Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist

Critics of adaptations of Dickens’s fiction have long discounted the possibility (or viability) of measuring their quality in terms of faithfulness to the original novels. Yet despite scholarship by the likes of Grahame Smith, Joss Marsh and Brian McFarlane in this ‘anti-fidelity’ vein, there has be...

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Main Author: Chris Louttit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2012-01-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/cve/12239
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author Chris Louttit
author_facet Chris Louttit
author_sort Chris Louttit
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description Critics of adaptations of Dickens’s fiction have long discounted the possibility (or viability) of measuring their quality in terms of faithfulness to the original novels. Yet despite scholarship by the likes of Grahame Smith, Joss Marsh and Brian McFarlane in this ‘anti-fidelity’ vein, there has been relatively little sustained discussion of intertextual echoes between different adaptations of the same text. This essay provides one such account by analysing the influence of David Lean’s classic 1948 Cineguild production on subsequent films, with a particular focus on two twenty-first-century examples. The dramatic and aesthetic effectiveness of Lean’s Oliver Twist might be seen, in a sense, as an improvement on the efforts of an inexperienced writer, and it has certainly had a strong effect on the novel’s life on film and television. In interestingly varied ways, as this essay will show, subsequent filmmakers must offer a response to the David Lean version as well as providing a reinterpretation of the novel itself.
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spelling doaj.art-71aaf446ccd44e1793755f57661812192023-01-04T11:25:59ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492012-01-0110.4000/cve.12239Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver TwistChris LouttitCritics of adaptations of Dickens’s fiction have long discounted the possibility (or viability) of measuring their quality in terms of faithfulness to the original novels. Yet despite scholarship by the likes of Grahame Smith, Joss Marsh and Brian McFarlane in this ‘anti-fidelity’ vein, there has been relatively little sustained discussion of intertextual echoes between different adaptations of the same text. This essay provides one such account by analysing the influence of David Lean’s classic 1948 Cineguild production on subsequent films, with a particular focus on two twenty-first-century examples. The dramatic and aesthetic effectiveness of Lean’s Oliver Twist might be seen, in a sense, as an improvement on the efforts of an inexperienced writer, and it has certainly had a strong effect on the novel’s life on film and television. In interestingly varied ways, as this essay will show, subsequent filmmakers must offer a response to the David Lean version as well as providing a reinterpretation of the novel itself.http://journals.openedition.org/cve/12239
spellingShingle Chris Louttit
Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
title Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
title_full Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
title_fullStr Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
title_full_unstemmed Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
title_short Dickens, David Lean, and After: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations of Oliver Twist
title_sort dickens david lean and after twenty first century adaptations of oliver twist
url http://journals.openedition.org/cve/12239
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