Why do I
say that the 1951 A Christmas Carol is a Good Movie, and The Hobbit is a bad
movie?
Glad you
asked. Let’s start with movie rendition
of the Dickens Christmas classic. Many
people say
that they like this particular version because it’s close “in spirit” to
the original. And so it is, even though
there are a number of changes to the surface story, some of them substantial.
The role of Scrooge’s housemaid is expanded, for instance, and her name
belonged to a different character in the original; Scrooge’s younger sister
becomes his older sister in the film, who dies giving birth to his nephew as
his mother died giving birth to him, both non-Dickensian additions. The movie makers add a fairly large amount of
their own material to the section with the ghost of Christmas past, even
inventing an entirely new character, Mr. Jorkin (in my family such characters
are known as “gophers” after a particularly irritating character Disney Studios
created for their adaptation of Winnie the Pooh). There are a number of other relatively minor
changes as well.
that they like this particular version because it’s close “in spirit” to
the original. And so it is, even though
there are a number of changes to the surface story, some of them substantial.
The role of Scrooge’s housemaid is expanded, for instance, and her name
belonged to a different character in the original; Scrooge’s younger sister
becomes his older sister in the film, who dies giving birth to his nephew as
his mother died giving birth to him, both non-Dickensian additions. The movie makers add a fairly large amount of
their own material to the section with the ghost of Christmas past, even
inventing an entirely new character, Mr. Jorkin (in my family such characters
are known as “gophers” after a particularly irritating character Disney Studios
created for their adaptation of Winnie the Pooh). There are a number of other relatively minor
changes as well.
The key
here is that none of these changes and additions alter the sub-story. The invented biographical information seems
to have been included to provide some psychological background to “explain” why
Scrooge is the sort of man he is (apparently the movie makers believed that a
mid-twentieth century audience would expect this, even if Dickens’s readers did
not); none of it contradicts or changes the character of Scrooge as found in
Dickens, or the moral fabric of the story.
Most of the film very closely follows the course of the original book
(albeit with some omissions and minor alterations), and large parts of the
dialogue are taken verbatim from the text.
While I myself would prefer sticking even closer to the original (I
suppose I’m a bit of a purist, after all), it is still very clearly the same
tale of the redemption of the same old sinner.
In my
next post, why I'm not so fond of The Hobbit.
No comments:
Post a Comment