Tuesday 7th February is Charles Dickens bicentenary

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/17/charles-dickens-bicentary-film-tv
<snip>
From Alec Guinness as Fagin to Miss Piggy as Mrs Cratchit, the BFI is staging a three-month retrospective of Dickens on film and TV on London's South Bank from January, to mark the novelist's bicentenary.. The season is curated by Michael Eaton and Co-curator Adrian Wootton, said Dickens's influence on cinema and TV had been immense and continues right up to the present day, with Mike Newell's Great Expectations the next movie outing for Dickens. "It demonstrates that he is not a dead, grey old man sitting on dusty shelves who nobody reads, he is a living breathing artist whose work just keeps on rippling and resonating through our culture."

All the novels have been adapted to some degree. There are around 100 silent films, of which around a third still exist, "although we keep finding new ones all over the world and I still think there's many more out there," said Eaton.The season will include the earliest extant example of Dickens on film, a fragment from 1901 called Scrooge – or Marley's Ghost, and a version of Oliver Twist starring Jackie Coogan, who made his name in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and who, much later in life, made his name all over again as Uncle Fester in the The Addams Family. The film was believed lost for decades until a print turned up in Yugoslavia in the 70s. Coogan himself helped with its reconstruction. Classic Dickens adaptations will include David Lean's 1948 Oliver Twist, Carol Reed's 1968 musical Oliver! and Roman Polanski's 2005 darker take. The curators said many people first encountered Dickens through TV and so five major adaptations will be screened in their entirety, beginning with Our Mutual Friend (1976) and ending with Bleak House (1985) in March. The RSC's eight-hour production The Life & Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which was on the fledgling Channel 4, will also be screened with a panel discussion involving directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird, and actor David Threlfall who died so memorably as Smike.
---------------------
Did you know that Dickens and Bob Marley shared the same birthday - both were great social commentators.

My favorite Dickens was always David Copperfield - what's yours.

[grasswire]

1. we LOVED the Bleak House series on public television

All of us, even the teenagers, LOVED it. Must see it again.

[malaise]

2. I want to watch everything again

We were brought up on Dickens at school

[malaise]

17. Here's a great read on the celebrations and much more

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/were-gaga-200-years-on-so-what-the-dickens-is-all-the-fuss-20120131-1qr6h.html
<snip>
We're gaga 200 years on, so what the Dickens is all the fuss?
Bob Minzesheimer
February 1, 2012

IN LONDON'S Westminster Abbey on February 7, a ceremony for Charles Dickens' 200th birthday will star a fellow showman: actor/director Ralph Fiennes (more on him later).

Biographer Claire Tomalin says: ''He has always been loved by ordinary people because they knew he was on their side. The rich are less keen on him. He took high art to the masses.'' (Tomalin wrote the 527-page Charles Dickens: A Life, released last spring, joining a shelf's worth of biographies.)

All of Dickens' work was adapted for the stage during his lifetime, often with the author in the cast. (He died in 1870, worn out at the age of 58.)

On his second visit to America in 1867-68, a book tour to end all book tours, Dickens wrote home, ''Wherever I go, they play [perform] my books, with my name in big letters.''

Hollywood's embrace of Dickens began early (A Tale of Two Cities was shot as a silent film in 1911) and includes Disney animations (Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983) and comic spinoffs (Bill Murray's Scrooged in 1988).

[southernyankeebelle]

3. I love all of Classic Dickens. Every time I see them on tv I make sure to bookmark

them. Loved the books too. I would have a hard time picking the best of the best.

[Nostradammit]

4. David Copperfield here, too

Though I love Great Expectations and Tale of Two Cities and have a soft spot for The Old Curiosity Shop.

Haven't yet read Bleak House but the TV series was completely entertaining and the Little Dorrit series was great as well.

I've determined lately to read all of his books - his ability to illustrate the human struggle never ceases to amaze and after every book I feel as though I've made ten new friends.

[malaise]

7. I'm rereading David Copperfield right how

and I see so many parallels with poverty and meanness today. But there were good people as well.
Funny I was an adult before I realized that David Copperfield was his favorite book and it was almost autobiographical.

[Nostradammit]

14. Oh yes!

Last edited Fri Feb 3, 2012, 10:51 PM - Edit history (1)

"...and I see so many parallels with poverty and meanness today."


And yet some of our noisiest authorities insist on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only!

Some people say his characters were too much caricature and one-dimensional but I think he was brilliant at latching on to a character's essence and illustrating it with repetition of behavior.
Some people really are just wicked and hopeless and some are hopelessly idealistic and self-sacrificing. The tapestry that makes the world.



Re: David Copperfield - every time we go to the beach I always wish I had a house there made out of an upturned boat. If I ever win the lottery I'm gonna build one, I swear.

[malaise]

15. LOL

'Barkis is willin'

Nice post

[pinboy3niner]

5. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

A Tale of Two Cities for me.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

[malaise]

8. That'a a great book but Copperfield remains

my favorite

[OriginalGeek]

18. Mine too

I just got a Kindle touch and the first thing I did was download A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. I need to get David Copperfield.


Hadn't read either one since I was a teenager and find I am enjoying Tale even more now. I have great expectations for Great Expectations too.

[malaise]

19. I enjoy rereading Dickens more and more

[flexnor]

6. newt's bringing back child labor to honor it nt

[malaise]

9. Gingrich is Mr. Murdstone

A complete scumbag

[mmonk]

10. Today's America is like a Dickens novel.

And here's Cedella Marley on Bob

#!

[malaise]

11. There sure are shares of the 19th century evident these days

By the way, there's a big Marley celebration in Trench Town tomorrow night

[mmonk]

13. Very good. Thanks for the info.

[joeybee12]

12. David Copperfield...my favorite adaptations are A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim

and the Royal Shekspeare production of Nicholas Nickleby!

[malaise]

16. Never saw that production of Nicholas Nickleby

I'm going to watch everything this year - hopefully BBCInternational and BBC America will cooperate