I’m proofreading a book in which the author claims that flashbacks and flashforwards are used in the Harry Potter movies as reminders of danger and specters of events to come. But I’m having a hard time thinking of examples of these.
The one example the author gives is of Harry “flashing back” and remembering when the snake spoke to him in Parseltongue (presumably in Chamber of Secrets after the dueling club scene). I don’t recall that being in there, and it’ll be easy enough to check on DVD; I think it was shown only in real time in Sorceror’s Stone. (Is it in some director’s/extended cut?)
Also, can you think of other examples of flashbacks/flashforwards? So far all I’ve got is the Tom Riddle/Hagrid scene in Chamber of Secrets and the Pensieve scenes in Goblet of Fire, although I haven’t had much time so far to sit and think. I especially can’t think of any “flashforwards,” as that would essentially amount to seeing the future, or Divination, and so far the Hogwarts students all seem to think that’s a load of bunk and nobody’s really seen anything specific (shown in the movies) that I can recall. And, as Mr. S just pointed out, flashforwards would actually be out of place in the Potter series. (Hm, did they show the graveyard in Goblet of Fire before Harry and Cedric went there, or did Harry just mention it to Dumbledore?
If anyone can jog my memory, that would be great. I have to send this out tomorrow (Friday afternoon CST), so responses after that will be moot.
You’re right, and I did think of that—that technically the Riddle and Pensieve scenes aren’t really flashbacks—but the author’s point is that flashbacks/forwards show past/future events to the viewer, so I’m letting that slide. (I’m only proofing, not copyediting, and this is already an extensive query for this stage in the project. It’s an art history book, and the text section in question is discussing representation of time.)
Too bad I don’t have time to sit through all four DVDs and watch for flashback/forward scenes. Even better if I could do it on the clock. Alas.
The graveyard was the opening scene in GoF (the movie). The snake crawls around the angel of death statue that has Tom Riddle’s name on it before the camera moves to the house. I don’t know that I’d call that a flash-forward though.
In another forum, someone suggested Lily holding baby Harry and fighting off Voldemort in Sorcerer’s Stone. So that counts as another “flashback.”
Still no flashforwards though.
(I don’t think we can count the time-travel sequence in Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry and Hermione go back to save Buckbeak and Sirius, because the two perspectives are concurrent, just shown separately.)
That was in real-time. Remember that although Harry doesn’t see the place in person until much later, Voldemort is in that area through the whole movie. To the best of my recollection there are no flashbacks in the normal sense in the movies–just the Pensieve and Riddle’s diary, as GuanoLad mentioned. You could consider those flashbacks, I suppose–they have a different feel to them, but they serve much the same purpose.
Citing a scene that doesn’t actually appear in the movies, though? I just checked, and it’s not there–Harry mentions the python incident briefly to Ron and Hermione, and that’s it. That’s pretty poor research. Bad author, no biscuit.
Sorry, I should have clarified, that was in response to the OP’s question regarding whether or not the graveyard was shown in the movie before the end.
I guess I should clarify as well; I was using “the graveyard” as shorthand for the whole scene at the end of the movie, that is, whether Harry’s visions/dreams (of that future event? I don’t recall whether they were explicitly described as such in the book) were shown in the movie.
