Dickens of London (Nightmare): Movies about Writing

I cheated. I did not want to watch this entire program right now . . . because it is thirteen episodes of low quality BBC programing . . . so I only watched the Poe episode. I’ll try to go back and watch the whole show someday, maybe. If I have thirteen hours to spare.

Here we go. Episode eleven of the 1970s British mini-series opens with jaunty nineteenth century music and the word “Nightmare” in a lovely cursive. Yes, I’m really feeling the nightmare now. Good job, production team. Dickens is telling the story of his first trip to the United States (he famously hated the U.S. and the episode really leans into the idea that his wife being ill on the trip effected his mood). A hysterical Catherine Dickens declares she’s sick of her husband’s crusade to create international copyright laws and (this one is gross) that he should stop pointing out that American slavery steals more money from the English than from “the Black man”. Really, Charlie? Really. I knew Poe was a racist raced around Antebellum Southern values (I never said I thought he was good many, just a good writer), but you Dickens! You’re my progressive writer hero. At least I still have Louisa May Alcott. No one tell me anything bad about her!

Anyway, he uses mesmerism on Catherine in order to put her to sleep and to the lobby of their hotel where a short story writer and critic awaits an audience. Why look at that! It’s Edgar Allan Poe! Being played by a man who looks too old to play him (I’m starting to notice that’s really a common problem movies). Poe declares how grand Dickens work on copyright has been and then fanboys a great deal over Barnaby Rudge (for those of you who don’t know, Barnaby Rudge is the book with a pet raven named Grip as one of the key characters, based on Dickens’s own pet). Poe for his part tries to abstain from drink, but Dickens insists. I like this idea of Poe trying to keep his cool in front of his hero, but he caves super quick to a single glass of wine.

Next scene has the pair of famous writers stumbling in the streets playing some kind of game that sort of reminded me of when my childhood friends and I would play Charlie’s Angels (this game consisted of running from building corner to building corner with our hands up in a gun position). Still, the party is over when Dickens witnesses a moment of Poe melancholy when the slightly older man craves approval of his poetry.

Poe invites Dickens to witness a mesmerism experiment which is just the short story “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” played out. A previously uncomfortable and giddy Poe turns into a devious monster more fascinated with the torture of Valdemar’s soul than how you would imagine the author to be in reality. There’s maniacal laughter and everything. I’m . . . I’m really not sure what I was supposed to take away from this? Suggestions?

The Personal History of David Copperfield: Movies about Writing

I like Charles Dickens, okay! I’m going to try very hard not to make this a comparison between movie and novel . . . but know that it’s killing me inside. I’m going to say 2 things 1) it’s difficult to make a decent version of this story in under 2 hours so at least they gave it their best shot and 2) this movie was very pretty and had a great cast (except Ben Whishaw I normally love and is not creepy enough to play Uriah Heep)!

Why am I including this in this blog and not other versions of David Copperfield? This is the first film adaption I’ve seen that really focuses on David’s desire to be a writer. David (Dev Patel/Jairaj Varsani), for those who have never read the book, is a man reciting the story of his life starting from his birth to a sweet, widowed mother (Morfydd Clark who has a duel role as David’s first love Dora). Upon his arrival, he is rejected by his Aunt Betsey Trotwood (Tilda Swinton) for not being a girl. Despite having the protection of a loving housekeeper who takes him to meet her king brother and his adoptive family which include David’s first friends in his life, Ham and Emily, she cannot stop his mother from marrying the hard Mr. Murdstone (Darren Boyd). Murdstone and his equally awful sister (Gwendoline Christie) send David away to a factory which they own. For those of you who’ve read the book - I know this is out of order. In this new miserable chapter of his life, he rooms with the Micawber family (patriarch played very humorously by Peter Capaldi) who in this version of events are more selfish than their literary counterparts. When his mother dies, David runs away to find Aunt Betsey living with her cousin by marriage Mr. Dick (Hugh Laurie).

From there, David is sent to school and his life continues as it does in most versions: his friendship with Agnes Wickfield (Rosalind Elazar) and her father (Benedict Wong), the rocky bond he forms with Steerforth (Aneurin Barnard), the suspicions toward Uriah Heep, his marriage to the child-like Dora, and the way his past shapes his adult life. It’s all still out of order and some characters are combined, but it’s meant to give the same themes. Although, there’s a part where Steerforth sings the Mermaid Song, which is a good metaphor for the amount of humor put into this movie even when it isn’t always appropriate.

As I said, this one really focuses on how David is in love with words, characters, metaphors, and writing in-general. The film opens with him walking out on a stage in front of an audience, ready to tell his tale out loud in a way identical to how the author Charles Dickens used to hold assemblies where he read out his works in a theatrical manner. When depicted as a child, David is encouraged to read and collect words he enjoys. When his mother hears him say something clever or make a good observation she records it.

As a child alone in the world, David continues the practice on scraps of paper he keeps in an old box. Most scraps continue to include phrases and descriptors he enjoys along with little illustrations. When he moves in with his aunt, it’s Mr. Dick’s own scribbles and attempts at writing that encourage David.

At school, he starts to use his own life to amuse the other students with stories he claims are made-up. In the original book, David hides his past because it’s not the way of a gentleman to talk about misfortune, yet in the movie he goes to extremes to cover up any tragedies with a complete sense of humiliation. He thrives off making his childhood of abuse and colorful characters into fiction instead of simply telling the story of his life.

When destitute, Aunt Trotwood and Mr. Dick make David a small private space to write. Just like in the book, Dora wants to help him and holds his pens as he writes. That’s not an innuendo. She literally holds onto the pens and hands them to him when he needs a fresh one. He begins with character sketches just as Dickens did. He tells the remainder of his life using these character references and reveals how all will end as he writes it.

Now that I’ve said that, I can’t keep my pretentious rants inside any longer! THIS WAS SO DIFFERENT FROM THE BOOK PLOT WISE THAT I HAD TROUBLE ENJOYING IT!

SPOILER ALERT -

DORA DOESN’T EVEN DIE! SHE JUST KINDA DISAPPEARS!

Muppet Christmas Carol: Movies about Writing

“Storytellers are omniscient, I know everything.” So sayeth Gonzo the Great - I mean, Charles Dickens. The blue furry Charles Dickens who hangs out with a rat.

Now, I really do know A Christmas Carol like the back of my hand. I memorized the opening passage about door nails and coffin nails when I was a kid because it made me laugh - you know, like most eleven year olds. And this is pretty much my favorite version (in close running with the 1938 version and the 1951 versions) and is actually pretty close to the original novella (they cut out Bob’s oldest daughter, Martha and Scrooge’s sister Fan, but pretty close nonetheless). This is one of the only times the writer of the screenplay actually bothered to read the name of Scrooge’s former love, Belle. Most screenwriters skip that part and leave her nameless or give her a generic British name like Alice or Mary.

This film, for those who’ve never seen it (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??), if full of jokes about Gonzo/Dickens being able to time each event as he narrates the story. His narrations come straight from the original text which is someone better sounding from Dave Goelz (the voice of Gonzo) then from the pompous Brit in the ‘51 version. However, Gonzo also has to constantly prove that he really is the author to Rizzo the Rat who finds this form of Dickens too unbelievable. “Hoity toity, Mr. God-like-smartypants.”

Still, I like the idea that even though Gonzo is Dickens, even he doesn’t know everything that’s going to happen. Characters can surprise their creators, even when the creator is being played by a blue furry, hook-nosed whatever.

I really don’t have much more to say here as I am very distracted right now. I mean, Michael Caine is signing with Robin the Frog. Where else could you possibly see that?

The Man Who Invented Christmas - Movies About Writing

Time for some more Dickens! Most of my friends know how I adore Dickens as a writer (but am conflicted with a few of his actions as a person like how he treated his wife). But this film a micro-biography. A look at an isolated time of his life long before all of that. I’m talking about when he wrote A Christmas Carol, a book I love so much I can recite it. Do you want to hear the open paragraphs about “dead as a doornail”? No. Oh. Okay. Then I guess I’ll just keep typing then.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is about the few weeks in which Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) worked to write, lasting holiday story in the midst of bankruptcy and dealing with his irresponsible father (played by Jonathan Pryce) who wants to be a part of his family life once again.

Before I get too far into the this blog, I do want to point out the only inaccurate historical detail in the film that drove me absolutely insane. John Dickens, Charles’s father, buys the family a pet raven as a sign of goodwill and holiday cheer, in the winter of 1843 when he’s writing A Christmas Carol. Here’s my issue with it. The real Dickens family had their pet raven years before that. Grip, the beloved pet raven, is featured heavily in Dickens’s 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge (which, yes, I’ve red. I’m that much of a fangirl plus I REALLY love ravens). Grip died that same year and Dickens replaced him with Grip II and eventually Grip III. These second and third ravens were not nearly as clever and fun as the original Grip and the children didn’t care much for them, but Dickens himself felt that ravens made the best pets and wanted to set an example. This had nothing to do with his father. Even so, I wish the movie had made a reference to the original Grip. the beloved raven that Dickens made a central character in one of his books (granted one of his hardest to get-through books but . . .)

Off my historian soapbox I get. Back to the film. There is so much I could say about this one involving the writing process and the life of an author. There’s Dickens facing ruin after his last two books didn’t sell well. There’s his weariness at facing the criticism of other writers like William Makepeace Thackeray (you know, the guy that wrote Vanity Fair). There is the way Dickens observes and takes notes on names and events around him in search of inspiration. The idea of deadlines keeping an author on task. And of course there are the little distractions in the midst of writer’s block like playing the concertina accordion. I think I need an accordion. But let us get down to writing A Christmas Carol itself and how it’s portrayed in the film.

The movie jumps between the reality of Dickens writing, the flashbacks of his troubled childhood, and his imaginary interactions with Scrooge the character. He draws upon the men he meets at his charity lectures and on the streets of London to develop the old miser, using direct quotes he hears from a “self-made” businessman who believes the poor would be better off dead. He is equally inspired by the supernatural Irish tales he overhears a maid telling his children.

When his publishers doubt that they could print such a book in time for Christmas, what is considered a minor holiday in Britain at this time, Dickens declares that he will self-publish. This is totally true. Dickens really did believe that Christmas should encourage charity and giving and he wanted this new book to inspired people in time for that holiday. Therefore, he printed it at his own expense (which he didn’t even do in a cheap way when he insisted that his book be a hardcover with a gilt title). By the way, Dickens aficionado Simon Callow (see the Unquiet Dead blog) has a cameo as the book designer Leech. Charles’s friend John Forster (played by Justin Edwards) advises him against his, but still goes along with the idea. Historian note: Forster was well-known in his own right as a newspaper literary critic. I don’t think he was Dickens’s business manager like the movie shows, but they were close friends and he owned several original manuscripts that Dickens gave to him.

The best parts of the film are when Dickens interacts with a Christopher Plummer Scrooge and the other characters of his novella portrayed by the people who inspired them. This includes how Tiny Tim came from the illness of his nephew Henry Burnett Jr. (the son of his older sister and a popular singer, Fanny, a name also used in A Christmas Carol for Scrooge’s kind sister). Sadly, in reality both Fanny and Henry Jr. would die in 1848 so their being included in the movie feels rather bittersweet.

Most authors do have a way of speaking to their characters or at least being forced to listen to them. However, I’ve yet to have Christopher Plummer show up in my office. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Image belongs to Parallel Films and Rhombus Media. Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer as Dickens and Scrooge respectively

Doctor Who (Unquiet Dead): Movies about Writing

What? A Doctor Who episode about Charles Dickens! Okay, twist my arm.

For those you are clearly not friends with me, Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction show about a time traveling alien who can regenerate and collects companions for the many adventures. Oh. I just made it sound creepy. Well. . . it is British therefore the budget on some of the special effects are creepy in their cheapness.

“The Unquiet Dead” is an early episode from show’s revival the mid-2000s. The Doctor (played for a single season by Christopher Eccelston, remember him) and his new companion Rose (Billie Piper before I found she had been a pop star) arrive in Victorian England during the holiday season in time to see Charles Dickens do a reading of his classic A Christmas Carol. Dickens is played by Simon Callow, a Dickens aficionado who has played the role before on the lives stage.

Dickens, by the way, really did travel the country doing live readings throughout his life. He loved the theater and believed that drama helped sell his books. However, this particular reading is interrupted by the figure of a blue-face old woman who is revealed to be a walking corpse.

As this is Doctor Who, the dead woman is not a zombie, but a body inhabited by a gaseous alien in search of a host. The alien race has taken residence in the gas lamps of a funeral parlor, the owner and maid of which are at a complete loss as to how to cover up the incident. The maid, played by Eve Myles (which is a another Doctor Who tangent I could go off on), has a connection to the aliens (the Gelth) through her sixth sense abilities.

Dickens insists on helping with the mystery, at first declaring it all illusion. Dear old Boz may have written about ghosts, but didn’t really believe in them. He questions whether his lifetime of work was truly the change he wanted it to be if the world was so much bigger. He tries to stick to his sense of reality as he points out his objections to spiritualists of the era. Authors and celebrities were often against the popular mediums of the day using tricks to make people believe they could speak to the dead. These performers were seen by many as taking advantage of the grieving.

The episode focuses a lot on the connection between the maid and the Gelth. Still, the writers made sure to repeatedly show the intelligence of Charles Dickens. Once he does accept the reality of the Gelth, he understands the concept of beings from another world pretty quickly. The Doctor repeatedly praises Dickens’s brilliance, but he does take a moment to criticize the “America” scene from Martin Chuzzlewit (which really is fair - Dickens writes about 1800s USA as if it’s a third world country). Dickens takes offense to the single criticism which is less than fair.

Instead of going into more and spoiling the whole episode, one last note on Charles Dickens depicted in this television show. The show does like so many time traveling shows do and expression Dickens’s desire to use the adventure as inspiration for his latest novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But the most significant is the quote when thinking like a writer in the below image.