Since this is Christmas Day, I thought it a good idea to take a look at two adaptations of Charles Dickens' novel
A Christmas Carol.
It's a story that everybody is familiar with, whether from reading the original book, watching one of the many adaptations on TV, or (if you're from the Chicago area) going to see the Goodman Theater's annual production, which I and my family went to see in (surprise, surprise!) 2000. It was the last show
ever at the Old Goodman Theater, which was to be torn down in 2001; thereafter, the New Goodman Theater would hold all shows.
My overriding memory of that one is that a hearing-impaired gentleman played the Ghost of Christmas Past. At the end, the entire cast sang
and signed "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."
Dickens' tale has become part of my Christmas ever since I found a copy of
The Annotated A Christmas Carol six years ago at a library book sale. The volume contained the full, unabridged novel, plus a mini-biography of Dickens and why his book is so important:
It. Saved. Christmas.
You see, before Dickens' time--
way before his time--the holiday was a time of drunken revelry not unlike what follows after a Super Bowl victory. "Disapproving Puritans," writes Ransom Riggs of
The Daily Beast, "pointed to the traditional (and traditionally bawdy) pagan winter celebrations of Saturnalia and Yule, and accused modern revelers of carrying over bad pagan habits. (They also referred to the Christmas celebrations as "the trappings of Popery" and "rags of the beast.")
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"The trappings of Popery." Let's unpack that one. What I remember of the Puritans is that they wanted to keep the faith pure, get away from the glitzy accoutrements of the Church of England and, by extension, the Roman Catholic Church. The stuff we now associate with Christmas--Christmas trees, mistletoe, even nativity scenes--all were
verboten to the Puritans. After the English Civil War
2, they appeared to have gotten what they wanted, and banned Christmas from 1647 to 1660. To keep things brief, let's simply say that the ban was lifted, but things just weren't the same. Christmas kept on fading in England; it was hardly celebrated in America following the Revolution in an effort to maintain that "clean break" between the nations.
There's a wealth of scholarship about
A Christmas Carol, but, in a nutshell, Dickens writes his novel, it proves wildly successful, and, within a few years, Christmas as we know it returns in full force. He reimagined the holiday as a time to give selflessly and to celebrate with friends and family, and that struck a chord with his readers. It's of its time yet timeless, and it's been immortalized and reimagined on stage, on television, and in many, many movies.
Let us today look at two adaptations, the first from 1999; the second, from 2000.
STAVE ONE: THE PAST
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Image borrowed from EW.com
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This first one was made for TNT in 1998 or 1999, and it's one of the most faithful and most complete adaptations I've ever seen. Headlining the all-star cast is, of course, Sir Patrick Stewart as Scrooge. His take on the character surprised me: Most actors play up the "cruel miser" aspect, and take on a cold, mean affect. Here, though, Sir Patrick demonstrated a
damaged soul whose bad memories are particularly nasty at the holiday season. I throw much of my praise at his eyes and posture in the first few scenes at his business: His eyes are squinting, as if he's marshaling all his efforts into fighting back tears, and his back is arched so that his head is close to his heart, as if his burdened heart is weighing him down.
One of his best scenes occurs when he and Christmas Past witness Belle turn Young Scrooge down, for she saw that his love of money outweighed his love of her. Old Scrooge knows that his younger self can neither see nor hear him, but still he cries out, "Go after her!" It's not in the book, but it establishes that Scrooge is already starting to change.
Elsewhere, there are scenes that other adaptations usually leave out, such as--and this is the big one--a series of vignettes showing lighthouse workers, coal miners, and sailors celebrating Christmas by singing "Silent Night" in their own idioms. I understand that it's usually left out to speed things up and to keep things in-studio, but it shows that one doesn't need a Christmas tree to keep the holiday spirit.
And then there's the montage near the end of Scrooge singing with street carolers, having snowball fights with kids, and going to morning church services, all before going to have dinner with his nephew Fred's family. He knows that the chances of their turning him away is 99.9%, yet he bravely does it all the same....and he gets the .01% chance that they'll forgive him!
It's an absolutely solid take on Dickens' tale, and I absolutely recommend it. It's still in print, too, so you might be able to find it at premium prices wherever videos are sold. (My local Meijer had it on the shelves for $5.)
STAVE TWO: THE PRESENT
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| Image borrowed from Mike's Movie Palace |
This second version aired on Britain's ITV in 2000. I had no idea it even existed, and I'd like to thank Shout!Factory for giving it a home on their streaming service, because it's...unique.
It might be one of the first modernized takes on the classic tale, and it handles the changes in a way that recalls to mind Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' Sherlock (2010-2017). The setting update brings with it a number of character and plot twists, so I'm going to try to not give too much away, tempting though it is. As I said, look online for it; it's also available for free on Shout!Factory's streaming service.
Accountant Ebenezer Scrooge is now loan-shark Eddie Scrooge (played by Mark Kemp from EastEnders). He is, I have to say, a nasty piece of work, personally ruining his clients' Christmases as he repossesses (and then destroys!) a TV set from a young woman and takes a large payment from an elderly couple, money which could have gone to a much-needed stair-lift. His work is decidedly illegal, and his long-suffering employee Bob Cratchit finds a little more of his soul eroded with every day that he remains in employment.
His surroundings are no better: Amid the carolers trying to spread a little cheer, naughty boys draw rude graffiti onto a nearby pound-store's Christmas decorations and freely shoplift from the store itself. The book says that Scrooge lives in a bad part of town; his apartment is in a large house that's now being used for office space. In this version, however, he appears to live on the lowest floors of a council estate (read: the projects). It's more of a hideaway than an apartment, and most of his money goes to security features like his money-safe and closed-circuit camera system.
The "Three Spirits" concept gets a twist here. In the original story, the spirits visit him over three consecutive nights. This time around, everything takes place on Christmas Eve, but Eddie has to do a
Groundhog Day after each spirit visits him. He's supposed to have changed in some way within each iteration of the loop, and the changes take
a long time to kick in.
What struck me the most about this version was the ways in which it found new ways to incorporate the novel's events. Since this Scrooge has many decades to look forward to, the character of Belle from the original story goes from the final "brick in the wall" (to quote Pink Floyd) for Scrooge, to the driving force for him to mend his ways. She's a much stronger character for it, refusing to fall back in love with him until he undergoes a genuine change of heart, without thought of winning her over. That means letting go of his baggage and making peace with his clients and underlings.
Finally, one of the best things about it is how it uses snow as part of the story. Scrooge's part of town never once sees snow until the very end, when he's finally shed all of his troubles and learned to let love in.
I learned in at least one chemistry class that the clouds in the sky shrink when cold and expand when warm, and when they're too small and compact, they cannot let rain or snow down. The same applies here: Eddie's heart and soul are so tight and compact as to be impermeable, but once he lets go, everyone gets a white Christmas.
STAVE THREE: THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?
Together, these movies are book-ends, in a way, for the Millennium. The 1999 one preserves the story by being the...If not the definitive take, then certainly the most faithful to the novel. The 2000 one looks ahead to the present day to show how past and present rhyme.
Classic Scrooge has to be a hard businessman, but he's unnecessarily hard about it because he thinks only in terms of numbers, not in terms of human lives and souls. Modern Scrooge pushes people around because he actively enjoys throwing his weight around...or so he keeps telling himself. Neither are truly happy with themselves, and both have a lot of issues to reconcile.
It just goes to show how universal A Christmas Carol is. No matter what happens, it will always be a part of everyone's Christmas traditions. And for that, I say, "God bless us, everyone!"
