A Few Notes on Professor Flitwick (Harry Potter)

A curious thing happened in the Harry Potter films.  Between The Chamber of Secrets and The Goblet of Fire, Professor Flitwick essentially became a different person.  Not the same person played by a different actor, a la Dumbledore – Warwick Davis plays the character throughout – but, as you can see in the image above, one completely revamped to be utterly unrecognizable.

Apparently, it all started as a fluke.  After Flitwick made appearances in the first two Chris Columbus-directed films, the script for The Prisoner of Azkaban didn’t have anything for Flitwick, but Alfonso Cuarón still wanted Davis to be involved and came up with a cameo for him playing a different character, the Hogwarts music conductor.  Then, when Mike Newell came along to direct the fourth movie, he liked the look Cuarón had created for Davis’s conductor character so much that he kept it, morphing the conductor into a reimagined Flitwick.  There’s absolutely nothing onscreen to explain how this radical transformation happened.

As groundless as it is, I like it from a visual standpoint.  Yes, the books say that Flitwick’s small stature is probably due to having a bit of goblin blood, but he’s not really described as goblin-like in appearance, other than his size (after all, any goblin resemblance is slight enough that his heritage is a matter of speculation, not fact, so he must not look too gobliny.)  And really, I guess Flitwick 1.0 doesn’t really look like a goblin (when Davis pulls double duty as Griphook in the Deathly Hallows films, he looks totally different,) but he doesn’t really look like a person, either.  It’s not just the wizard robes – he looks nonhuman in a way that the other Hogwarts staff, even confirmed half-giant Hagrid, don’t.  I don’t like that; in my mind, it’s a bit of unnecessary othering that sets Flitwick apart beyond his size.  And come on, how often does Warwick Davis get to show his actual face onscreen?  I’d seen him in a ton of different movies before I connected that all these random “creatures” were played by the same guy that starred in Willow.

So, I love that the new Flitwick looks like he’s supposed to:  a tiny man.  Personally, I’d have added more overtly-wizard clothing to the more natural-looking hair, face, and glasses, because I think the pendulum might have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction.  I like him looking like a person, but he’s still a wizard, and the plain suits are a little “normal” for Hogwarts.

However, what I don’t like is the redrawn Flitwick’s actual role.  Once the professor merges with the conductor, the films show him almost exclusively in the context of music class.  Gone is the brainy charms instructor with enormous magical skill – in fact, we hardly see him performing magic at all.  Granted, this is in part due to the increased streamlining of the films.  A ton of classroom scenes are trimmed or cut, so there’s not much time for the professors to display their talent and impart their knowledge.  But other professors still get their magic on in incidental ways, like it’s McGonagall detransfiguring Malfoy or Dumbledore using his Pensieve.  Flitwick?  Mainly conducts music.  And that’s a bummer.  It was cool in The Sorcerer’s Stone to see a little person who, like his fellow professors, is a powerful wizard with skills to pass on to eager kids.  I love how the books paint him very much in the same light as the other professors, and one of my favorite book-Flitwick scenes is when he so easily takes care of an unruly charm that baffles Umbridge in The Order of the Phoenix.  That’s the Flitwick I like – quietly capable, super-smart, and a tiny bit snarky – and it’s too bad that he never really gets a chance to be that in the movies.