What Does James Chinlund’s Hiring Mean For Narnia? | Analysis

James Chinlund was recently brought on as Narnia’s Production Designer. The following is one NarniaWeb staffer’s analysis of what his involvement could mean for Narnia. “Icarus” has been a frequent contributor to the NarniaWeb forum since 2006.

Opinion by Icarus

The hiring of James Chinlund as the Production Designer for Netflix’s Narnia films likely provides us with our best indication yet as to the sort of film that Greta Gerwig intends to produce; at least from a visual aesthetics point-of-view.

If there had been any fears starting to develop within the Narnia fan-base that Greta Gerwig was going to adapt C.S. Lewis’ world has a hyper-stylized, Rock ‘N’ Roll fuelled adrenaline rush, more in the style of her Barbie film than of her Little Women film, then those fears ought to be largely put-to-rest by Chinlund’s hiring.

Equally, if anyone had been fearful that Netflix’s own in-house art style might result in Narnia having that cheap and unappealing “Made-for-Netflix” aesthetic, then those fears also ought to be largely assuaged by this announcement.

Put simply, this is a high-caliber hiring for one of the most important roles in the senior production team.

As the Production Designer, Chinlund will be responsible for developing the unifying visual style of the production (including overseeing the design of the sets, props, and costumes), and will work closely with both the director and cinematographer to build- up the overall visual language, and cinematic look, of the final film.

We can therefore look towards Chinlund’s extensive resume of previous work to identify some of the key thematic elements that define his visual style and assess how those might carry through into a production such as Narnia.

History

Probably the most well-known film on Chinlund’s resume for most people is likely to be Marvel’s The Avengers (2012). Whilst the film largely takes its visual cues from the design choices of the 5 preceding Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, it also helped pave the way for the look and feel of the majority of the MCU films that were to follow, particularly in the way it interweaves many of the more outlandish and fantastical elements from the comic-books (such as Thanos and the Chitauri) into the grounded and realistic world that was established by the first ‘Iron Man’ film.

It thus allows the film to deliver a heightened cinematic spectacle for the audience, whilst still enabling the narrative to remain firmly grounded in believable real-world stakes.

Chinlund’s BAFTA-nominated work on Matt Reeves The Batman (2022) also highlights this duality – straddling the line between Christopher Nolan’s hyper-realistic Dark Knight films, and the much more stylized “Gothic Fantasy” aesthetic of Tim Burton’s films, to create a truly memorable and brooding take on Gotham City which genuinely stands apart on its own.

We can also see this balancing act in his other major collaborations with Matt Reeves, on the 2nd and 3rd films in the Planet of the Apes reboot series. Building on the largely everyday setting of Rupert Wyatt’s initial Apes’ film, Reeves and Chinlund move the story towards something which is much more fantastical in nature, yet still grounded in a credible and utterly believable post-apocalyptic landscape that skilfully blends real-world sets and CGI, without ever feeling over-reliant on the latter.

Perhaps the only blip on Chinlund’s resume for me is The Lion King (2019) a movie that proves that realistic is not always better. Compared to the original 1994 animated classic – a film overflowing with joyful exuberance – the 2019 remake feels oddly lifeless and dull, with the exceptionally realistic CGI graphics feeling somewhat at odds with the musical format. Nevertheless, it still shows that realism and believability remain high on Chinlund’s design ethos; in that regard, the visual designs themselves absolutely cannot be faulted here.

Narnia

For me though, the one film on Chinlund’s resume that has me most excited for what he might be able to achieve with Gerwig’s Narnia is the film that I actually find the most infuriating from a story-telling perspective… Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2005).

This film is admittedly incredibly ambitious, seeking to interweave three parallel storylines from the past, present, and future, into one coherent narrative about a man’s search for immortality, and bound together by themes of love, life, and death.

Whilst I feel the film ultimately falls short of those lofty goals (and is nowhere near as compelling as Terrence Malick’s conceptually similar The Tree of Life) The Fountain’s production design remains stunning. Even if its modest budget and relative age are beginning to show in places, I still have nothing but praise for its attempts to render something truly majestic and awe-inspiring on screen.

It’s the sort of design work that proves it is possible to bring something to life on screen that is wonderous and otherworldly, and which feels transcendental and uplifting, and yet still firmly rooted as a believable part of the real world.

To that end then, The Fountain remains one of the films I think about the most when I read The Magician’s Nephew – not just in terms of Digory’s own quest for the metaphorical tree of life, but also when it comes to imagining how to visualize a highly abstract scene such as Aslan singing the world into creation.

Clearly, Greta Gerwig is not Darren Aronofsky, and she is not going to make the sorts of esoteric, metaphor-heavy conceptual films that Darren Aronofsky is famous for, however, I am still none-the-less intrigued to see what Gerwig and Chinlund might conjure up together as a pairing. If he can bring even a fraction of the same bold vision and imagination to bear on a potential Magician’s Nephew film as he did for The Fountain, then we could be in for something truly exceptional.

Takeaways

On the whole, Chinlund’s resume provides ample evidence that he can skilfully blend the fantastical with the realistic into a seamless and coherent on-screen world and that he seems to be undaunted by the prospect of rendering the abstract and ethereal into imaginative and exciting visual forms – all of which should make him perfectly suited to the task of bringing the land of Narnia to life on the big screen.

What do you think about James Chinlund’s hiring? Does his resume give you confidence in the visual direction of Netflix’s Narnia films, or would you have preferred a different production designer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!