The film stars Derek Jacobi as Arthur Clennam, Alec Guinness as William Dorrit, and Sarah Pickering in the title role.[4] A huge cast of seasoned British and Irish stage and film actors was assembled to play the dozens of roles, including Simon Dormandy, Joan Greenwood, Roshan Seth, Miriam Margolyes, Cyril Cusack and Max Wall.[5] Pickering, in contrast, had never acted on screen; she was cast after writing to the production team claiming to 'be' Little Dorrit.[6] It remains her only screen acting role.
Little Dorrit lasts nearly six hours and was released in two parts, of approximately three hours each.[2] The first part was subtitled Nobody's Fault, an allusion to one of Dickens' proposed titles for the original novel, and the story developed from the perspective and experiences of the Arthur Clennam character.[7] The second film, titled Little Dorrit's Story, took many of the same events and presented them through the eyes of the heroine. Together they represented overlapping chronicles.[8]
Sands Films, the production company that made the film, is run by Christine Edzard, the screenwriter and director, and her husband Richard B. Goodwin.[9]
Little Dorrit was listed in the BFI's "ten great British films directed by women" in 2014.[10]
Production
This was the first screen adaptation of one of Dickens's longest and most complex books for over 50 years and featured three hundred of Britain's best character actors.[2]
Besides making films, the couple manufactured dolls houses and the sets that were built on site, where the hundreds of costumes were also sewn, were made using miniature models of houses combined with special effects to create the Victorian London background.[4] The elaborate sets constructed included Marshalsea Prison, interiors of well to-do or neglected houses and the busy streets and dock areas of London.[2] Designer Rotislav Doboujinsky worked on the film's sets, and Mrs. Merdle's parrot.
The budget was only $9 million and the pink Sevres china seen on Merdle's dinner-table, which would have been too expensive to rent or to buy, was made in the small pottery at the studios.[12]
Filmed mainly in close and medium shot, its scenes tend to focus intently on one or two characters, the dark interiors and moody lighting evoking a sense of oppression. The theatricality and stylisation are quite deliberate, signalled by Edzard's choice of Verdi for the music soundtrack, full of tragic grandeur and operatic fatalism, but used sparingly, along with birdsong, ticking clocks, and faint sounds from outside.
In the eerily quiet interior scenes a tiny movement or gesture, like dropping a shawl, can have a seismic effect. Occasionally, the long conversation pieces are broken, quite brilliantly, by sudden bursts of activity in the wider world - the print shops around St. Paul's, the bridge where Amy meets Arthur, the public areas of the Marshalsea - where a noisy, purposeful crowd will appear, bustling before the fixed camera. It's a simple, effective way of conjuring up the life of the Victorian city.[2]
Alec Guinness' portrayal of William Dorrit is considered by some to be one of his best starring roles after the 1960s and, along with his role in the TV dramatisation of John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, has been described as "effectively his screen monument".[13] It was the final film of actress Joan Greenwood, who died after a long and successful acting career in 1987, the year of the film's release.[14]
The Region Two DVD was released in the UK on 27 October 2008.[15]
Themes and Interpretations
Little Dorrit continues Edzard's tradition of working beyond the artistic constraints that come with major commercial funding. The six hour length and two-part structure defy box-office norms and, unlike the pictorialism of more typical British period filmmaking, this is not a seductive version of Victorian England.[16] Instead the film's streets are authentically "roaring" - full of people and objects [12]
The director "wanted to avoid the exaggerative, the melodramatic and the sentimental".[12] Some thought her omittance of the novel's melodramatic character – Rigaud – was a serious one which ran the risk of reducing Dickens' allegorical dialectic of good and evil to simply a satire with a love story. However, Edzard was able to reintroduce Rigaud's evil through the character of Merdle and in the way that the ruthlessness of the Circumlocution Office is represented.[17]
In Edzard's "calmly feminist" film, the novel's character of financier Merdle is pushed into the background while the director uses, in an ironic reversal of Merdle's patriarchal role, his wife to speak for him. She allows only his influence to be felt through the "riotous lack of appreciation of the deleterious effects of capitalism throughout various strata of Victorian society."[18]
Reception
Little Dorrit was critically acclaimed and was nominated for two Oscars: Actor in a Supporting Role (Alec Guinness), and Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) (Christine Edzard).[19]Miriam Margolyes won the LA Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Flora Finching.[20] The film received two nominations for the BAFTA Awards 1988: Best Screenplay – Adapted, and Best Costume Design, and one for the Golden Globes (USA) 1989: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Derek Jacobi won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor in 1987.[21]
Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, describing it as an "epic" that is "so filled with characters, so rich in incident, that it has the expansive, luxurious feel of a Victorian novel." He praised the film's double perspective which creates "a real romantic tension", and was positive about the length of the film at six hours for both providing a rhythm and timing in which the viewer can "lose (their) moorings" and adding "tremendous weight to the love story".[4]
For the LA Times the film was "pure astonishment, start to finish. We have never had Dickens with the sweep and perfection of "Little Dorrit," nor one so shatteringly relevant" and "among its many virtues are such a nonchalant array of the cream of British actors as to verge on the indecent". The reviewer praised the director for reflecting "Margaret's Thatcher England better than most", adding "how timely great Dickens can be--or can be in the hands of a great director... for many, the discovery of Christine Edzard, the film's writer-director, will be as potent a find as the novel itself", and "her gift is to bring the evils of the period alive to us, until, through the horrid buzz of the Marshalsea flies, the unending dripping of water, we feel the clammy constriction of the place in our very bones." Camerawork by Bruno de Keyzer was also praised for travelling "with such empathy across the pinched faces of the poor".[22]
Variety noted that "what she (Edzard) has accomplished on a small budget is astounding" and described Alec Guinness's 'William Dorrit' and Derek Jacobi's 'Arthur Clennan' as "quite brilliant." The reviewer thought the film's six hours running time allowed for "full characterization and depth of story", adding that the way the film tells the same story through two different characters "allows charming reinterpretations of certain scenes", presenting "a fully rounded piece as never usually found in the cinema." The painted sets were also mentioned for providing "rich theatrical texture while not deflecting from the story."[23]
The New York Times wrote "The cast is spectacular" and "The film's physical production must be one of the handsomest, most evocative ever given a Dickens novel, and the performances, by some of Britain's finest character actors, are as rich in baroque detail as anyone could hope". The reviewer found the repetition of the double perspective "exahausting", but concluded "One must cherish the late Joan Greenwood as Arthur's terrible mother; Miriam Margolyes as Flora Finching (who speaks in woozily hilarious, nonstop paragraphs instead of phrases or even sentences);... Roshan Seth as the rent collector, Pancks, and Eleanor Bron as Mrs. Merdle, the social-climbing wife of Britain's financial wizard-of-the-moment.[24]
Time Out commented "Little Dorrit is about lucre – filthy and otherwise – so Christine Edzard's masterful two part adaptation of Dickens's novel has a peculiar relevance for today", adding: "Besides the excitement of the story, the chief delight of this epic production lies in the superb performances, which manage to convey Dickens' penchant for the grotesque while suggesting the inner life that many critics deny exists in the novel. Impressive camerawork and Verdi's music help make the six hours roll by far too quickly."[25]
Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as a "faithful" and authentic adaptation of the Dickens original, "lovingly made" on a small budget with the "starry cast giving their all", noting that it was "adored by audiences who could take the length".[26]
Joan Mary Waller Greenwood was an English actress. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. She played Sibella in the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, and also appeared in The Man in the White Suit (1951), Young Wives' Tale (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Stage Struck (1958), Tom Jones (1963) and Little Dorrit (1987).
Little Dorrit is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew.
Oliver Twist is a 1948 British film and the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dickens' 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan, cinematographer Guy Green, designer John Bryan and editor Jack Harris. Lean's then-wife, Kay Walsh, who had collaborated on the screenplay for Great Expectations, played the role of Nancy. John Howard Davies was cast as Oliver, while Alec Guinness portrayed Fagin and Robert Newton played Bill Sykes.
Miriam Margolyes is an English and Australian actress. She has gained prominence as a character actor on stage and screen. She received a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Mrs Mingott in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993), and portrayed Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series (2002–2011). Margolyes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year Honours for Services to Drama.
The Tales of Beatrix Potter is a 1971 ballet film based on the children's stories of English author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. The film was directed by Reginald Mills, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, and featured dancers from The Royal Ballet. The musical score was arranged by John Lanchbery from various sources, such as the operas of Michael Balfe and of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and performed by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Lanchbery. It was produced by Richard Goodwin with John Brabourne as executive producer. The stories were adapted by Goodwin and his wife designer Christine Edzard.
The 14th Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards were announced on 10 December 1988 and given on 24 January 1989.
Christine Edzard is a film director, writer, and costume designer, nominated for BAFTA and Oscar awards for her screenwriting. She has been based in London for most of her career.
Little Dorrit is a 2008 British miniseries based on Charles Dickens's serial novel of the same title, originally published between 1855 and 1857. The screenplay is by Andrew Davies and the episodes were directed by Adam Smith, Dearbhla Walsh, and Diarmuid Lawrence.
The Fool is a 1990 British film set in Victorian England's world of finance directed by Christine Edzard and produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, from a script by Edzard and Olivier Stockman. It stars Derek Jacobi, Cyril Cusack, Ruth Mitchell, Maria Aitken, Irina Brook, Paul Brook and Miranda Richardson. The camerawork was by British cinematographer Robin Vidgeon.
Celia Bannerman is an English actress and director.
Charles Dickens's works are especially associated with London, which is the setting for many of his novels. These works do not just use London as a backdrop but are about the city and its character.
Little Dorrit is a lost 1920 British silent historical drama film directed by Sidney Morgan and starring Lady Tree, Langhorn Burton and Joan Morgan. It is based on the 1857 Charles Dickens' novel of the same name. A few fragments totaling 18 minutes survive, and are featured in the documentary Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood. They've also been uploaded to YouTube.
Little Dorrit is a 1934 German drama film directed by Karel Lamač and starring Gustav Waldau, Anny Ondra, and Hilde Hildebrand. It is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1857 Victorian era novel Little Dorrit, and made a sharp contrast to the light comedies and musicals that Ondra usually appeared in. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Wilhelm Depenau and Erich Zander.
David Pugh was a British actor, probably best known for playing opposite Rosamund Greenwood and Roy Evans in an acclaimed early film by director Tony Scott, Loving Memory, which was shown at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. Other film roles included Daft Jamie in Burke & Hare (1971), one of the leads in the 1972 sex comedy The Love Pill, and a creditor in Christine Edzard's 1987 Dickens adaptation, Little Dorrit.
Stories from a Flying Trunk is a 1979 film based on three stories by Hans Christian Andersen. It was devised, written and directed by Christine Edzard and produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin.
As You Like It is a 1991 British film based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. It was devised, written and directed by Christine Edzard and produced by Olivier Stockman and George Reinhart.
The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream is a 2001 film based on the play A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. It was written and directed by Christine Edzard and produced by Olivier Stockman. The music by Michel Sanvoisin was performed by the Goldsmiths Youth Orchestra, conducted by Eli Corp. The film features Jamie Peachey, John Heyfron, Danny Bishop, Jessica Fowler and Leane Lyson. It uses Shakespeare's complete text, as well as elaborate costumes and “intricately and properly scaled sets” created in the studio.
Biddy is a 1983 film written and directed by Christine Edzard, and produced by Richard B. Goodwin at Sands Films Studios in London. The film stars acclaimed actress and theatre director Celia Bannerman, Sam Ghazoros, Kate Elphic, Patricia Napier, Sally Ashby, and John Dalby. The music was arranged by Michael Sanvoisin and cinematography was by Alec Mills.
The Nightingale is a 1981 film directed by Christine Edzard and produced by Richard B. Goodwin at Sands Films Studios in London. The film features Richard Goolden, Mandy Carlin and John Dalby. The music by Beethoven was arranged by Michael Sanvoisin and cinematography was by Christopher Challis. The film uses puppets to tell Hans Christian Andersen's tale about the song of a nightingale heard by the little kitchen girl at the Emperor of China's palace.
The IMAX Nutcracker is a 1997 short Christmas film directed by Christine Edzard based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It was produced by Celia Bannerman, Andrew Gellis, Lorne Orleans and Olivier Stockman at Sands Films Studios in London. The film stars Miriam Margolyes, Heathcote Williams, Lotte Johnson, Benjamin Hall, Harriet Thorpe, and Patrick Pearson.
↑ Russell, Jackson (2005). "Filming As You Like It: a playful comedy becomes a problem". Actes des Congrès de la Société Française Shakespeare. Vol.23. pp.61–74. doi:10.4000/shakespeare.656.
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