Who played the character of Albus Dumbledore the best?
I'll leave my judgment for later because really, what's the point of explaining a point when I show it in the beginning?
Obviously there is high debate between who is the better Dumbledore Harris or Gambon. Between the two is that a lot of people prefer Harris and a lot of people prefer Gambon. Whether they are film fans or accuracianiados I still imagine that those who are for either side are not mutually exclusive in their preference for the films. The renaissance man (or woman) might choose a combination of the both considering that while both have their faults (which are more highlighted by directorial choices rather than actor performance) their strengths of portraying Dumbledore do indeed reflect certain characteristics of our beloved headmaster of Hogwarts.
I should warn you because of my extreme efficiency (or perhaps ultimate laziness) I've never read a book without some sort of cross media contamination. Every single book I've read I had listened to the audio book version first, with the exception of Philosopher's Stone of which I have the movie to thank for that. All interpretations of Dumbledore are basically ingrained in my head by either Harris, Gambon or Jim Dale's interpretation.
Richard Harris is what I consider the quintessential visual representation of Dumbledore. While some people might say that's not true to most of us, it's pretty much hardwired in our imaginative minds and we have to explore why that is the case. The idea of a wisen aged wizard (good or evil) always harks back to Merlin or more recently, Gandalf. An elderly frail thin looking man, most likely reaching that condition through decades or centuries of study, magicking and meditation of their craft. Their faces were born to be singled out and alone in their practice, often being far less handsome than most people their visual age or perhaps their practice has mutated their features to look weathered, aged, angular and long nosed. Either way, this blueprint for future geeks and nerds present themselves in layers of cloaks and cloths, perhaps to advertise their talents or perhaps they spent all their money on spellbooks that would have otherwise been spent on something more protective.
It's pretty obvious why Harris works so well visually as opposed to Gambon. Harris having more angular features in comparison to Gambon's softer more full features. There's a glint in Harris' eyes that is instant recognizable as opposed to Gambon who's presence is far less sharp but more dependent on his skills as an actor. Some might even say that Gambon would have probably done a better Aberforth than Dumbledore. However while that is established that Harris has a upperhand in a visual comparison, especially considering how visually oriented the first two films were in regards to it's accuracy to the source material, you still have to wonder what makes Harris more visually accurate than any other actor with the scant few pieces of art representing Dumbledore?
How did we interpret this as the final product?
From the image of Dumbledore on the back of The Philosopher's Stone? Granted, Thomas Taylor's artwork perhaps isn't considered canon by most. Whether JKR accepted this as the definitive Dumbledore at the time it was produced or later vetoed this idea, I don't know. What can be said that while it has some hallmarks of what a wise and old wizard should look like, it breaks some rules being sort of less high fantasy and more colourful Victorian in garb. Not truly represented in the film mind you, but while only words can go so far as to describing what Dumbledore looked like, however this particular picture focuses all those potential interpretations into this final image. Still it's hardly accurate even if only they gotten the face correct. Even the face is less welcoming in comparison to its picture counterpart. There's a certain seriousness in Harris' eyes despite his warm nature at the end of PS, you never quite get the feeling that he'd break into joyous singing as opposed to something a bit morose. Serious yes, witty...not quite. However we still accept him, based upon something that I consider pretty peculiar. There is a certain charm or even innocence that glasses give to people. While the half moon spectacles certainly do contribute to a softening of Dumbledore's look, both in book and in film, it doesn't necessarily exclude him from looking the part of a serious, almost angry wizard. Take them off and I imagine Harris would look just as serious as the ever famous Gandalf. Even with them on, Grandpre could easily show that they do little to lighten up the mood of Dumbledore in the end of OoTP:
There something that does make sense though, something that is ingrained into the mind of a lot of people that perhaps makes Harris far more acceptable as a visual representation of Dumbledore than Gambon. While Harris might fit the visualization of what an aged old wizard is supposed to be, so far he doesn't exactly fit the ideal visually caring old wizard. While the spectacles does enough to differentiate himself, it's not enough to totally hide his potential crankiness of all wizards. Well...except for one particular wizard or at least an interpretation of one.
Yes, I do imagine that why there is such an easy acceptance of Harris as a caring old wizard as shown in the novels is because of the bespectacled interpretation of Merlin in Disney's Sword in the Stone. It does make great sense on a sub-conscious level because now we have Dumbledore, a nice bespectacled wizard who's just powerlevel'd himself to level 99 being easily associated with another revered powerful wizard of Merlin. THANKS DISNEY! Heck Richard Harris seems to make a better Disney's Merlin than JKR's Dumbledore.
However here is where we enter the flaws. While the visual has been established, we need to know the motivation of the character. Who is Dumbledore exactly? A simple human who's just modest and humble and loves to teach a generation of children about, tolerance, love and respect? Or is he a powerful wizard who is fully of wit and genius and is respected by his friends and feared by his enemies? The problem I find with certain interpretations of Book!Dumbledore is that he is all those traits however the audience accepts these traits under an illusion of which hides what JKR is trying to tell us about Dumbledore. It was times that he seemed most human and genuine that we seen great intelligence and power, yet during his times of incredible intelligence and presence that we see him as his most human. For example when talking about loyalty with Harry, simply about human choice we see the depth of his knowledge. On the flip side when he talks to Voldemort in OoTP with such a calm and almost witty manner during the duel, it is something very human in the face of a situation that requires something extraordinary.
Harris has such a presence, however that's all it is. A presence of power. Perhaps it's the glint in his eyes, his angular chiseled looks or even because of his acting history playing characters in a position of great power. A leader of an IRA movement in Patriot Games, A Caeser in Galdiator and even being a prisoner in The Count of Monte Cristo, he's a teacher. It's hard to shake that trait yet it shows. The problem with such an overbearing presence of power is that drowns out any other traits we might see. Yes we did see a bit of wit at the end of PS and even CoS when telling Harry about the jellybean flavour and warning Lucius about Voldemort's old school things. However it is dropped as a matter of factly, contradicting the character's presented personality in the film as opposed to being a part of the collective traits shown in the books. When Dumbledore talks about dying a most horrible death in the corridor that is to be avoided; it is a stern warning, not an easily mistaken joke that we are used to. It doesn't help that Harris' own voice betrays the severity of his tone of which Jim Dale maintains a certain inflection to keep Dumbledore speaking often in hidden meanings and double entendres.
That isn't to say that Harris didn't do a good job, I personally thought he was great in PS. He had the right voice for the tone for a children's story. Wise, aged, even having a voice that is against most traditional deep and ever warning of most old wizards. A tone that has not changed expectations until I think Disney's Merlin changed perception to include a higher almost joyful pitch of a whimsical old man. However PS was a tight enough book where the dialogue written itself. It was easy to spout out nonsense about love, the power of love and the praise of bravery for Harry. It worked because we as an audience have been accustomed to such dialogue to a degree where it's almost blasphemous to say anything negative of such dialogue unless it was really poorly acted. Deus Ex Machinas work so well sometimes.
CoS unfortunately doesn't have the same benefit. Gone is the idea of love and it's replaced with a more abstract idea of loyalty. The concept of Harry's own beliefs and loyalty was blurred when the focus of the film resulted in Harry vs. Tom Riddle and the Basilisk. While the Harry vs. Quirrelmort anti-climatic battle was easily explained with love protection therefore an entity easily connected between the event and moral of the story; the CoS battle had the two far too separated for the audience to make the connection. The emphasis that it was Harry's loyalty that saved the day was overshadowed by a wasteful scene of Hide and Seek with the Basilisk followed by a Whack-A-Snake game. In the end, Harris' genuine performance was incredibly lacking, despite being faithful, due to a poor non-canon interpretation of the event. It might have been the illness, but I think it be more the direction of Columbus and presence of Richard Harris' own character that made his CoS performance incredibly weaker in relation to the content of the book.
In the end Richard Harris was a great visual representation of Dumbledore not because he fit the character, but because he fit the role of what we expect a old wizard to look like. However it was Harris' presence as an actor that dealt him a minus due to his inability to represent the more witty and human side of Dumbledore as fully and as completely as his novel counterpart. This idea is pretty easy to illustrate when we have Harris' yelling of silence vs. Gambon's yelling of silence knowing full well that Harris' voice was more of a growl than the yelp of Gambon's. However as much like a lion Harris was, it left little to the imagination to think he could be anything less, let alone be everything that Dumbledore is in character.
However with Gambon we have another interpretation of Dumbledore. The different visual representation of Dumbledore compared to Harris not only shows that there has been a change; but perhaps to actually represent truly what Dumbledore is; a different kind of wizard in comparison to the norm of the population. The idea that he looks like a hippie might not be all that far off when you take into consideration how radical and progressive his ideas are in face of a society who'd rather stick to the old ways rather than explore the new. Much like how Flitwick was also reimagined to be more accurate in how JKR imagined him (from little impish man to actual small man) perhaps this was a more accurate representation of how Dumbledore should look like, despite most people's favouring of what tradition dictates.
It's in this new costume that we see the wit and intelligence of Dumbledore. It's far less reliant on the visual and now they have to work to make the audience respect Dumbledore. The presence has to be earned with Gambon. Not in any failure on behalf of the costume and make-up department but because like how JKR managed to create an illusion of presence during the most human moments with Dumbledore, we create an illusion of Dumbledore being less of a presence because of his very visually human characteristics. Gambon doesn't have the stage presence of Harris, he doesn't have the glint in his eye, however that's where he shines. He doublespeaks the way that Dumbledore does, he has that wit in his tone that relays multiple messages to those willing to receive it. It's in PoA that his presence is felt through his cryptic, almost silly ramblings that are far more meaningful than we give them.
While GoF's performance was horrendiously weak, even weaker than Harris' CoS performance (and I blame that entirely on the creative team deciding to combine Ludo Bagman traits and responsibilities with Dumbledore) we do get slight genuine moments with Dumbledore, especially when he apologizes to Harry about putting him into great danger. While this was about as far as you can get from the sappy heart to heart that we got from PS and CoS, the interesting thing is how Yates manages to reinterpret that same simple, almost poorly acted moment with Dumbledore telling Harry how much he cares about him at the end of OoTP. What's interesting is that even though it is far less of a grand lecture/speech in Book!OoTP the film takes speech and humanizes it, makes it feel far more genuine and far less rehearsed. Having Dumbledore slumped in the chair with a calmer but sad Harry, we get a moment that isn't accurate to the book; but relays a very important theme in the series; how human Dumbledore really is in the face of being such a celebrity and important figure. While it might have been poorly handled in GoF, it was like Yates decided to do it correctly it in OoTP.
What I find great about the Gambon Dumbledore is how logically approached he is in regards to his character. Many people complained about his dirty unclipped nails, but really, what do you expect from such a hardworking, experienced and hands on wizard? Manicures? The idea that he has a walking stick for being such an old man or even his more technique driven wand use in the duel against Voldemort, which makes sense if you were casting magic to have hand movements similiar to what you are casting. Even the way he walks such as lifting up his robes when rushing in to save Harry at the end of GoF, while might remind people of Ebeneezer trying to run away from ghosts in his pajamas, it gives a better sense of realism in a portion of the HP series that favoured more realism.
So here we come to the conclusion. Who is the best Dumbledore? Which actor manages to play the Headmaster of Hogwarts the best in the films? Who has him down a key? If you have been following along, you should know by now who I think is the best actor, because the answer is:
Neither of them.
No I'm not crazy and I'm not saying it should be Ian McKellen however you have yet to realize what I've been trying to tell you all along. Dumbledore is basically the ambassador of JKR from her to us. He is the messenger that JKR often tries to tell us a message about in the beginning, middle or end of the novel. In another wonderful parallel with the films, Dumbledore's message as an ambassador is now transferred over to...you guessed it: the films' directors.
Think about it. Think about what made the HP film you like or dislike. Most if not all of those feelings can be summed up into how Dumbledore's presentation was handled within the film. My 99.9% dislike of CoS can be summarized to the accurate representation of Dumbledore in a time where everything else was a mess because of accuracy and the faults of it. Some people's 99.9% love of CoS is attributed to its accuracy which Dumbledore is faithfully represented. GoF? I dislike most parts of it because it was just a juggling act of storylines which could easily be summed up in Newall's direction to have Gambon almost juggling his different personalities regarding Harry, the Tri Wizard tournament and suspicion. Some people might say that Gambon returned to form in OoTP, but who was really behind that? Yates.
In the end, it should be "Who is the director who best interpreted and represented Dumbledore?" You might still think I'm crazy but consider this: if both Harris and Gambon didn't read the books to research their own roles; who are they going to draw their motivation and direction from? The one person who probably studied the books, read the screenplay and know how the film should come together. It's the director. If anything Dumbledore as a film character is the most apparent outlet of how a director handles a HP film. The director interprets through Dumbledore the most.
So there we have it. I hope this does shed a new light upon the Film!Dumbledore; giving more depth to his position in the HP Film world and the collective in general. While I like the more human Gambon!Dumbledore and love the strength and presence of Harris!Dumbledore, I truly think the presentation of the character was more in the directors' hands than the actors themselves. CoS and GoF were bad not because I think the even numbered HP films are cursed to be bad, but because the directors clearly didn't have an idea of what or how Dumbledore should be represented in each of those films. Far too abstract in CoS and far too forced of an attempt for presence in GoF. What we can only hope for isn't the actors to perform correctly, but for the directors to use their appointed ambassador correctly.
Obviously there is high debate between who is the better Dumbledore Harris or Gambon. Between the two is that a lot of people prefer Harris and a lot of people prefer Gambon. Whether they are film fans or accuracianiados I still imagine that those who are for either side are not mutually exclusive in their preference for the films. The renaissance man (or woman) might choose a combination of the both considering that while both have their faults (which are more highlighted by directorial choices rather than actor performance) their strengths of portraying Dumbledore do indeed reflect certain characteristics of our beloved headmaster of Hogwarts.
I should warn you because of my extreme efficiency (or perhaps ultimate laziness) I've never read a book without some sort of cross media contamination. Every single book I've read I had listened to the audio book version first, with the exception of Philosopher's Stone of which I have the movie to thank for that. All interpretations of Dumbledore are basically ingrained in my head by either Harris, Gambon or Jim Dale's interpretation.
Richard Harris is what I consider the quintessential visual representation of Dumbledore. While some people might say that's not true to most of us, it's pretty much hardwired in our imaginative minds and we have to explore why that is the case. The idea of a wisen aged wizard (good or evil) always harks back to Merlin or more recently, Gandalf. An elderly frail thin looking man, most likely reaching that condition through decades or centuries of study, magicking and meditation of their craft. Their faces were born to be singled out and alone in their practice, often being far less handsome than most people their visual age or perhaps their practice has mutated their features to look weathered, aged, angular and long nosed. Either way, this blueprint for future geeks and nerds present themselves in layers of cloaks and cloths, perhaps to advertise their talents or perhaps they spent all their money on spellbooks that would have otherwise been spent on something more protective.
It's pretty obvious why Harris works so well visually as opposed to Gambon. Harris having more angular features in comparison to Gambon's softer more full features. There's a glint in Harris' eyes that is instant recognizable as opposed to Gambon who's presence is far less sharp but more dependent on his skills as an actor. Some might even say that Gambon would have probably done a better Aberforth than Dumbledore. However while that is established that Harris has a upperhand in a visual comparison, especially considering how visually oriented the first two films were in regards to it's accuracy to the source material, you still have to wonder what makes Harris more visually accurate than any other actor with the scant few pieces of art representing Dumbledore?
How did we interpret this as the final product?
From the image of Dumbledore on the back of The Philosopher's Stone? Granted, Thomas Taylor's artwork perhaps isn't considered canon by most. Whether JKR accepted this as the definitive Dumbledore at the time it was produced or later vetoed this idea, I don't know. What can be said that while it has some hallmarks of what a wise and old wizard should look like, it breaks some rules being sort of less high fantasy and more colourful Victorian in garb. Not truly represented in the film mind you, but while only words can go so far as to describing what Dumbledore looked like, however this particular picture focuses all those potential interpretations into this final image. Still it's hardly accurate even if only they gotten the face correct. Even the face is less welcoming in comparison to its picture counterpart. There's a certain seriousness in Harris' eyes despite his warm nature at the end of PS, you never quite get the feeling that he'd break into joyous singing as opposed to something a bit morose. Serious yes, witty...not quite. However we still accept him, based upon something that I consider pretty peculiar. There is a certain charm or even innocence that glasses give to people. While the half moon spectacles certainly do contribute to a softening of Dumbledore's look, both in book and in film, it doesn't necessarily exclude him from looking the part of a serious, almost angry wizard. Take them off and I imagine Harris would look just as serious as the ever famous Gandalf. Even with them on, Grandpre could easily show that they do little to lighten up the mood of Dumbledore in the end of OoTP:
There something that does make sense though, something that is ingrained into the mind of a lot of people that perhaps makes Harris far more acceptable as a visual representation of Dumbledore than Gambon. While Harris might fit the visualization of what an aged old wizard is supposed to be, so far he doesn't exactly fit the ideal visually caring old wizard. While the spectacles does enough to differentiate himself, it's not enough to totally hide his potential crankiness of all wizards. Well...except for one particular wizard or at least an interpretation of one.
Yes, I do imagine that why there is such an easy acceptance of Harris as a caring old wizard as shown in the novels is because of the bespectacled interpretation of Merlin in Disney's Sword in the Stone. It does make great sense on a sub-conscious level because now we have Dumbledore, a nice bespectacled wizard who's just powerlevel'd himself to level 99 being easily associated with another revered powerful wizard of Merlin. THANKS DISNEY! Heck Richard Harris seems to make a better Disney's Merlin than JKR's Dumbledore.
However here is where we enter the flaws. While the visual has been established, we need to know the motivation of the character. Who is Dumbledore exactly? A simple human who's just modest and humble and loves to teach a generation of children about, tolerance, love and respect? Or is he a powerful wizard who is fully of wit and genius and is respected by his friends and feared by his enemies? The problem I find with certain interpretations of Book!Dumbledore is that he is all those traits however the audience accepts these traits under an illusion of which hides what JKR is trying to tell us about Dumbledore. It was times that he seemed most human and genuine that we seen great intelligence and power, yet during his times of incredible intelligence and presence that we see him as his most human. For example when talking about loyalty with Harry, simply about human choice we see the depth of his knowledge. On the flip side when he talks to Voldemort in OoTP with such a calm and almost witty manner during the duel, it is something very human in the face of a situation that requires something extraordinary.
Harris has such a presence, however that's all it is. A presence of power. Perhaps it's the glint in his eyes, his angular chiseled looks or even because of his acting history playing characters in a position of great power. A leader of an IRA movement in Patriot Games, A Caeser in Galdiator and even being a prisoner in The Count of Monte Cristo, he's a teacher. It's hard to shake that trait yet it shows. The problem with such an overbearing presence of power is that drowns out any other traits we might see. Yes we did see a bit of wit at the end of PS and even CoS when telling Harry about the jellybean flavour and warning Lucius about Voldemort's old school things. However it is dropped as a matter of factly, contradicting the character's presented personality in the film as opposed to being a part of the collective traits shown in the books. When Dumbledore talks about dying a most horrible death in the corridor that is to be avoided; it is a stern warning, not an easily mistaken joke that we are used to. It doesn't help that Harris' own voice betrays the severity of his tone of which Jim Dale maintains a certain inflection to keep Dumbledore speaking often in hidden meanings and double entendres.
That isn't to say that Harris didn't do a good job, I personally thought he was great in PS. He had the right voice for the tone for a children's story. Wise, aged, even having a voice that is against most traditional deep and ever warning of most old wizards. A tone that has not changed expectations until I think Disney's Merlin changed perception to include a higher almost joyful pitch of a whimsical old man. However PS was a tight enough book where the dialogue written itself. It was easy to spout out nonsense about love, the power of love and the praise of bravery for Harry. It worked because we as an audience have been accustomed to such dialogue to a degree where it's almost blasphemous to say anything negative of such dialogue unless it was really poorly acted. Deus Ex Machinas work so well sometimes.
CoS unfortunately doesn't have the same benefit. Gone is the idea of love and it's replaced with a more abstract idea of loyalty. The concept of Harry's own beliefs and loyalty was blurred when the focus of the film resulted in Harry vs. Tom Riddle and the Basilisk. While the Harry vs. Quirrelmort anti-climatic battle was easily explained with love protection therefore an entity easily connected between the event and moral of the story; the CoS battle had the two far too separated for the audience to make the connection. The emphasis that it was Harry's loyalty that saved the day was overshadowed by a wasteful scene of Hide and Seek with the Basilisk followed by a Whack-A-Snake game. In the end, Harris' genuine performance was incredibly lacking, despite being faithful, due to a poor non-canon interpretation of the event. It might have been the illness, but I think it be more the direction of Columbus and presence of Richard Harris' own character that made his CoS performance incredibly weaker in relation to the content of the book.
In the end Richard Harris was a great visual representation of Dumbledore not because he fit the character, but because he fit the role of what we expect a old wizard to look like. However it was Harris' presence as an actor that dealt him a minus due to his inability to represent the more witty and human side of Dumbledore as fully and as completely as his novel counterpart. This idea is pretty easy to illustrate when we have Harris' yelling of silence vs. Gambon's yelling of silence knowing full well that Harris' voice was more of a growl than the yelp of Gambon's. However as much like a lion Harris was, it left little to the imagination to think he could be anything less, let alone be everything that Dumbledore is in character.
However with Gambon we have another interpretation of Dumbledore. The different visual representation of Dumbledore compared to Harris not only shows that there has been a change; but perhaps to actually represent truly what Dumbledore is; a different kind of wizard in comparison to the norm of the population. The idea that he looks like a hippie might not be all that far off when you take into consideration how radical and progressive his ideas are in face of a society who'd rather stick to the old ways rather than explore the new. Much like how Flitwick was also reimagined to be more accurate in how JKR imagined him (from little impish man to actual small man) perhaps this was a more accurate representation of how Dumbledore should look like, despite most people's favouring of what tradition dictates.
It's in this new costume that we see the wit and intelligence of Dumbledore. It's far less reliant on the visual and now they have to work to make the audience respect Dumbledore. The presence has to be earned with Gambon. Not in any failure on behalf of the costume and make-up department but because like how JKR managed to create an illusion of presence during the most human moments with Dumbledore, we create an illusion of Dumbledore being less of a presence because of his very visually human characteristics. Gambon doesn't have the stage presence of Harris, he doesn't have the glint in his eye, however that's where he shines. He doublespeaks the way that Dumbledore does, he has that wit in his tone that relays multiple messages to those willing to receive it. It's in PoA that his presence is felt through his cryptic, almost silly ramblings that are far more meaningful than we give them.
While GoF's performance was horrendiously weak, even weaker than Harris' CoS performance (and I blame that entirely on the creative team deciding to combine Ludo Bagman traits and responsibilities with Dumbledore) we do get slight genuine moments with Dumbledore, especially when he apologizes to Harry about putting him into great danger. While this was about as far as you can get from the sappy heart to heart that we got from PS and CoS, the interesting thing is how Yates manages to reinterpret that same simple, almost poorly acted moment with Dumbledore telling Harry how much he cares about him at the end of OoTP. What's interesting is that even though it is far less of a grand lecture/speech in Book!OoTP the film takes speech and humanizes it, makes it feel far more genuine and far less rehearsed. Having Dumbledore slumped in the chair with a calmer but sad Harry, we get a moment that isn't accurate to the book; but relays a very important theme in the series; how human Dumbledore really is in the face of being such a celebrity and important figure. While it might have been poorly handled in GoF, it was like Yates decided to do it correctly it in OoTP.
What I find great about the Gambon Dumbledore is how logically approached he is in regards to his character. Many people complained about his dirty unclipped nails, but really, what do you expect from such a hardworking, experienced and hands on wizard? Manicures? The idea that he has a walking stick for being such an old man or even his more technique driven wand use in the duel against Voldemort, which makes sense if you were casting magic to have hand movements similiar to what you are casting. Even the way he walks such as lifting up his robes when rushing in to save Harry at the end of GoF, while might remind people of Ebeneezer trying to run away from ghosts in his pajamas, it gives a better sense of realism in a portion of the HP series that favoured more realism.
So here we come to the conclusion. Who is the best Dumbledore? Which actor manages to play the Headmaster of Hogwarts the best in the films? Who has him down a key? If you have been following along, you should know by now who I think is the best actor, because the answer is:
Neither of them.
No I'm not crazy and I'm not saying it should be Ian McKellen however you have yet to realize what I've been trying to tell you all along. Dumbledore is basically the ambassador of JKR from her to us. He is the messenger that JKR often tries to tell us a message about in the beginning, middle or end of the novel. In another wonderful parallel with the films, Dumbledore's message as an ambassador is now transferred over to...you guessed it: the films' directors.
Think about it. Think about what made the HP film you like or dislike. Most if not all of those feelings can be summed up into how Dumbledore's presentation was handled within the film. My 99.9% dislike of CoS can be summarized to the accurate representation of Dumbledore in a time where everything else was a mess because of accuracy and the faults of it. Some people's 99.9% love of CoS is attributed to its accuracy which Dumbledore is faithfully represented. GoF? I dislike most parts of it because it was just a juggling act of storylines which could easily be summed up in Newall's direction to have Gambon almost juggling his different personalities regarding Harry, the Tri Wizard tournament and suspicion. Some people might say that Gambon returned to form in OoTP, but who was really behind that? Yates.
In the end, it should be "Who is the director who best interpreted and represented Dumbledore?" You might still think I'm crazy but consider this: if both Harris and Gambon didn't read the books to research their own roles; who are they going to draw their motivation and direction from? The one person who probably studied the books, read the screenplay and know how the film should come together. It's the director. If anything Dumbledore as a film character is the most apparent outlet of how a director handles a HP film. The director interprets through Dumbledore the most.
So there we have it. I hope this does shed a new light upon the Film!Dumbledore; giving more depth to his position in the HP Film world and the collective in general. While I like the more human Gambon!Dumbledore and love the strength and presence of Harris!Dumbledore, I truly think the presentation of the character was more in the directors' hands than the actors themselves. CoS and GoF were bad not because I think the even numbered HP films are cursed to be bad, but because the directors clearly didn't have an idea of what or how Dumbledore should be represented in each of those films. Far too abstract in CoS and far too forced of an attempt for presence in GoF. What we can only hope for isn't the actors to perform correctly, but for the directors to use their appointed ambassador correctly.