Adaptations - Theresa Corvino - Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron
2004

Synopsis: Harry Potter is in his third year at Hogwarts and is faced with not only the typical trials of the school year but also a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and the fact that Sirius has escaped from Azkaban prison. Feeling torn, Harry half wants to chase down Sirius and kill him and half fears the result of a confrontation between them.

Until this film, the previous Harry Potter adaptations were cut-and-paste at best. They were exact replications of the books on film, simply removing the character scenes that did not drive plot in order to compress plot. They dumbed down the stories and simplified them, making them not much more than something a little pretty to look at because of the magical elements.
Cuaron changed that in the third film. He shifted them to a dramatically darker level. He kept true to the original story, as far as the plot was concerned, but added his own touches and character moments that were not found in the books in order to let you deeper into the minds of the characters and make them more relatable.
Visually, he also darkened the story with each scene almost completely black with heavy shadows. The creepy stylization of the Death Eaters took the film from a young children’s story to more substantial. He applied some artistic shots such as Harry on the train, seeing him through the wet glass gives an eerie look to his face.
These artistic changes gave the film a type of personality that the book did not possess – could not possess. It allowed the film to remain true to the story but give the film meaning to exist and merit as something more than just the repositioning of the same story with nothing new to add.