He Said / He Said: In Defense of the New Christmas Carol

I’m an odd person to be defending the most recent screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I’m one of Robert Zemeckis’ longest-lingering detractors. I don’t think Zemeckis lost his storytelling soul when he turned to performance capture animation in Polar Express and Beowulf—I think he gave over to the seduction of technological trickery 25 years ago with Back to the Future II. That’s right. While I don’t hate the Back to the Future films, I don’t love them much, either. Nor am I charmed by Who Framed Roger Rabbit (or the news of a sequel). And I loathe Forrest Gump. All because I feel, as James pointed out in his review, that Zemeckis cares more about technical trickery than the human condition or solid storytelling.

But I have to admit, I liked some of the dazzling visual aspects of Beowulf. I know Zemeckis has continued to lose more of whatever artistic vision he once had (in Used Cars!) the deeper he dives into performance-capture filmmaking, but I applaud this about his obsession: He’s using it to bring true literary classics to a new generation.

That’s why I like his new version of A Christmas Carol. Yes, the constant visual showing off, the flying and diving, the "oooh look we recreated all of Victorian London" gimcrackery is obvious and a bit irritating. But on the other hand, wow, they really did recreate all of Victorian London. The literary buff, Anglophile, and history buff in me can’t help but be impressed, even dazzled by that.

And more impressive is how faithful an adaptation this is. Disney was in a pickle trying to promote it—after all, you say “Jim Carrey” and “Scrooge” and immediately people leap to the obvious conclusion: That this will be The Grinch Part Deux, with Carrey doing his rubber-faced mugging and riffing, throwing out the wacky voices and silly pop-culture shtick. But it’s not. This is Dickens done (for the most part) straight. The dialogue, the vocabulary, the mannerisms, the story details are all reverent and authentic. In the film’s first two-thirds there is little pandering to modern or pre-teen audiences. No one slows down to explain what Scrooge or the ghosts are saying or meaning when they converse in Dickens’ Victorian language.

For those of you saying it’s all too dark and depressing, too scary, well read your classics. Dickens’ tale is just as much a ghost story as it is a Christmas yarn. Sure the film opens on a corpse, but it’s Dickens for Chuck’s sake. Throughout the novella, he’s making a very heavy point about the suffering of humankind and men like Marley and Scrooge’s obliviousness to it. The majority of A Christmas Carol has to be grim and gloomy in order to sell the joyful redemption at the end.

And much of what seems over-the-top grotesque in Zemeckis’ film is from the original text: Marley’s jaw falling off, the Ghost of Christmas Present revealing the horrifying children (Ignorance and Want) under his robe? All right there in Dickens. Nor was Dickens about gently coaxing his characters into holistic change—he knew that to truly get people to change their selfish, misanthropic ways you have to hit them hard over the head with scary visions of their own miserable, lonely, burning death.

Yes, for sure, in that last act, with the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come, Zemeckis feels he has to do something to keep the young nippers in the audience from getting fidgety, or worse, falling asleep, so here comes the funeral coach horse chase and the Incredible Shrinking Scrooge. And yes, even though it’s carefully calculated and placed in the film to hold kids' attention (after all, they’ve been so patient during the first hour of Dickensonian banter), it all gets to be a bit too much.

The sad thing is that all this tomfoolery in the final stretch only serves to weaken the film’s emotional finale. As James noted in his review, you can’t really screw up A Christmas Carol—even Bill Murray at his laziest ‘80s lounge-lizard worst squeezes tears from me in Scrooged (and yes, I do adore Scrooged)—but Zemeckis almost misses the landing. As many of us have noted, Zemeckis doesn’t care much about his characters or their richer emotions, but as long as he stuck to Dickens, the original story carried his Scrooge along nicely. When the new film abandons the classic book to go skylarking off on thrill rides toward the end, it barely has enough energy left to get back on track and deliver up Scrooge’s touching, and heartfelt conversion. (And this film’s Tiny Tim is a creepy travesty, a weird face lost in the Uncanny Valley of Precious Moments figurines. That certainly hurts the cause when he must become the symbol of Scrooge’s charitable rebirth.)

Disney and Zemeckis had a tough sell here. Many viewers came to this Christmas Carol expecting something like Scrooged or Carrey in The Grinch—a holiday candy basket full of light and silly fast-paced fun. And many others came in prepared to be appalled by the atrocities foisted on Dickens in the name of short-attention-span pandering. Still others rightfully hate the weird mannequin dead-eye aspects of performance capture and Zemeckis’ admittedly myopic devotion to it. I'm always suspicious of Disney's drive to expand and fortify the all-powerful Mouse Empire, but while Disney is all about branding and selling the product, in this case at least the product is Charles Dickens' timeless writing.

As someone who still tries to re-read Dickens’s A Christmas Carol most Decembers (especially those when I’m feeling especially Scrooge-y), I came away impressed by the new film’s commitment to its source, by the clear love Carrey appears to have for the character and the tale. And as a former English teacher, I say if you have to sprinkle the classics with a little modern visual kineticism and slapstick action, that's okay if it means a few more kids will pick up a Dickens book sometime in the future.

Comments

[Livia]

Heard of A Christmas Carol before from my friend. This film seems like a time-travel animated film-like The Time Traveler's Wife but different plot, characters-etc. I might see it depending on the previes\reviews on it because I want to know how good it is\how stupid it is before I go see it.

[JGM]

Well, Locke, after some months of "me too" posts, I'm almost relieved that we've finally found a point of departure on our tastes and opinions. Although I've not seen Beowulf nor Polar Express, I have in the past found myself coming to Zemeckis' defense, particularly in the case of Gump, which seems to raise the hackles of many of those who think a bit deeper about film, despite (because of?) it's huge commercial popularity.

In A World where movies are increasingly bifurcated into "popcorn flicks" and "serious films", he's one guy who's consistently been able to make the former while maintaining some degree of multi-layered storytelling, willingness to be unconventional in approach, and, most notably, ability to use SFX to advance a story rather than as the reason for the film (I'm thinking of Gump, Contact and Cast Away in particular here).

OK, Zemeckis has had his misses for me, too (never much cared for Romancing the Stone or Death Becomes Her). I love Roger Rabbit but can see where it would be an acquired taste. But, slagging on BTTF, the most seamlessly executed time-travel stories ever? Really? From a self-professed Sci Fi Geek? Inconceivable!

[Livia]

Heard of BTTF before from one of my family members, it's an old movie. I'm a fan of TTTW (The Time Traveler's Wife) because it's just a great film. Time-travel films just makes me realize you can't stop time, btw I might see this film A Christmas Carol in the theatre or just wait for rent.