Witchcraft in Cinema

Each of us has our own views of the methods in which, cinema captures the ‘witchcraft’ element in film. Be it a strong dislike for the fiction elements or to a love of the story told.
From ‘The Wizard of Oz' to ‘Stardust’, many films have portrayed witches in a good or bad light (sometimes both at the same time).
I have read in many different chat rooms and forums reasons why many people hate the way in which Hollywood portrays the image of witchcraft.
My personal view however in not of a negative opinion towards these different films but rather of a positive.
We all know the difference between reality and movie magic and I’m sure that if we intend to take / show our young children these films that we will gently whisper in their ears that “jumping off of roofs with umbrellas” is dangerous (although probably not impossible, you would need to take into account the upward force of the wind current over the strength of the umbrella and your own weight. however with my cheep umbrella I would prefer not to give it a try. Also I would probably want to test the science behind that one if I did ever want to give it a go)

So rather than have a discussion about the negatives of films I thought we could talk about the films we liked the most and give our reasons why.

A personal favourite of mine is ‘Practical Magic' (hence the jumping off of rooftops statement) I think it is a spell binding tale of love and I especially like the bond between the two sisters Sally and Gillian Owens as played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman who can feel the other sister’s distress and pain so that they can come running.
Also wishing on an autumn leaf (done near the end of the film) which reminds me of a poem (spell) I once learnt to memory.
A beautiful film with excellent casting which, if you have never seen, I highly recommend.

when it comes to pagan stuff in the movies i would have to say that all the publicity is both good and bad. This is due to the fact that many people really dont know much about pagan culture or belief structures who are outside of the faith. For a long time i was barely aware of its existence except as some kind of remote devil worshiping cult.
This is where the bad side comes in. Typically when it is being portrayed, it is done in a negative light for big hollywood films, you have examples like the new wicker man movie which shows paganism as a womans only club with the guys little more than brainless sheep that shuffle about in the background and try not to get noticed, there is this kind of "men are the enemy, burn them! burn them all!" thing coming from the cast in that film.
Of course we know that this is aload of bull, but for many people who only have a fleeting interest in paganism and dont have the time or desire to do big research they may see that kind of stuff and start believing in it. (Especially if they have never met a pagan who can seperate fact from fiction for them)

On the plus side, with the extra publicity comes extra recognition. There has always been stories of good witches/ bad witches light magic and dark magic but in recent things like the angels and demons & davinci code books by dan brown, actual facts are starting to seep their way into peoples knowledge rather than hollywood myth.

Most definatly, media can bring in peoples curiosity whether with good intention or bad intention which ends in them leaning about our faith. I don't ever remember having a bad view on witchcraft due to I think being very imaginative when younger and loving the thought of witchcraft.

There seems to be lots of kids programmes out now, one called Witches, I think, in which some young girls with different elemental powers stop evil etc. Sabrina my fav was all about the good side of witchcraft and how things can sometimes go pearshaped. Then Casper meets Wendy was it? About casper meeting a family of witches.

Now of course we have Wicked the musical. I went to see this and was pretty unaware of what it was about but it is definatly in the favour of the dark witch.

You will always get people making us seem bad, mainly american christians. But things are definatly looking up

Wicked The west end stage show is actually another good example of what I was talking about. Taken from this different angle the people who you think are the bad guys are in fact good. Sometimes it just depends on who is telling the story.
They say that the wars are normally written by the victor... what would our history lessons be like if the reverse was true?

Talking of the Wizard of Oz series... Did anyone else check out the mini series Witches of Oz? I personally really enjoyed that but I was a little disappointed by the red herring (I wont spoil it though) I even heard that the may be a sequal and that they are going to pull in other fantasy worlds too. I'm keeping my eyes open for that one. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN9T40ECIGE - The Witches of Oz Trailer aka Dorothy and the Witches of Oz)

Feronia Sabrina was one of the ones I used to watch a lot too... (actually have recently started re watching them on YouTube. I was also a big fan of The Worst Witch.