John Howe’s Journal: FORGING (MORE) DRAGONS
Or a Few Words From Someone Else About Dragons
Forging Dragons will be out towards the end of the month. Here’s the preface, with the kind permission of the editor, so you won’t need to read it on the way to the checkout.
“SVNT DRACONES”
In the original draft of “Pan’s Labyrinth” – and all the way into production – the centerpiece of the fairy tale told by Ophelia (the film’s main character) to her unborn brother was a striking image: A Black, horned Dragon, fused with a flint stone mountain, surrounded with thorns. And, at the peak of the mountain, a delicate blue rose that concedes immortality to whomever would dare pluck it.
But so fierce was the Dragon (whom I called “Varanium Silex”) that men preferred to avoid pain than to gain eternal life. The fable was pertinent to the very core of the film’s message but, instrumental as it was, the Dragon had to be dropped out of the sequence. Money, resources and lack of time conspired to seal that fate… John Howe’s Journal: FORGING (MORE) DRAGONS
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