Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

An essential work of twenty-first-century cinema, Alfonso Cuarns 2004 film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an elegant exemplar of contemporary cinematic trends, including serial storytelling, the rise of the fantasy genre, digital filmmaking, and collaborative authorship. With craft, wonder, and wit, the film captures the most engaging elements of the novel while artfully translating its literary point of view into cinematic terms that expand on the world established in the book series and previous films. In this book, Patrick Keating examines how Cuarn and his collaborators employ cinematography, production design, music, performance, costume, dialogue, and more to create the richly textured world of Harry Pottera world filtered principally through Harrys perspective, characterized by gaps, uncertainties, and surprises. Rather than upholding the vision of a single auteur, Keating celebrates Cuarns direction as a collaborative achievement that resulted in a family blockbuster layered with thematic insights.