Little Dorrit

"Little Dorrit" is hands-down the best movie I've ever seen. One of the best things about it is that it is two movies telling different sides of the same story. I enjoy watching it because I notice something new with every viewing. If you watch one scene in the first movie and watch it in the second movie (e.g., the "parricidal" scene), there are subtle differences based on the storyteller's perception. In "Nobody's Fault", when Amy comes to visit Clennam in the Marshalsea, he sees her wearing the flowered shawl that she always wore when she was poor; when we see the same scene in the second film, she is wearing a black shawl bought when she was wealthy.

The acting is top-notch. The set designs and costumes are the most authentic I have ever seen. The production worked hard to match the original drawings that accompanied the Dickens novel. A sheer delight!

Little Dorrit is thought by many critics to be Dickens most important book, a blistering attack on the evils of the Victorian world in which he lived. Quite a bit of it came from real life. Dickens' father had spent some time in the Marshalsea debtors prison, and several of the corrupt landlords and incompetent officials of the book were based on prominent real people. The establishment was NOT amused, and neglected it so aggressively that it has always been much less well-known than most of his work.

This film has also dwelt in the shadows. As a pair of 3-hour films that are best viewed in a single day (with a break), nobody could figure how to handle it commercially. Also, it only exists today as a long-out-of-print VHS tape and 4-disc laser set. Maybe someday the Critereon Collection will issue a DVD, but I'm not holding my breath.

Nonetheless, it was one of Alec Guinness's very best performances, and, if you love - or even just like - Dickens, the whole 6 hour total-immersion experience is magical.

Roger Ebert's review from 1988, which is online several places, really captures how special "Little Dorrit" is.

When I saw this film, in "Part 1" and "Part 2" format, in the cinema, I truly did not think I would return the following week for Part 2. All exposition, seemingly nothing happening. What a slog! Then, in the final moments of the film, question upon question is posed, with the invitation to see the same story from a different point of view - wait, what? I had to come back! I was then treated to three hours of pure payoff! Everything from Part 1 was answered in Part 2 and I had the most transformative film going experience yet. With the caveat that the first three hours are homework, I have only ever highly recommended this adaptation. Love it!

The recent TV adaptation of Little Dorrit sent me out in search of this movie version, which I hadn't seen since its original release.

This mammoth project was written and directed by Christine Edzard and is the closest that cinema has come to capturing the richness of a Dickens novel. I enjoyed seeing it again on DVD, but I was disappointed to find it was not nearly as good as I had remembered it.

The performances are variable, as you would expect with such a massive cast. However, the leads are generally pretty good.

Derek Jacobi's melancholy is always arresting (and sorely missed in the TV version) but his performance overall lacked some light and shade.

Alec Guinness effortlessly conveys the patrician pretensions of the imprisoned Mr Dorrit (better than Tom Courtney) but we don't get enough of his underlying anxiety when he is released, so his mental breakdown is sprung on us without adequate preparation.

Sarah Pickering is steered through the picture without mishap and is an acceptable Amy, but is clearly not an experienced actor and this appears to be her only screen credit.

In accordance with a long-established tradition a number of the minor characters are played by comics and comic actors. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. This movie is no different.

Patricia Hayes is a good character actor, but for British viewers she carries too much baggage. She is having to fight against her normally forceful personality to play the timorous, oppressed Affery.

Similarly, Bill Frazer is best known for his comedy work, where he typically plays a blustering bully. This comic persona is not quite right for the bogus Casby, but the problem here is not Frazer's performance but the strangely truncated part.

Max Wall was a master of physical comedy who became the darling of 'intellectuals' but he was not an actor and his Fintwinch is not a performance.

Flora was based on a woman Dickens actually knew and his depiction of her was rather cruel. Miriam Margolyes's comic monster may be faithful to Dickens but misses the opportunity to suggest an underlying sadness in Flora.

Of the comics, Pauline Quirke fares best and gives a lovely performance as the mentally-arrested Maggy.

However, my main reservations concern Edzard's screenplay and direction.

She took an unusual approach to this long book. Instead of just breaking it in half, she extracted two parallel story lines and gave us two overlapping first person narratives: Arthur is in every scene in the first movie and Amy is in every scene in the second one. I don't think this experiment really works.

The problem is that Dickens wrote very much in the third person. His complex plots are told through a wide range of characters, spanning the whole social spectrum, and the story moves forward on a broad front. In this book there is too much going on outside the direct experience of Arthur and Amy for a coherent story to be told entirely from their perspectives. Characters pop in and out of the action without us knowing enough about who they are and how they relate to the leads. Things happen without sufficient justification. For example, Pancks denounces Casby as a hypocrite without us seeing any of the hypocrisy. Important plot developments, such as the rise and fall of Mr Merdle, appear out of nowhere.

The first movie, in particular, suffers from this approach. There are noticeable gaps that are only filled in the second movie (if at all) and key narrative strands, such as Arthur's relationship with his mother, are left hanging unresolved. This leaves us intrigued and wanting to know more, which is probably why Edzard did it this way. However, it also means the whole of the first movie becomes a teaser - but it is a three-hour teaser!

I also feel that Ezard is too indulgent with Dickens's dialogue. It is often great, but he wrote for the page, not the screen, and his wordy speeches need severe editing to make them speakable. Edzard sometimes lets them run on too much, leaving scenes over-written and over-long. Overall, I felt she could have used the six hours more effectively.

I also felt that Edzard's relative inexperience as a director was evident on a number of occasions.

In some scenes, the pacing and rhythm is not quite right. In the early stages, in particular, she choreographs Derek Jacobi in slow motion and there are agonising pauses between lines. Elsewhere, her staging is often too theatrical. Characters whirl around the set, going in and out of shot at random, with the camera trailing in their wake. In simple dialogue scenes she hold shots for too long: dwelling on the speaker when when the scene is crying out for a reaction shot. Simple devices, like montages and flashbacks, are curiously unconvincing in ways I immediately sensed but cannot quite describe.

It doesn't help that the sound recording is quite poor (at least on the DVD). I sometimes struggled to pick up individual lines. When Arthur learns of a death abroad, I didn't actually hear who had died and had to wait several minutes to find out. At times, the garrulous Flora could have been speaking Martian for all I knew.

I applaud the ambition of this project, but it is a bit of a mess. It can be a moving, engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable mess. But it is still a mess. It is so manifestly a clunky piece of film-making that I am at a loss to understand the rapturous praise it has received from other IMDb reviewers.

However, I appear to be in a minority of one, so I suppose I must expect to get slaughtered if anyone ever gets round to reading my own comments.

Have you ever wondered what they meant when they said "Debtor's Prison?" This line as pretty common place in British Films, however none more so than in The Movie "SCROOGE", with the excellent Alistair Sims. This is where the person who had taken a loan and wouldn't be able to repay it was afraid of going to "Debtor's Prison", saying " I can't take me wife to Debtor's Prison?" Scrooge then turned on him and told him it had nothing to do with his wife or with himself or that matter. And wished a god Day. Remember? Well since that time I have always wondered about "Debtor's Prison" and just what does this place do and so on. This then is what Little Dorrit is based upon, life in Debtor's Prison. Alec Guinness was absolutely Brilliant as Mr. William Dorrit, whom after having fallen on hard times, tried to maintain an air of Aristocracy, Class and Distinction even if he was in Debtor's Prison. We Watch Little Dorrit come into the world in this place and discover hat there are others who are just as bad off, yet all maintain themselves as best as they can. We see Little Dorrit grow into a fine young lady and we see what it must have been like, living in the Victorian age, of Pomposity, and Airs of Superiority and Aristocracy. "One must Maintain appearances", would say William Dorrit and so it went. This is a rather slow paced film, which only serves to add to the impression of the time. To me, this film is the ultimate look into what it must have been like to live in wretched poverty, in Debtor's prison all the while maintaining one's position in life and one's sense of integrity. Mr. Guinness was Unbelievable as William Dorrit. You knew what he was trying to do, but you also knew " As did he" how futile it all was. But as it goes along, you find your self, drawn into the movie, it doesn't speed up for you,rather it calms you and bring's you unto itself. The true mark of excellence in a truly good movie. I would highly recommend this movie, most especially as a Family viewing affair. Get out the popcorn, get all the drinks ready and anything else that you could want and when your ready, step into the magnificent world of 18th century England and live a little in a place called Debtor's prison, for about 1 and 1/2 Hrs. The cast are absolutely excellent in their individual roles. I could name them all and tell you why, but it's much better if you see them for yourself. This Film is a real Gem and a very rare treat. Happy Viewing. Warmest Regards Aaron