Going to the Dickens

I think it’s less a matter of production values, even with digital enhancement, than sheer directorial style that makes recent BBC adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novels – memorably, Bleak House (2005) and Little Dorrit (2008) -- stand out from earlier efforts, however worthwhile. Certainly the quality of acting remains a constant, and the authenticity of speech and dialect makes subtitles highly desirable, which the older dvds of Our Mutual Friend (1998) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) do not offer. So one misses some of Dickens verbal play, and crucial plot points as well. It usually takes several episodes to sort out the characters, and some of the plot twists remain incomprehensible if you haven’t read the book. I’d mostly forgotten the one, and never read the other. So I enjoyed neither of these as much as the first-mentioned pair, nor as much as the Elizabeth Gaskell adaptations I’ve been watching recently. Still, they are worth taking note of. In Our Mutual Friend most of the familiar faces are in supporting character roles, like Timothy Spall or David Morrissey, but one actress stands out, Keeley Hawes as Lizzie Hexum – you have no trouble understanding why two men would become so fixated on her. (She was also good in Wives and Daughters, so I wonder why I haven’t seen her in any movies?) Of the antecedent pair of adaptations, this is the one to watch, with the river and the ash heap, which figure so symbolically in the story, brilliantly rendered. In the other, the elder Martin Chuzzlewit is played by Paul Scofield, and Pecksniff by Tom Wilkinson, both very well indeed, but best of all is Philip Franks as Tom Pinch. David Lodge, one of my favorite novelists, wrote the script, but I found the plot both obvious and opaque at spots. Martin Chuzzlewit is reputed one of Dickens’ worst novels, so maybe he’s to blame. Therefore let me take this occasion to reinforce my strong recommendations of Bleak House and Little Dorrit – watch either of those, and then go on to the others only if you get hooked on BBC versions of Dickens