Among the millions of people around the world awaiting the big-screen debut of the magical realm of Narnia this week are a local man and woman who helped shape the sprawling fantasy world that opens up in “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Sharon Bordine Frisco of Rochester, 62, whose short films helped to preserve the legacy of author C.S. Lewis, plans to continue work today on a new documentary. She’s attending and shooting the hoopla at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where a black-tie premiere of “The Lion” will be held.
Back in Michigan, Washtenaw Community College computer instructor Laurence Krieg, 60, whose letters to Lewis in the 1950s shaped the contemporary understanding of the Narnia novels, will skip the U.S. opening of the film on Friday. Instead, he’ll see it Saturday with members of Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor, one of many local churches that are buying blocks of tickets.
“Lewis taught a whole generation of us to baptize our imaginations,” Frisco said last week, before flying to London with her film crew. “And he showed us the way in this fantasy world he created.”
A fantastic world it is, rivaling the popular Harry Potter and “Star Wars” series — certainly in staying power. Half a century after Lewis’ death, sales of his books rise each year. Praise ranges from Time magazine, which recently called “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” one of the 20th Century’s top novels, to PBS, which last year called Lewis “the most popular spokesman for Christianity in the English-speaking world.”
But, like the Narnia novels themselves, neither Frisco’s nor Krieg’s remarkable stories properly begin in the here and now.
No, their shared passion for Narnia begins, as it has for millions of people in the 35 countries where the movie will open, with children snuggling beside their parents and opening a mysterious book, once upon a time.
