Little Dorrit

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.

Sadly, I don't think anyone under the age of 40 will have the patience - or interest - to view this work of art.

I just watched this film on the "This TV" channel; curious title, but when I saw it was based on a work by Charles Dickens I decided it was definitively worth a try.

Dickens presents us with timeless lessons (very relevant to our present lives) in this film about the human condition - a tale about hard work, perseverance, humility, greed, hate, compassion, love (unrequited and rediscovered), devotion and so much more.

The film unfolded clumsily and I nearly dismissed it; so glad I didn't.

A tapestry unfolds of increasing richness and complexity. Dickens presents us with brilliant dialogue and fascinating characters.

There were empty and silent moments - almost unbearably empty . . . that shouted "LOOK & LISTEN!" - see and hear with your heart.

Emptiness bears down upon the viewer; no attempt to shelter us from those "empty" moments with overbearing background music. Nor are there attempts to shorten our discomfort - in fear of our short attention spans.

Now-a days - only a poorly funded "indie" film would dare to risk such a slowly unfolding tale; a quiet tale of a plain, delicate flower - born in the gutter; surviving via some unseen strength and resilience; humbly persevering and outshining all around her.

It is easy (too easy?) to find fault; tear apart a beautiful work such as this - and many do. But, I celebrate this masterpiece which offers us so very much.

There is treasure in Little Dorrit - for all times - for those willing to discover it.

Thank you Charles Dickens - for all your masterful works; the golden threads that unite us all.

This sprawling movie can take a lot of discipline to watch in its entirety, but it is worth seeing just for the performances of Derek Jacobi in the first half and Alec Guinness in the second. Jacobi is wonderful as the gentle, unlucky Arthur Clennam, who keeps finding that through nobody's fault, he keeps missing out on happiness. It is sweetly heartbreaking to follow his growing affection for Minnie Meagles, only to watch her throw herself away on a conceited young fool, whom even she seems to realize cannot equal Clennam in worth. Jacobi has a great actor's ability to tell a story without saying a word, as when he gently drops Minnie's roses into the river and watches them float away, and we realize he is saying goodbye to love. The scene later on in prison, when he discovers that he has missed his chance for love again, but this time it is he who all unaware has been the object of another's love, is breathtaking. Once again, without a word, Jacobi is able to portray his anguish and the chaos of memories and ideas that suddenly assail him, until he is almost suffocating, trapped and helpless in his little cell in the Marshalsea.

The second half of the movie suffers from the absence of Jacobi, and I found myself eagerly looking forward to every chance appearance of his, but Alec Guinness also gives a fine performance as the indigent William Dorrit, whose sudden acquisition of a legacy not only frees him from debtor's prison, but also turns him into a heartless snob and social climber. Among the other performances in this film worth noting, is that of Miriam Margolyse as the aging coquette, Flora Finching, a kindly, ridiculous scatterbrain, talking nonstop while taking little nips out of the medicine bottle to keep up her spirits.

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!

BBC Radio 3 puts out a fascinating programme each week entitled "Building a Library" in which CDs of classical works are compared and evaluated culminating with a "best buy" recommendation. This would hardly be possible with works of cinema where very rarely are there more than two versions, the first invariably the winner as a movie can only be that good to tempt a remake. I suppose one could do a "Building a Library" with "Hamlet" but I wouldn't be in a position to take that on as I only know two versions (Olivier and Branagh) really well. How about a collective "Building a Library" - film versions of Dickens, say, - now that would be a real challenge. Here goes! I won't deal with all as that would take up too much user comment space. Just a few for good measure. Remember Noel Langley's "Pickwick Papers" of 1952 - great fun with a host of good cameo parts from people such as Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Baddeley, Donald Wolfit, Harry Fowler and others but all rather lightweight compared with the rest I have chosen. Earlier still was Cavalcanti's version of "Nicholas Nickleby" for Ealing, some good sets and the scene where wicked Uncle Ralph gets his desserts wonderfully atmospheric, but so much to cram into a film of moderate feature length that scenes scarcely have time to breathe. Although a good try it all seems too rushed. The oddball in this little collection is undoubtedly a 1988 Portugese version of "Hard Times" set in modern day Lisbon by Joao Botelho, well worth seeing as a curiosity but hardly to be compared with my remaining four choices, each very special in its own right. I would have to include one TV version in my shortlist as the BBC generally do their classic serials so well and were on superlative form with their 1999 "David Copperfield", even capping George Cukor's richly entertaining 1935 film. (Just occasionally a more recent version is better!) The reason I admire the BBC version so much is the wonderful casting with Maggie Smith, Pauline Quirke and Nicholas Lyndhurst playing roles they were just born for. There is even a diminutive Harry Potter playing young David most affectingly. It is probably the Dickens adaptation that moves me the most though I suppose it has to be eclipsed by the three that have that greater degree of cinematic imagination. These are the marvellous David Lean '40s adaptations of "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" and most recently Christine Edzard's "Little Dorrit". For a long time "Oliver Twist" was my favourite of the Lean pair, oodles of atmosphere, wonderful art direction and camera-work and a rooftop climax to take the breath away, but I suppose "Great Expectations" has it for libretto, late as opposed to early Dickens and Lean an ever faithful interpreter of the novel's range and subtleties. Without Christine Edzard's "Little Dorrit" it would be the winner. Her remarkable independent production for length alone (two films totalling six hours) dwarfs all contenders. She cleverly tells the same story from the different perspective of the two main protagonists, Arthur Clennem and Amy Dorrit, this "Rashomon" like approach dominating the first half of each film. The pace is leisurely but always purposeful - none of those irritating longueurs of characters taking up time to cross a street or room that bedevil so many TV adaptations. Street scenes in particular have an amazing sense of realism with hoards of people bustling along giving the feeling of just how busy Victorian London must have been, the credit sequence of Part I wonderfully effective in depicting this. We sense from this very opening the loving care with which every background detail of Dickens's vast fresco of society will be unfolded. As in the novel everything revolves around the theme of money and the misery that both possession as well as dispossession can bring. The casting is faultless with marvellous swansongs from Joan Greenwood and Max Wall and Alec Guinness possibly at his finest as William Dorrit, a superb portrayal of a shallow man with delusions of grandeur. Throughout Edzard is at pains to eschew anything that smacks of pathetic fallacy by not over dramatising atmosphere, but the film never looks plain. Although most of the exteriors are studio constructed the interiors have an extraordinary sense of authenticity down to the last detail. Everything looks and sounds exactly right such as the shabby wallpaper of a livingroom in the Marshalsea with at one point the seemingly endless buzzing of a solitary fly. Unlike the Lean films this is one that seems constructed out of everyday incidents rather than great dramatic setpieces. It is not a film that moves and excites as much while one is watching it, until, that is, the final half hour. When it reaches the tragedy of William Dorrit's mental confusion at a society banquet followed by the terrible scene leading up to the suicide of Merdle where he visits his son and daughter-in-law to borrow a knife we have the realisation that to search for an adaptation that more perfectly realises Dickens's intentions would be an impossibility.