Richard Harris' family begged Cuarron to cast Peter O'Toole as Dumbledore -- but Cuarron wanted Michael Gambon. I love Michael Gambon as an actor, but Peter O'Toole (apart from being a legend) was the best possible choice to take over the role, since he has a similar acting style to Harris and could project the same regal, all-knowing demeanor (and under that long beard most kids wouldn't have even realized it was a different actor).
Gambon was just all wrong for this part IMO. I know some disagree but he does not, in any way, project any sort of paternal love/warmth towards Harry or kindly "old professor' type of adviser that the role calls for -- and which Harris projected in the first two movies. He's a good character actor, but it was a poor casting move given the wealth of other possibilities they had at their disposal.
I also don't understand why Cauron got to cast that role when, ultimately, he was just one director working in a long chain of directors in a seven (eight) part series. Cauron had no producing capacity in this series -- unlike Columbus -- so why Heyman and the other producers gave him the "green light" to make the call on who was replacing Richard Harris is a total mystery to me.
A film does not have to fall into the "auteur" category to be great-WIZARD OF OZ being a good example along with GONE WITH THE WIND, in fact, many MGM films from its beginnings in 1924 are more "MGM films" than they are most of the directors who resided there at the time, with the exception of Seastrom, Vidor, Cukor and Stroheim, who were either able to sneak in their world view and make films that really were their own, or take it all the way and not only make something deeply personal, but earth shattering as a result. Vidor and Cukor were able to combine studio pix with personal ones; Seastrom saw his style of films out of style when talkies came in and went back to Europe; and Stroheim...well, we all know what happened there.
Directors like Fleming, Conway, Wood, Seitz, van Dyke, Leonard and lesser known ones made MGM the "Cadillac" of movie studios, in many ways by being almost invisible in their style and technique, so that while many of their films might not be in the auteur style, they were great craftsmen who know how to tell a story on film and still have you know that you were seeing an MGM film. If you notice, when someone like Lubitsch, Wyler or LeRoy made films there, there is something just a bit more special (I personally think that Lubitsch's THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER is one of the greatest films ever made), and they knew that too, and knew enough to work at that studio enough not to become part of the machine there.
I personally thought that Gambon did bring warmth to his character (the scene in PRINCE where he is drinking the water from that cup and the torment he goes through while forcing it down and later when the students and staff raise their wands in his honor was very emotional, at least for me and many of the people around me watching it [I even heard one young voice cry out "Don't drink any more!"]. O'Toole would have made an excellent Dumbledore, but I wonder if O'Toole's age and his history may have been the deciding factor for the producers. And as for young viewers not recognizing someone "under the beard," I was at an event that John Cleese was appearing at, and I brought my PHILOSOPHER'S STONE one-sheet for him to autograph. After he did (very graciously, I might add-a lovely man), a youngster of around 10 asked me who had signed my poster, and I mentioned that it was "Nearly Headless Nick." His eyes got real big and he turned and asked his parents for a pen and some paper and made a beeline for Cleese, who was very gracious to him, as well, and a few other young people who discovered him there. I also remember when I saw MARY POPPINS when it first came out, and in the scene where the Banks' children meet the board of the bank and the ancient man who is the head of it, I turned to my mother and said "That's Dick Van Dyke!" My mother wasn't sure until the end credits when his name popped up for that part, so I wouldn't put much stock in kids not figuring that out.
Cuaron was mainly chosen because of the acclaim that "Yu Mama Un Tambien" had gotten, but also because of his work on the most recent version of "A Little Princess," which convinced the producers and Columbus that he had both a great visual style and could also work with kids and not lose the vision of the series.
I was not as crazy about AZKABAN as a lot of people, but I did think A LITTLE PRINCESS was outstanding, not just visually but in every sense of the word. It also had Patrick Doyle's best score -- a work which he totally failed to approximate with his score for the fourth HP film (actually, come to think of it, nothing he's written since his illness has come close to matching it). I do think A LITTLE PRINCESS was one of the best films of the '90s, very much worth seeking out on HDNet Movies and the like (funny thing about the girl in the movie, Lisel Matthews, whose real last name was Pritzker...one reason she stopped working is because her family owned the Hyatt hotel chain and she's one of the wealthiest women on the planet!).
I do agree with Paul, I did not understand why Cauron went to such great lengths to add his own "signature" on the third film, especially in areas where it didn't make sense to do so. Particularly when it came to the clothing, the change in certain settings and character designs...just weird.
Jedbu wrote:...I wouldn't put much stock in kids not figuring that out.
Though based on your anecdote about John Cleese it would seem that kids do have trouble identifying an actor sans costume and make-up.
But my point is that the similar acting style of Harris and O'Toole would have made the recasting less obvious -- certainly far less obvious than casting Michael Gambon. Gambon is a wonderful actor -- I loved him in The Singing Detective, The Storyteller, Maigret (another role he took over from Richard Harris, interestingly enough), etc. I like Gambon as Dumbledore, but much prefered Harris' wise, all-knowing quality to Gambon's more absent-minded "bohemian eccentric" take on it. I think O'Toole would have given a performance more along the lines of Harris.
Cuaron was mainly chosen because of the acclaim that "Yu Mama Un Tambien" had gotten, but also because of his work on the most recent version of "A Little Princess," which convinced the producers and Columbus that he had both a great visual style and could also work with kids and not lose the vision of the series.
He has a good visual style but he just made too many continuity breaches and went over the top in trying to shoe-horn his real-world cynicism into the film. And I'm amazed anyone who has seen Y Tu Mama Tambien would allow Alfonso Cuaron near a child!
