Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) (with Frances Pheasant-Kelly)

For Episode 39, Chris and Alex venture for the first time to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they take on another highly popular fantasy film franchise by discussing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Chris Columbus, 2001). They are joined by Dr Frances Pheasant-Kelly, who is a Reader in Screen Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, as well as the author of numerous publications on fantasy cinema including Fantasy Film Post-9/11 (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) that traces fantasy’s cathartic potential as a vehicle to work through traumatic memories in a post-9/11 climate. Together they examine the historical framing of the Harry Potter series, and in particular 2001 as a crucial turning point for fantasy cinema; questions of interpretation, adaptation and identification in the Harry Potter universe; the framing role of intrusive magic and the lack of a stable equilibrium; the pleasure of unfixed and sentient space; the collision between ordinary artefacts and CGI; the status of Harry Potter as an abject text rooted in the Dark Arts; and how the fantasy film franchise - like the characters as a whole - often battles against its own magical components.