A Christmas Carol BBC1

[Petrushka]

Anyone watching this? I couldn't take more than half an hour and hurried back to the book currently being re-read for about the 50th time.

The book is much darker than it's usually taken for, being typical of its time in being obsessed with death and redemption but that's countered with a fair amount of good humour. The dialogue in this TV adaptation seemed too modern, what you could hear of it with all the mumbling and I got fed up watching with subtitles so gave up. I might try again later but this had all the hallmarks of a missed opportunity.

[Nick Armstrong]

Anyone watching this? I couldn't take more than half an hour and hurried back to the book currently being re-read for about the 50th time.

The book is much darker than it's usually taken for, being typical of its time in being obsessed with death and redemption but that's countered with a fair amount of good humour. The dialogue in this TV adaptation seemed too modern, what you could hear of it with all the mumbling and I got fed up watching with subtitles so gave up. I might try again later but this had all the hallmarks of a missed opportunity.

Currently watching the unparalleled 1951 Alastair Sim version...

... but I saw the first part of the new one and found it a stimulating and imaginative alternative interpretation. Guy Pearce particularly excellent as Scrooge. Visually brilliant. Shall continue.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... I saw the first part of the new one and found it a stimulating and imaginative alternative interpretation. Guy Pearce particularly excellent as Scrooge. Visually brilliant. Shall continue.

- it isn't Dickens, but I thought Episode 1 was an excellent re-imagining for telly of the familiar story.

I agree with Pet - the original is very dark in places (and the image of the ghosts of the bankers and money-lenders helplessly trying to offer help to the starving - too late, too late - at the end of Chapter One is blood-chilling stuff). But it's best there - on the page, read aloud or with the reader's own imagined narrator.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

PS - looks like the new Dracula is also going to play fast & loose with the original, as well (as did the recent War of the Worlds, which had its moments, but rather fizzled out of steam about half-an-hour before it finished). I'm looking forward to that, too.

[LMcD]

PS - looks like the new Dracula is also going to play fast & loose with the original, as well (as did the recent War of the Worlds, which had its moments, but rather fizzled out of steam about half-an-hour before it finished). I'm looking forward to that, too.

My 'benchmark' Dracula is Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- it isn't Dickens, but I thought Episode 1 was an excellent re-imagining for telly of the familiar story.

Episode 2 - Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rjw]

Currently watching the unparalleled 1951 Alastair Sim version...

... but I saw the first part of the new one and found it a stimulating and imaginative alternative interpretation. Guy Pearce particularly excellent as Scrooge. Visually brilliant. Shall continue.

I like the muppet version.

[LMcD]

The 1935 version is on Talking Pictures TV at 11.30 a.m. today.

[BBMmk2]

Will be watching one of the two DVDs we have later today.

[vinteuil]

.

... I've enjoyed the first two episodes - mercifully far removed from the Dickens. They've certainly thrown a lot of money at it!

Yes, the Alastair Sim version is a delight - and I love the Muppets one too.

There was an interesting re-versioning of it on Talking Pictures yesterday - the 1961 Cash on Demand, with Peter Cushing (seldom better) as a fastidious bank manager, forced by a bank robbery (André Morell, marvellous) to become more 'human' -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_on_Demand

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054731/

.

[Petrushka]

.

... I've enjoyed the first two episodes - mercifully far removed from the Dickens. They've certainly thrown a lot of money at it!

Yes, the Alastair Sim version is a delight - and I love the Muppets one too.

There was an interesting re-versioning of it on Talking Pictures yesterday - the 1961 Cash on Demand, with Peter Cushing (seldom better) as a fastidious bank manager, forced by a bank robbery (André Morell, marvellous) to become more 'human' -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_on_Demand

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054731/

.

Yet the story is Dickens and while the sentimentality associated with Tiny Tim grates on modern ears, the book is a masterpiece of the novelists art. It is short by Dickens' standards but at the same time it is full of detail, masses of it, and Dickens' imagination is a gift to television and cinema directors with ample opportunity there for technical wizardry of all kinds. Moreover, the story is clearly written in scenes with plenty of flashback, another gift to the TV/cinema director.

I'd hoped that this BBC adaptation would utilise Dickens' vivid imaginative detail as none has done before but in the end it is a massive disappointment and I did try again.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, the Alastair Sim version is a delight - and I love the Muppets one too.

- I'm very fond of the Bill Murray "update", too (Carol Kane nuttily upstaging everyone as the Ghost of Christmas Present). Not so keen on the Albert Finney Musical - but, as Pet says, the novella is a masterpiece of the novelist's art, and a screen adaptation works best for me when it adjusts the text (even the Sim version has the bits with Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison).

And this new cold, dark, creepy adaptation looks set to become a real triumph.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Surely better thought of as a "Fantasy on..." than any attempt at HIP performance? Only seen #1 so far but looking forward to the others today.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely better thought of as a "Fantasy on..." than any attempt at HIP performance?

Indeed - a Lisztian Paraphrase on Themes by Dickens. - the real HIPP attitude is to read the text and not attempt to transmogrify it into a drama script in the first place.

[oddoneout]

Indeed - a Lisztian Paraphrase on Themes by Dickens. - the real HIPP attitude is to read the text and not attempt to transmogrify it into a drama script in the first place.

Quite possibly, but for those who will not 'read, mark and inwardly digest' the Dickens story, the message has to be got out in other ways? Although I accept that wouldn't be the main(or even a) reason for this reworking.
What an indictment that it seems less like history and more like current reportage...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/23/a-tale-of-two-cities-londons-rich-and-poor-in-tower-hamlets