The Man Who Invented Christmas
03/12/17 Filed in: Cinema
Of course Charles Dickens didn't invent Christmas, but his short story 'A Christmas Carol' arguably influenced people's sentiments during the festive season and changed the nature of the festival.
Dan Stevens, who infamously deserted Downton Abbey immediately after marrying Lady Mary, breaking many hearts in the process, plays Dickens. Let's hope the Abbey fans have forgiven him. Reviews would tend to indicate that they have, since although some of the more 'serious' critics have rubbished this film audience approval is high. For me it seemed less like a feature film and more of a BBC period drama, much in the fashion of Dickensian, which was broadcast in early 2016 but didn't survive for a second series.
After some very successful novels Dickens is going through a lean patch. Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit haven't been well received, and having moved the family into a more prestigious abode money is becoming tight. To secure an advance from his publishers he is nudged by his friend, John Foster, into committing to a new book, which he says will be about Christmas, and will be published within a very short timescale ready for the festive holiday. But he is shown as having what we would now call writers' block.
A series of events provide him with inspiration for his new story. A doddery old waiter with the name of Marley, a curmudgeonly businessman at the funeral of his associate, a new maid who introduces the idea of a ghost story and a collection of local people who, as always, inspired Dickens' writing. A visit from his sister, whose little boy walks with a crutch, and is not in good health, adds to the cast. Once Dickens has formulated his principal character in his mind, after first coming up with a name for him, then the story can be written. And thus Scrooge becomes a physical presence, as do other characters who occupy Dickens' study as he develops the story.
Dickens' father turns up, which is unwelcome as he is disruptive and has a history of poor financial prudence, from which we learn of the young Dickens' experience of poverty when his father was arrested for debts. This early exposure to the life of the less fortunate, when he was employed in a 'blacking factory', clearly influenced Dickens' works, and enabled him to add a realism missing from other contemporary authors. His annoyance with his father combines with his now deep involvement with Scrooge, who now not only inhabits Dickens' presence but also starts to question his values. This ultimately leads to a bit of a epiphany, which enables Dickens to write the final chapter of the story that has until then been eluding him. No longer will Tiny Tim die, and there will be redemption for Scrooge, something that up until this point did not seem possible in Dickens' mind.
This is a light-hearted and no doubt historically flawed account of the writing of A Christmas Carol, but as we approach Christmas it is a well-timed release that doesn't ask a great deal of the audience. After all, this short story is probably the most successful piece of fiction that Dickens ever wrote. By Christmas of 1843 it had sold six thousand copies and eight stage adaptations were in production within two months of the book being published. As Dickens said of the book:
Dickens' father turns up, which is unwelcome as he is disruptive and has a history of poor financial prudence, from which we learn of the young Dickens' experience of poverty when his father was arrested for debts. This early exposure to the life of the less fortunate, when he was employed in a 'blacking factory', clearly influenced Dickens' works, and enabled him to add a realism missing from other contemporary authors. His annoyance with his father combines with his now deep involvement with Scrooge, who now not only inhabits Dickens' presence but also starts to question his values. This ultimately leads to a bit of a epiphany, which enables Dickens to write the final chapter of the story that has until then been eluding him. No longer will Tiny Tim die, and there will be redemption for Scrooge, something that up until this point did not seem possible in Dickens' mind.
This is a light-hearted and no doubt historically flawed account of the writing of A Christmas Carol, but as we approach Christmas it is a well-timed release that doesn't ask a great deal of the audience. After all, this short story is probably the most successful piece of fiction that Dickens ever wrote. By Christmas of 1843 it had sold six thousand copies and eight stage adaptations were in production within two months of the book being published. As Dickens said of the book:
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.