Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

January 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 67

Total Comments: 30

Full Archive

Advertisements

Oliver Twist / UK / Czech Republic / France / Italy / 2005

Dickens is the greatest English novelist, but there is a lot in his novels that pose a problem for modern readers: the high degree of coincidence in the plot; the sudden revelations of family secrets that tidy up things at the end and elevate the hero into the middle class; and the mawkish sentimentality in his portrayal of his virginal heroines. Polanski’s film (or rather, to give credit where credit is due, Ronald Harwood’s screenplay has got round this by simply eliminating it. So, gone is Oliver’s half-brother Monks and that whole batch of family secrets; and gone too is Rose Maylie and a huge section of the plot. It’s a pretty intelligent solution to adapting Oliver Twist for today, but the problem is that what’s left – Oliver’s childhood in the workhouse, and then his adventures among the criminal underclass in London – is so lacking in any passion. It’s safe, careful, respectable filmmaking, totally missing out on the comic and/or dramatic force and the social outrage that Dickens brought to the original. Why did Polanski direct this in the first place?

by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
29 Jan 2006 10:29 AM | Submit Comment

Submit Comment

Please note that your email address will never be displayed on this page.

HTML is enabled; line breaks (<br />) and paragraphs (<p>) are automatically converted. Apostrophes, ellipses, em- and en-dashes, and quotes are also automatically formatted.

Recent Updates