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  • Oliver Twist directed by Roman Polanski
    by Account Closed at 14:20 on 26 November 2005
    I wasn’t that bothered about seeing a new version of the Dickens classic. I was (and still am) a big fan of the musical version, Oliver! so wondered why Polanski had chosen a story that had already had a huge success on film (not forgetting the 1948 David Lean version as well as many others) . Apparently, he wanted to make a film for his daughter (11ish?), but knowing the Oliver Twist plot made me wonder if it could be called a children’s film. However, despite my reservations I headed off to my local cinema to check it out all the same.

    The beginning of the story ran smoothly. The storyline was so familiar I almost expected the whole cinema to join in on the famous: “Please, sir can I have some more” line. In fact, it was like watching a speeded up version of the musical, made faster by the lack of singing and dancing. Oliver’s downfall was so speedy that it made me think of Harrison Ford’s role in the Fugitive, where everything that can go wrong for him, does, in a very short space of time. Little Oliver goes from the harsh reality of orphanage life to funeral parlour brawl to a London courthouse so quickly that I wondered whether a boy of such feeble constitution would really have survived without becoming a gibbering wreck!

    What won me over in this film was the sheer beauty of the scenery and the fine detail of the reconstructions. As an expat, the lush green fields made me yearn for Britain, and seeing the magnificent horse-drawn carriages racing through the streets of 'olde London’ made me wish I’d been alive (and rich, of course) at the time.

    The casting was spot on: Barney Clark was perfect with his fragile regard and skinny little legs, Ben Kingsley, unrecognisable as Fagin, although almost identical to Ron Moody in Oliver! and although Jimmy Forman played Bill Sykes very well, I couldn’t help thinking he looked like a 19th century version of Ricky Gervais which rather took away the seriousness of his role!

    Without giving anything away, this version moves away from the musical at the end and really gives Ben Kingsley the chance to excel in a much darker conclusion. I certainly wouldn’t take a child to see it and would only take a teenager (or an adult for that matter!) who felt good about himself. Feelgood film, it certainly aint.

    Watching the orphanage scenes, with the unbearable contrast between the dinners being eaten by the workhouse boys and their patrons, I did think for a moment about the current situation in France, with the downtrodden, neglected tower-block inhabitants burning cars to bring attention to themselves. Are they not, in a way, modern-day Oliver Twists - holding out their own bowls and asking for more?
  • Re: Oliver Twist directed by Roman Polanski
    by Cornelia at 11:06 on 04 December 2005
    I like the parallel you draw at the end, e.g. It's a shame we don't have our own Dickens and Defoes these days. Like you, I think Lionel Bart's 'Oliver!' is the bench mark, and didn't have high expectations of this remake. I think the Polanski film scores on realism - we experience more fully what was like to attempt the walk to London, as well as living conditions for the poor in the capital - the child-labour scene in the workhouse, for instance, is a harrowing addition. Polanski had removed a lot of the cosiness and the picturesque that informs much of Dickens' works - the tavern scene with Shani Wallis singing 'Oom-pah-pah is one of my favourites of the Bart version - and a great contrast to the one-note mood of Polanski's earnest concerns.

    Sheila