Dickensblog

Thoughts on Hulu's 'Great Expectations,' episodes 5 and 6

This post will contain major spoilers, so I'll put the review under the cut.

Thoughts on Hulu's 'Great Expectations,' episodes 3 and 4

A particular speech of Mr. Jaggers's from episode 3 neatly sums up this whole enterprise, and Steven Knight's whole approach to Dickens. When Pip asks why Jaggers has been made his guardian, Jaggers answers, "Because I am known to be evil. Celebrated for it. And your benefactor knows that in an evil place like London, attachment to virtue would be fatal."

In almost any other production, that might be conveying something like bitter sarcasm or world-weary lament or at least deliberate exaggeration. In this one, where there is no subtext, subtlety, or wit, and everything is to be taken at face value, there's no other way to hear it but as straightforward truth. It's so laughably on the nose that it put me in mind of an old joke from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," where an obviously villainous character arrived on the scene and one of the guys quipped, "Hi, I'm Bob Evil!"

Thoughts on Hulu's 'Great Expectations,' episodes 1 and 2

Watching Steven Knight's Great Expectations, after having watched his A Christmas Carol a few years ago, has driven me relentlessly to one conclusion: Knight just doesn't like Dickens. At all. If Knight had been born hating Dickens and hated him more every day of his life, he couldn't have done him more dirty than he has.

Once again we have the characters twisted and distorted out of all recognition. Once again we have a woman put in a degrading sexual position by an older man (a relative, in this case). Once again we have Dickens's quicksilver words discarded for clunky, leaden attempts at dialogue, and his odd, fascinating quirks smoothed over, to be replaced with various vices and kinks. Even the music, by Keefus Ciancia, is grim and joyless. 

Hulu's 'Great Expectations': Reviews and articles

The first episode of the new BBC/FX Great Expectations is now available on Hulu. The Independent opines that, paradoxically, "the desire to sex up Victoriana" is "all very predictable." The Hollywood Reporter states, "What could have been a daring spin on a classic is transformed instead into a dreary slog," and CNN says, "The story ... grinds along sluggishly." According to The Evening Standard, "It’s not so much a dramatisation of Great Expectation[s], as a hollowing out of it in order to accommodate a very different story and almost unrecognisable characters." (Relatedly, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst has an interesting piece at LitHub, with the marvelous title "The Wizardry of Boz," taking a look at how the various adaptations of Dickens have shaped our view of his work.)

But the piece that most got my attention was writer/producer Steven Knight's interview with TV Insider, in which Knight said, "[Dickens] can never go all the way into those dark places. So that’s what I tried to do." You can read my Twitter rant on that quote here. The gist of it is that I'm sick and tired of people claiming to have added qualities to Dickens that are already there, and that Dickens could out-dark Knight with one hand tied behind his back. Just because he wasn't explicit or gruesome doesn't mean he was too timid to explore or create haunting pictures of the grim side of life.

Anyway, I'll probably be watching Episode 1 (there will be six total) tonight or tomorrow, and will share my thoughts here. I have to admit, after some of what I've been reading (and after the same team's Christmas Carol adaptation), my expectations are not great.

TCM alert

The channel is airing David Copperfield (1935) at 9:45 this morning as part of the 31 Days of Oscar celebration.

Full-length 'Great Expectations' trailer debuts

Thanks to Cody Quanbeck in the Dickensblog Facebook group for giving me the tip! The series looks grim and rather violent -- not entirely unexpected from the team that gave us that very dour A Christmas Carol a few years back. But we'll have to wait until we see the whole thing to know for sure ...

Release date and poster for BBC/FX 'Great Expectations'

I can't help but be reminded of the line "That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets."

The six-part series premieres on Hulu on Sunday, March 26.

(Image copyright BBC Studios/FX Productions)

Olivia Colman in new 'Great Expectations' teaser trailer

"Teaser" is the right word -- it's only 20 seconds long! But it does give us our first glimpse of Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham, along with Tom Sweet as young Pip. (H/T RadioTimes, brought to my attention by Lee Jackson on Twitter)

TCM alerts

David Copperfield (1935) airs at noon Eastern today, and A Tale of Two Cities (1935) airs at 6 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.

Thoughts on 'Scrooge: A Christmas Carol' (2022)

I hate to go all bah humbug about any version of A Christmas Carol, but I'm afraid I didn't find much to enjoy about the new animated film on Netflix. It gave me the impression that someone had forced several cases of Red Bull down the throats of a bunch of animators, locked them in a room, and told them to go to town. The film is frenetic in the extreme. Fireballs streak through the air, surfaces ice over and play videos like a Christmasy Victorian MTV, people and objects float through the air, and honestly, the whole thing is exhausting.

Also, Scrooge has a dog. No, I don't get it either. She's a sweet dog, and a good foil for him, but why Scrooge would have a dog -- or why Marley, from whom he inherited her, would have had a dog -- is a question that's never addressed adequately, and so it just ends up adding to the general air of "What the heck?"

Award-winning composer Leslie Bricusse made significant contributions to the film before he passed away in October of last year. In addition to repurposing songs from his own earlier version, Scrooge (1970), he wrote new songs, in addition to writing the screenplay. His involvement makes me even sadder about my lack of enthusiasm. But most of the re-arranged songs, in this hectic atmosphere, fail to bring with them their old charm, and the new ones don't stand out at all. And there's nothing in the script -- no especially interesting new twists or backstory or flourishes -- to justify this adaptation. As far as the basic story goes, it doesn't really stray all that far from the original (aside from a few inexplicable departures, like the dog), but the sheer busyness of the film makes it look as if it didn't trust its own source material and was relying on distractions.

If there's a plus to this film at all, it's the fine vocal work of the cast, particularly Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, and the other leads. But they're so overly talkative, especially Colman as the Ghost of Christmas Past, that even that gets wearying. This was one version of the Carol that I probably won't be watching again.