Douglas Gresham: On his stepfather CS Lewis and the new film Prince Caspian

|PIC1|CS Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" have fired the imaginations of countless children for nearly 60 years. His stepson and committed Christian, Douglas Gresham, tells us something of the man behind the books and why Lewis' message is as relevant today as it was when he first wrote the series.


CT: Whole generations of children have grown up on The Chronicles of Narnia.

DG: "I was the first!"

CT: What was your childhood experience of Narnia?

DG: I first heard "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" read to me by my mother when I was about seven-years-old, in upstate New York. There was an advantage to that because in the winters in that part of the country it snows three-feet deep every year and so you get this beautiful snowy landscape.

We (Douglas, his mother Joy Gresham, and older brother David) moved to England when I was about eight, and I actually lived in Oxford at the time when some of the last ones were being written and published. I am one of the few people who actually grew up in Narnia because I moved into The Kilns (the Oxford home of CS Lewis).
The wood behind the house was the basis of it all. I expected to see a dryad any minute or a fawn pop out from behind a tree, and in my own imagination of course, they did.

But I was completely enthralled in it. The fascination of it all baptised my imagination and my thoughts, and The Chronicles of Narnia, as they proceeded to be published, were my favourite reading for many years - still are, some of them.


CT: It sounds like the books really came off the pages for you.

DG: Yes, they did, and they still are off the pages. I've wanted to make these films since I was a young teenager; it's been a lifelong ambition. When we were filming The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I went up to New Zealand to see the beginnings of the principal photography and I was delighted to see how beautifully they were bringing it to life and how magnificently they were doing it. When you've had a dream that long and it suddenly starts to spring into existence it's a huge, huge emotional experience.

CT: How do you think CS Lewis would feel seeing his books come to life on the big screen?

DG: I think and I hope he would be thrilled - otherwise I have just wasted the last 20 years of my life! But Jack (as CS Lewis was nicknamed) had a problem with cinema in his day, and I can completely understand that. He saw this wonderful visual technology emerging but was horrified by the uses to which it was being put. I think he would be quite ready to have said that the devil has taken over the cinema. Well I think it is high time that we took it back, and we are.

CT: Not long after The Chronicles of Narnia proved itself at the box office, a cinematic version of Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass" was released, an apparent reaction to the Chronicles, a Christian allegory.

DG: Yes and the movie flopped horrendously so I am not the least bit worried about it. But I think the worst thing that Christians can do when something like that, or "The Da Vinci Code" and all that nonsense comes out, is make a huge fuss about it because you're only publicising it. Look at it, with disgust if you like, but then ignore it. I have not read anything of those books because nothing enticed me to do so, but the movie was greeted by the public with as much aplomb as it probably deserved.

CT: Did CS Lewis ever talk to you about why he had written the books?

DG: Yes, we talked about it a lot. I knew that he wrote these books because he felt he had something valuable to say, and I believe he was right. All the Narnia Chronicles deal with something that is a great tragedy in our times.

Jack was brought up by people who really believed in the great 19th century social mores and qualities that have got lost. Things like social responsibility, personal responsibility, personal commitment, honesty, truth, courage, courtesy, chivalry, all of those great concepts that we tossed out in the 20th century, saying they're out of date, just last century stuff, without realising that they are the essential lubricant to the societies of man.

The results of us tossing them out are what we see in our newspapers today, young boys stomping young girls to death in the streets and that kind of nonsense. Well, we desperately need to get these things back. And Jack's books teach us not only that we do need to get them back but how to get them back.

CT: Do you think the audience will grasp that?

DG: With Prince Caspian the message is so clear. It pertains absolutely to today's world because of what happens in Narnia at the time. The children come back to Narnia at a time when there has been a millennium of corruption and a millennium of veering away from truth, hope, justice, faith and all of the things that we so desperately need to get back in our lives today and into our societies today.

They have veered away from them in Narnia and it is the job of the four children to find a way of bringing them back, but in the children's own personalities they too have veered away. In the film you see each child, one by one, slowly coming back to faith, truth, justice and all of these great qualities and you see it happening not only in the children but also in the nation itself, very powerfully.

The film demonstrates quite ably that no matter how far both societally and personally we have strayed there is always one way back and it is up to us to find it.

CT: So CS Lewis wrote the Chronicles out of concern for the children reading them?

DG: The books were prophetic in the time they were written. Jack could see what was beginning to happen and could see where it was leading and I think he wanted young people to be told and to be taught that there is an alternative to sliding down the slippery slope of degradation and disgusting behaviour that is taking place right now. Jack could see this coming. So he has provided us with a route out and with the means to get back the great qualities we need.

He had to point out first that those are the qualities we have lost, which he does, and show us that there are ways back. So I think that yes, Jack was very much worried about the future of the young people of the world, and justifiably if you look at what is happening.

CT: You must be hoping that the younger generations will change through the movies?

DG: Yes, and I think that will happen. I am hoping for a change in aspect, a change in outlook. I don't think we'll change everybody, but if we change a sufficient number of leadership individuals we can change the world. I didn't set out to make a huge political change in any way. I just want people to wake up to their responsibilities and the fact that they have responsibilities. The parenting skills exhibited in today's England are deplorable. Something's got to be done about it, and it's the children who will grow up to be the parents.

CT: How do you want the church to embrace the film?

DG: There is only one thing I want the church to do. I want every church to make a huge group booking and invite every person in the church to bring all of their friends and their friends' friends, and their enemies, and their enemies' friends, and their enemies' enemies to see these movies. This particular movie, Prince Caspian, is a terrific film with some really powerful essential lessons we need to learn. I think the churches can do themselves, their congregations and indeed the societies in which they are based a huge amount of good by taking people in large numbers to see this movie!

CT: You obviously admired CS Lewis a lot.

DG: I loved him very much. I still do. I am everything I am because of him.