Discuss the White Witches in BBC and Walden

Of course you don't offend anyone by liking Tilda better. People are allowed to prefer who they want to prefer. I have mixed feelings there myself. If Barbara had acted a lot less large she could have been perfect. She was way over the top in her acting. But then Tilda didn't scare anybody really. Even my little nieces described her as a mean lady and not scary. Barbara was scary as the witch should have been. The emotions she tried to translate didn't come across too well. That, and I don't mean to offend anyone but I pictured the witch to be much prettier. I feel bad saying it, but if I'm candid I can't overlook that. Tilda also tried to interject a political background that wasn't there in Lewis' work. She described the witch as Arian...and that was a big mistake I think. Sure the kids were getting away from WWII, but the witch wasn't from a dream having to do with it or anything. They should have left that aspect out of everything. I prefer the BBC still, but that's just me. It's closer to the book. Over the top acting, but way closer to the book. Barbara could have done much better than she did I think, but oh well. Neither of them are great, and to me it would push it to say even good...but they suffice I guess. Somewhere in the middle is what should have been for both but we'll never see it. Tis a pitty.
 
vicky_jillpole said:
Quite agree. And Into the Wardrobe, we've seen the movies too... it's just that we have different opinnions. :l
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I didn't think you hadn't seen the movies. I know yo have different opinions and that's cool. I was just describing my reasoning for why I think the way I do.
 
Into the Wardrobe said:
She described the witch as Arian...
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Ok, I looked Arian up in the dictionary:)o) and I wanted to make sure I understood what Tilda meant when she said that. So what Tilda meant is that--the son (Jesus, or in the case of Narnia, Aslan) was NOT one with the Father (Emperor Across the Sea), but was created by the Father as a helper?

Wow, just wow. If I've got my definitions right then I agree. She should totally not have said that. I have no problem with Actors reading anything they can get their hands on about their characters, from opinions of the fans to essays (if there are any) written by Lewis Scholars, I can totally understand how that would be helpful in making the character more real. But calling the witch Arian is just going too too far.
 
Rhyanidd said:
Ok, I looked Arian up in the dictionary:)o) and I wanted to make sure I understood what Tilda meant when she said that. So what Tilda meant is that--the son (Jesus, or in the case of Narnia, Aslan) was NOT one with the Father (Emperor Across the Sea), but was created by the Father as a helper?

Wow, just wow. If I've got my definitions right then I agree. She should totally not have said that. I have no problem with Actors reading anything they can get their hands on about their characters, from opinions of the fans to essays (if there are any) written by Lewis Scholars, I can totally understand how that would be helpful in making the character more real. But calling the witch Arian is just going too too far.
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Well, it's also what Hitler referred to in WWII. It was the blonde haired, blue eyed look that Hitler deemed the superior race. I think I got the spelling wrong before and it should be aryan. He didn't fit the bill for that race, but he was bent on killing people who weren't a part of it, excluding himself of course. He had genetic experiments done by others to learn how to promote that look. Tilda compared the look of the White Witch to that. She called the White Witch "the ultimate white supremicist....she missed the point. It wasn't till she had the apple in MN that she became that white.

Here's the article I saw that bothered me a bit with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_oeeYDbTNc

The Narnia books describe the White Witch with black hair if I remember correctly. They had her that way in the BBC series. I didn't think it was a good thing for Tilda to want that to be changed because she 1) misunderstood the character because I don't think she read MN. 2) Had a political agenda and bias against anything "American" or "Hollywood" looking.

vicky_jillpole said:
Oh, ok. :p I, of course, know you didn't mean to offend anybody, lol.

Does anyone know (btw) that Tilda won an Oscar??? She deserves it.
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That belongs in the cast and crew thread for Tilda Swinton my friend. It's great that she got it, but let's continue to compare the white witches.
 
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Barbara is the only White Witch in my book. Tilda was too much of a snob. She didn't make the Witch frightening, just arrogant.

Of course this is only how I personally feel so I don't want to offend any Tilda fan on this forum:confused:
 
Now I'm going to have to watch the new version again, with all this in mind! I think the library has it....
 
I liked Tilda's a lot more . Honestly when I saw the BBC versions as a kid itw as around the same time that the first version of the Power Rangers TV show was on in the USA. Barbara Kellerman's Jadis reminded me of Rita Repulsa in the Power Rangers because she yelled every single line, and I ended up not liking her as much as she was to goofy and over the top like Rita. I kept wondering why the heck Edmund believed her when she was always yelling at him. It was too much of a melodrama for me.

Tilda however had a certain subtly to her. She also had an alienesque look which was perfect for Jadis coming from a foriegn world. In some ways she reminded me of the actress who played Satan in the Passion of the Christ in terms of her looks. I loved how she acted nice and freindly to Edmund when they met and when she yelled at him in the sled its eemed more like a mother scolding him. The way she taunted Aslan at the Table was perfect and showed her full evil colors.

For me that worked a lot more on the symbolic levels of the witch .Satan isn't going to be yelling at you to try and coax you into his web. He is going to be nice and inticing and not "seem" evil. I did Screwtape Letters for a speech torunament and my early interprtations of the character were more like the Green Goblin in Spider-Man or the Emperor in Star Wars and didn't work with the character. Then I did him more as a Bond villian, with a Russian accent and kept him subtle. I was told that he didn't seem evil. That's the thing to Screwtape, Jadis, and Satan they don't think they're evil. And oftentimes we aren't going to know untill it's too late.
 
i liked tilda better overall, i think she did a wonderful job portraying her, she's a great actress, though i did like the BBC witch (don't know the actress name)
 
Tilda was menacing in a way that is like playing with a dangerous animal. She is beautiful in her way. I found looking at her rather like looking a Water Mocassin in the face (yes I have done it before). I grew up watching the BBC version, and I found it too much that Barbara appeared in all three of the movies. I stopped watching Silver Chair (and really was scared to read the Silver Chair) when Barbara made her appearance. I figured that she really was the White Witch called back by some gnome from the Underworld and it scared the dickens out of me to think that someone would actually do that. I stopped reading the books after reading Dawn Treader when I read them in the Fifth Grade. Needless to say, I agree that Barbara was scarier.
 
i think Tilda not only looked the part better, but it thought she did a better job acting as well. The BBC white witch, she just seemed.....weird. kind of unnatural, i guess.
 
I like both witches, but as most people in this thread seem to agree, the BBC Witch wins for me.

I liked a lot of the subtleties that Tilda introduced to the role, and she was quietly menacing too.

The BBC witch over-acted a little bit and there were things that could have been better.

But the thing that clinches it for me is that the BBC witch WAS scary (at least to kids) whereas Tilda's witch just wasn't scary. At all.

To me, the White Witch should always be scary and it's for that reason that I'll never prefer Tilda's portrayal, although I do admire her acting and a lot of the things she brought to the role.

Having said that (and this is soley based on how I've interpreted things fans have said), I think Tilda was quite arrogant in playing the character the way SHE interpreted her and not really taking into account how the White Witch is generally regarded by the fan base.
 
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a lot of people seem to think that Tilda just wasn't scary, but i think if u had actually been in Edmund's place, u would've found her scary enough, because u would know all the things she is capable of (like making a statue out of u, for instance) and u would know all the other things she has done, and i think that if u were in Narnia, facing her, that'd be quite enough to scare u. as it is, just watching the movies, yes, the BBC witch might've been scarier, but i think either witch would scare u if u actually met them in person.
 
Catherine said:
i think Tilda not only looked the part better, but it thought she did a better job acting as well. The BBC white witch, she just seemed.....weird. kind of unnatural, i guess.
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I so agree on that! I'm still convinced the BBC witch is a psycho who will come after me and hide underneath my bed at night rather than a witch who turns a whole land into winter and rules there for a hundred years...:eek:
 
Barbara was over the top in the way she played her role. She was far too large. However, she got more of a reaction from me and she did from my nieces. With Tilda my tiny little nieces called her the mean pretty lady. But they didn't really react to her much. With Barbara they were scared and hid behind my legs when I was standing up. She was unnatural. But the dialogue was good. I also liked that with her wand she could flick it or point it and it would turn people to stone from a distance. That's what I'd always pictured when I read the books. With Tilda's she seemed to need to stab people with it. I never pictured anything like that really. It seemed to make her power a lot less than I'd imagined it when reading the books.
 
Catherine said:
a lot of people seem to think that Tilda just wasn't scary, but i think if u had actually been in Edmund's place, u would've found her scary enough, because u would know all the things she is capable of (like making a statue out of u, for instance) and u would know all the other things she has done, and i think that if u were in Narnia, facing her, that'd be quite enough to scare u. as it is, just watching the movies, yes, the BBC witch might've been scarier, but i think either witch would scare u if u actually met them in person.
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But I didn't meet them in person, and I wasn't in Edmund's shoes, therefore that is irrelevent to the question of the topic :)

The question of which witch is better will always ultimately (in my opinion) fall on which one is scarier to the viewer, regardless of their other pros and cons. Barbara may have overacted (as she might have been directed to do), and Tilda may have brought many other qualities to the role, but none as important as the scare factor that all evil witches should bring to viewers in stories like this.
 
Personally I like Tilda better. To me she seemed scary in the fact that she had more of a ruthless, uncaring attitude to everything she killed or turned into stone. Like she was going to get what she wanted and didn't really care who had to pay and how much. As for the BBC witch, she drove me nuts and annoyed me very much. But then I didn't see the BBC version until I was 15.

My sister saw it when she was 9. As she put it, "I guess they ran out of rooms in the insane asylum." She never got scared of the BBC witch, actually she got bored and never finished watching the movie. When my sister saw Tilda at 10, she was more in awe of her than really frightened, but she still was very concerned for Edmunds well being and was scared that the witch would turn him to stone.
 
I liked Tilda's performance of Jadis better, because she was more menacing, more powerful with her voice, and yet at times she could appear like she was just a sweet, beautiful lady. BBC's witch was way too pale, and the makeup crew made her look like a fairy-tale witch, with the heavy eye makeup and the red lips, unlike Tilda was just sort of pale, and had no eye makeup or red lipstick Barbara did a good job acting though.
And I am all for Tilda coming back in Magician's Nephew.:cool:
 
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