J.K. Rowling Documentary

by Johnny

I watched the documentary, J.K. Rowling - A Year in the Life, and I simply loved it. Airing on ITV in the UK on 30 December 2007 and available online, this documentary is an intimate look into the personal life of J.K. Rowling this past year when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was being completed and prepared for publication. I agree with John Granger when he wrote that “this show is a treasure; in that it chronicles a historical and cultural moment up-close, I think the much abused word “unbelievable” is appropriate.”

Along for the ride is James Runcie, a filmmaker who has done documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II, John Betjeman, Barbara Pym, and his late father Robert Runcie, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980-1991. He even explored the subject of Heaven in a documentary with the same name. As he wrote on his website:

For, as the son of a clergyman, I had little doubt that Heaven lay in wait.

This was the gift of faith– the heavenly reward, resurrection, salvation from death.

Now when I look back on the memory, I sometimes long for the childhood certainty that a place has been prepared for us and we live on after our death.

Now I’m older, in the midst of my mid-life crisis, I think that the idea of heaven is the ultimate test of faith- the yardstick by which we discover whether we believe or not.

So I made a film about it, and wrote a novel called The Colour of Heaven because it seemed to me that the truest certainty in life, its actual meaning, is the fact of death – and that understanding this fact, and deciding whether this life is all there is – or not – is perhaps the most important question we should try to answer.

Runcie’s past probings into the subject of a “life after death” makes him a brilliant choice to interview JKR. When asked if she believed in God, JKR hesitates before answering, “Yes, I do struggle with it. I couldn’t pretend that I’m not doubt ridden about a lot of things and that would be one of them, but I would say yes.” Runcie then asks her if there was a life after death, “Yes, I think I do.” Runcie’s poignant shots of JKR walking around and sitting by herself in St. Luke’s Church where she was baptized and attended regularly by herself when she was younger reflect a special care in showing how church and religion are important to JKR even if she struggles. JKR’s facial expressions of awe, happiness, and wonder really place in perspective what she said in the past about the church being a place she could turn to in a time of trouble.

JKR’s answer of a “happy family” to Runcie’s question “what’s your dream of happiness?” is contrasted with her childhood where she was dealing with an ailing mother suffering from Multiple sclerosis and a father whom she was afraid of and constantly trying to win his approval. She even admits that she has not spoken with her father in a few years. We all know that the death of her mother affected JKR deeply and informed the entire series, but it was something to see JKR reminiscing about her mother and reflecting how her death affected how she portrayed death in the Harry Potter series. The visual shots of Harry seeing his parents in the Mirror of Erised in the first film and a Dementor in the third film with Stephen Fry’s voice in the background are powerful images of what JKR was going through when her mother died and then a few years later when she was a divorced single mother. JKR’s wish for a “happy family” is now realized with her second husband, her children, a strong relationship with her younger sister, although she currently does not speak to her father. One can say that JKR’s wishes for a “happy family” is the same of that of Harry finally having a family in the Epilogue of Deathly Hallows.

Finally there is much more that I can mention about this documentary (how about JKR walking in the Forest of Dean? or seeing Harry Potter fans on release day sparking my own memories of that awesome day), but JKR visiting her old flat in Edinburgh for the first time sticks out in my mind. Seeing her in tears and saying that her life changed here was very inspirational. And how incredible was it that the current owner of the flat owns the first five Harry Potter novels, which prompted her to say if this was real? JKR’s story is a testimony to her hard work and I cannot thank JKR and Runcie enough for this sensitive and beautifully filmed documentary.