evans' talk and I appreciated his raconteur style. It reminded me why I loved history back in my A-Level days.

Grant Cole

Six talents

On Tuesday 29th February, De Montfort was treated to a reading by six highly-talented creative writers.

First was Daniel O'Donnell-Smith, who completed his MA in Contemporay Poetry at DMU in 2010. The language of O'Donnell-Smith's poems, with successions of evocative words such as 'shot, sparrow, shiver' suggested he placed even more importance on sound than on meaning.

Next came Claire Baldwin, a DMU graduate with an MA in Creative Writing by Independent Study. Her short story 'Frank' uses repetition and surprising shifts in content. She read only the first half, leaving the audience more than a little anxious about the speaker's actions and state of mind.

After this there was Richard Byrt, a postgraduate student of Creative Writing by Independent Study. The three poems he read included the comical 'Dear Professor Auden' and 'Typical Bloke in a Woolly Hat,' which ended with Byrt pulling woolly hats from his own bag.

Bhagwant Kaur, who has moved from her 1st class degree to M.A. studies, amused the audience, which included many students of creative writing, with her short story 'Reasons For Divorce.' The narrator's second reason was summed up in the sentence, 'He's a writer'.

Penultimately, Pam Thompson, one of the organizers of Word!, read a collection of short poems taking a fim about Leicester as their inspiration. All were dark in theme.

Finally, Alexandros Plasatis, a co-editor of the third volume of literacy magazine, Hearing Voices, gave us a story about a young Greek man seeking friendship with Egyptians working in Greece. His Greek accent provided a short cut to the heart of the story.

The six writers set a high standard which many of us in the audience plan to attain.

Grant Cole