Year 13, Day 354 - 12/20/21 - Movie #3,999
BEFORE: Well, I'm hoping tonight's film helps me feel a little more in the Christmas mood. Having to cancel our trip to Massachusetts hasn't been helpful in that regard - the two films that usually help me get in the holiday spirit are, of course, "A Christmas Story" (which usually runs for 24 hours on TV starting on Dec. 24) and "Scrooge", the version of "A Christmas Carol" starring Albert Finney. For me, that's the definitive version, the 1970 musical that co-stars Alec Guinness as Marley's ghost. Classic - and of course, "Thank You Very Much" is the best song, the reprise always brings me to tears.
I'll perhaps watch "Scrooge" tomorrow night, to follow this one - it won't count, of course, because I've seen it so many times before. It might also be time to return to "It's a Wonderful Life" this year, I've avoided it for a long while because I got sick of it - but the Disney+ series "Hawkeye" referenced it in several ways, so maybe after the final episode of "Hawkeye" I'll give it another go. In addition to Clint Barton and Kate Bishop watching the classic Frank Capra film, my sister pointed out that George Bailey and Hawkeye are both deaf in one ear, and Hawkeye's feeling down on himself and doesn't consider himself a hero, much in the same way that George Bailey didn't realize all the good he'd done in the town of Bedford Falls over the years. Also, George Bailey's family disappeared in the alternate reality the angel showed him, then came back, and Hawkeye's family disappeared in the "snap" seen in the "Avengers" movies, then came back. There's more, but no spoilers here.
If I watch these previously seen movies, this will hopefully raise my Christmas spirit, and also keep this film posted on top of the blog for a couple nights, maybe I'll even wait until after Dec. 25 to watch film #4,000. Morfydd Clark carries over from "The Personal History of David Copperfield", where she played Copperfield's mother and love interest. Tonight she plays Charles Dicken's wife, which I guess we've established is sort of in the same ballpark?
THE PLOT: The journey that led to Charles Dickens' creation of "A Christmas Carol", a timeless tale that would redefine Christmas.
AFTER: Really, nothing makes more sense than a little back-to-back Dickens this week. We saw David Copperfield write down names that he liked, or phrases he wanted to remember, and apparently that was Dickens' process also - he'd see a name like Marley or Fezziwig and jot it down, thinking he'd find a place for it later. So of course this is all idle speculation, but clearly SOMETHING inspired Dickens to write what's now considered the classic Christmas novel. And I think he was the first author to combine a holiday story with a horror story, really this wouldn't happen again until the invention of the horror movie, and films like "Black Christmas" or "Silent Night, Deadly Night" came along - and I think we can all agree that "A Christmas Carol" is a lot classier, right?
Good artists borrow a little bit from here and there, and of course great artists borrow A LOT from everywhere - this film surmises that an Irish nanny in the Dickens household mentioned that her granny believed that Christmas Eve was when the barrier between the natural and supernatural world was thinnest, and ghosts could cross over. OK, so that nanny's granny was probably mixing up Christmas Eve with All Hallow's Eve, I'll bet, but that was perhaps enough to inspire Dickens to put ghosts into a Christmas story, and darned if that wasn't like the first person to mix peanut butter and chocolate. Supposedly Dickens took these walking tours of London when he needed inspiration, and who's to say he didn't see an old man attending the funeral of his business partner one day, and who's to say that old man didn't say "Humbug"? All Dickens had to do then was come up with the name "Scrooge", and this story practically writes itself.
Well, not exactly - the film starts with Dickens after his celebrity book tour of America, and the three "flops" that came after it. So he's staring at a blank page, quill pen at the ready, but with no idea what to write. You KNOW I hate films that focus on writer's with writer's block (or a "blockage" as the Brits call it.). Real motivation probably came from the fact that Dickens had four small children, with one more on the way, and had just moved the family into a very nice townhouse, and the renovations were costing him a fortune. Sure, he'd write a story about Christmas, if it happened to be coming up on the calendar. More inspiration came from the fact that he'd borrowed heavily during this blockage period, and his loans were coming due, still he had to ask for an extension, which raised the interest.
You put all this together, the old man at the funeral, the clerk at the loan office, and the need for an unsavory central character, and that's how you get Ebenezer Scrooge, I suppose. But that can't be the whole story, because writing a story that will reach people involves drawing from real life, and that means drawing from his own life, in addition to what he sees around town. So, really, Scrooge is also part Dickens, and Dickens is part Scrooge - Dickens is also part Bob Cratchit, struggling to feed a large brood of children. Charles' wife also accuses him of working too hard on his novels, thus putting work before family, a very Scrooge-like thing to do. It's kind of like how you play most of the characters in your dreams, Dickens was many of his characters in his stories and they were him. Except maybe Tiny Tim, who was maybe inspired by that neighbor's kid with the bad cough.
Once Dickens dreamed up Scrooge as the central character, according to this he acted out the whole story, and envisioned Marley and the three other ghosts coming to visit. Here the film goes back to that double-role thing was saw last night, where the same actress played both Dickens' mother and girlfriend. The actress who played that nanny also plays the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the actor who played John Forster (Dickens' friend/biographer/critic) also plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. Forster's character, a largish man, also poses in costume as the second spirit for the man hired to illustrate the novel.
Dickens then, with Scrooge as his guide, goes on a tour through his own past and imagination, quite similar to the one Scrooge is forced to take within the novel. Did the writing of the book go down exactly like this? Was this Dickens' storytelling process? Probably not, but lately it seems like for every story or movie, we also have to have the "behind the scenes" movie that tells us what influenced the authors, or at least what we believe may have inspired them. I'm thinking about films like "Mank", "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", "Mary Shelley", "Becoming Jane", "Howl" and many others.
Also, if this story is to be believed, this writing process wasn't easy - the redemption of Scrooge wasn't originally part of the plan, and in the early drafts Tiny Tim died. It was only when Dickens read the early version aloud to friends and family that he realized what a bummer the story was. Perhaps he didn't think Scrooge could change because he didn't think he himself could change, remember Dickens was Scrooge, to some degree. So sometimes a writer has to step away from his own story for a while, then look at it again with fresh eyes - when Dickens did that, it probably became obvious that this needed to be a story about redemption. I mean, what was the point of writing about an evil miser if he's just going to stay that way, right up until the end? Everybody can be saved, it's never too late, at least that's the theory in the world of storytelling.
Once Dickens made that change, Scrooge gets redeemed and feels love for humanity once more, forgives all debts (yeah, right...) and keeps Christmas in his heart all year long, then WOW, what a story. Dickens suddenly had like a real HIT on his hands, an overnight success, and the best thing about it was that it would become relevant again every December, like clockwork. There's that old genius clock ticking again, the guy who invented serials and merchandising and book tours also somehow landed on the fact that some stories are evergreen and become relevant again with a flip of the calendar page. AND he invented the Christmas/horror hybrid, that's no small feat - if you believe this movie, then Christmas as a relevant holiday was sort of dying out at the time, and this revived it. Hmm, I'd like to see the paperwork on that - but then a few years later Coca-Cola and Macy's got on board, and, well, this train shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. I just saw a statistic about the declining interest in America in religion, but jeez, even if you're not religious you may love Christmas!
And it all happened because one author with a dwindling bank account was on a deadline...that's food for thought for sure. I've always said that you only need one great idea to be successful in this world - I just read about a 96-year old man who passed away, he's credited with popularizing the artificial Christmas tree, shortly after World War II. While he didn't invent the idea of the artificial tree, he repurposed materials from a brush-making company to create a very natural looking one, and turned that into a million-dollar business. But I digress.
So today, we celebrate the anniversary of the publication of "A Christmas Carol", on December 19, 1844. Yeah, I know I'm posting this on December 20, but I started watching the film on December 19. So happy 177th anniversary to this book! If nothing else, the book depicts the "classic" elements of Victorian Christmas celebrations - the family gatherings, dancing, games, seasonal food and drink, and the festive spirit. I hope you enjoy this week as such, but if, like me, your holiday is on hold, well, then, there's always next year.
Also starring Dan Stevens (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Jonathan Pryce (last seen in "The Wife"), Simon Callow (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Donald Sumpter (last seen in "The Constant Gardener"), Miriam Margolyes (last heard in "Early Man"), Justin Edwards (last seen in "Yesterday"), Miles Jupp (last seen in "Greed"), Ian McNeice (last seen in "Town & Country"), David McSavage, Bill Paterson (last seen in "Miss Potter"), John Henshaw (last seen in "Stan & Ollie"), Annette Badland, Anna Murphy, Ely Solan, Katie McGuinness, Marcus Lamb, Pearse Kearney, Jasper Hughes-Cotter, Eddie Jackson, Paul Kealyn, Aleah Lennon, Ger Ryan, Donna Marie Sludds, Cosimo Fusco, Aideen Wylde, John Colleary, Sean Duggan (last seen in "The Professor and the Madman").
RATING: 7 out of 10 eel pies
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