[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film is Lit. The podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another. It's the man who invented Christmas. And this film is lit. Foreign.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Welcome back to this film Isleth the Pockets. We're talking about movies that are based on books.
It's our pre Christmas episode, not our Christmas episode. Not a prequel episode, but our pre Christmas episode.
We have so much to talk about with this movie. The man who Invented Christmas. We do not have a guess who this week, but we do have all the rest of our segments. We're gonna start if you have not read or watched the Man. Is that what the book's called?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: If you have not read or watched the man who Invented Christmas, we're gonna give you a summary of the film, which either isn't really like the book, we'll get into it, but we are gonna give you a summary of the film right now. Let me explain.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up. In 1943, four years after the success of Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens is suffering financial hardship. After the failures of his last three books rejected by his publishers, he sets out to write a new one and publish it himself or his finances. Seeing inspiration around London, most notably a rich man's funeral that is largely unattended, and a mean spirited old man who gives him the catchphrase humbug and inspiration of a new character, Charles begins writing A Christmas Carol. It's due in six weeks in order to be published by Christmas, despite his friends and publishers telling him that the book will also be a failure, as Christmas at the time was considered irrelevant and few people celebrated it. As Charles develops the story, he interacts with the characters that manifest in front of him, most notably Ebenezer screwed Ebenezer Scrooge. He is helped by one of his servants, Tara, a literate Irish nursemaid to his children, with whom he discusses story elements. While writing his book, Charles is greeted by the unannounced arrival of his eccentric father, John Dickens, whom Charles views as immature and fiscally irresponsible. When Charles shows Tara the next draft, she is distraught that Scrooge would not save Tiny Tim. She believes that people can change and suggests that instead that Scrooge saved Tiny Tim.
However, Charles finds it difficult to accept that a man as cruel and cold as Scrooge could undergo a transformation. He rejects the idea, yet it continues to trouble him, manifesting as writer's block.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: As he struggles with resolving Scrooge's ending, his relationships with family and friends become increasingly strained, where his debts continue while his debts continue to grow. Finally, Charles sends both his parents and Tara out of the house in a fit of rage. The next morning, he regrets dismissing her, but is unable to find and rehire her. Tara, that is not his mother.
Because whoever wrote this is stupid.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Whoever writes the Wikipedia summaries, they do a bad job. I don't know. Almost every time. His wife, Catherine Dickens, tearfully confronts Charles over his recklessness and instability and admits that she believes that he puts his work before his own family. It is revealed that much of Charles's animosity towards his father stems from his childhood trauma of laboring in a blacking factory. After his family was taken to debtors prison, all due to John Dickens failure to pay his debts, Charles returns to the long abandoned factory where he confronts his own insecurities through the figure of Scrooge. Realizing that the story must center on redemption, he races home to complete the manuscript. Manuscript. As he prepares to deliver it to the printer, Tara arrives to return a book he had lent her. Charles apologizes for his earlier outburst and invites her back into the household. At his wife's suggestion, Charles also reconciles with his father, who is preparing to leave London. After reuniting with his family. He submits the manuscript in time for publication. Before Christmas, the Dickens family celebrates the holiday and a closing text notes the overnight success of A Christmas Carol and its enduring influence on Christmas tradition.
There you go.
All right, we don't have a guess who, but we do have Lizette in the book because I have a lot of questions. Let's get to it.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Gaston. May I have my book, please?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: How can you read this?
[00:04:34] Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination, so I just want to give a little disclaimer at the top that I am not a Dickensian scholar.
I've read this one book and a couple of Wikipedia articles and that is the extent of my knowledge. So if you know more about Charles Dickens than I do. Feel free to leave comments on our social media, but don't come for me.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: So my first question is the movie opens up with Dickens on tour in the US where he is hailed as a genius and he's selling out theaters. And it opens with some voiceover, which we get throughout the film from Dickens of him kind of remarking on the sensational nature of the fame that he has achieved at this point.
And I wanted to know if that seemed like it came. So for those who don't know, the book is a biography, right? Yeah, essentially.
And so this is a very fiction. The movie is like a fictionalized kind of work based on his true life events. But anyways, so my question is, did in the biography, do we have any indication or inclination that Dickens kind of grappled with his fame in the same way that he does in the movie? Because in the movie he's, he. He seems to kind of acknowledge that it's ridiculous that somebody like him is as famous as he is, but also very clearly relishes it and it is something he enjoys and is. Is a little bit. You can tell he has a little bit of an ego right off the bat. And I want to know if that felt true to the Dickens of the biography.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: The vibe that I got from the book was more of the relishing part and less of the realizing that it's a little bit ridiculous part.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I don't even know how much of that came through in the movie, to be fair. I thought I had a little, I will admit part of this.
I had trouble.
Some of the dialogue, I had trouble understanding occasionally, especially at the beginning, for some reason I was.
The accents of. Somebody was throwing me. I don't know, I had a little bit. So he may not have been remarking on it being. But I, I was interpreting part of his comments as being a little like, this is a little insane. That. Yeah, the, the reaction to me, an author is this, but also very clearly and I think more prominently you could tell that, yes, he enjoyed being kind of regarded so highly by all of these people.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Well, so then we cut forward three, four years. Three years, several years a while, and he.
We get a title card that basically says jump forward. And he has had like several.
I think it says on the title card. Right. That he has had several failures of books.
And so he has had several books in a row fail after that, you know, in the subsequent years. And he is in a sticky financial situation, which is kind of the impetus that means he needs to write a new book post Haste that needs to be successful because the financial issues are stacking up the.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Renovations on their home. And we find out later that his wife is having another child.
And so all of these kind of financial situations are stacking up and his books have not been selling. And I wanted to know if that impetus was the same is true, if that came from reality of him needing to write this next book to be kind of a success because he was up against it.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that is absolutely the case, at least according to this book.
So he had had three flops in a row.
He wrote Barnaby Rudge, which was not a success. And then he had a book about his trip to America which was not a success.
And then at the time that he wrote A Christmas Carol, he was in the process of writing because he published serially.
So he was in the process.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: He was publishing another novel serially. And it was also not getting the reception that everyone was hoping it would.
So his finances were not doing so hot and he decided to write A Christmas Carol. And like the vibe that I got was that he did really like, he was really excited about A Christmas Carol and he did really like believe in the message of it. But also he was hoping to make like some quick cash flow from the publication.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: We then move forward and we're. He has now decided to write this book and. Or that he needs. He's thinking about this next book that he's writing. And we cut to a scene of him and Forester, who is his friend. Slash something which I have a question about later.
Primarily friend, it would appear.
And they're sitting in this restaurant that they always frequent, chit chatting about stuff. And the waiter walks up to take their order and it's this older gentleman and he announces himself or they reply to him as and. And call him Marley. And it turns out his name is Marley.
And so obviously this is, I think, the first instance in the movie that we see where a real life event is depicted here as the inspiration for some element of A Christmas Carol. In this instance, it's really just his name. Like nothing about him as a person really translates to the Marley character, but the name does. And I wanted to know if Marley was named after a waiter that Charles Dickens and his friend were served by at a restaurant.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: So this book doesn't go into sources of inspiration like the way that the movie does.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: That doesn't surprise me.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Now I do think that it's not a crazy like conclusive leap because we do know that Charles Dickens named other characters that way throughout his career.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: For example, Fagin from Oliver Twist was named after someone he knew as a boy.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: But the book doesn't mention where he got any like super specific elements like that. Gotcha.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: So that's not documented in this book that like, oh, Marley was named after this waiter at this restaurant they went to or something. Okay.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I was kind of six of one on the movie doing this.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: I mostly disliked it.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: There were some instances like this one that I was like, eh, I don't mind that.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: And others that I did not like at all.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: We'll get to it.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: My issue was that so many of them felt like that meme where it's like.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: People were joking about. I think it was like when. When Oppenheimer came out and the Marvel style sequel Bait, where they name drop Einstein or whatever. You know what I mean? Where you're like, okay. Where it's like this very winking, wink and a nod thing for all of these references. And we'll get into it more here in a second. So I won't go too on too long about it. Now. I will say that I agree and I generally, especially knowing that seemingly very few, if any of these are at least based on actual historical record.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Like, as far as I know.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yes. Again, according to this book, they are not referenced as being a thing. And so the movie just potentially invented a lot of this. And it all feels very.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Yes.
Like overly.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Simplistic and overly.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Kind of over. Not overwritten even really. But I can't even think of the right term for it, but just a screenwriter's idea of how these things would.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Come to be a little on the nose. It's a little ham fisted.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: We'll get to it. It gets worse. This one's honestly not that bad.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: This one is not that bad. Initially when this happened, I was like. I had it in a different spot in my notes and I was like, okay, I don't mind that. And then as the movie went on, I was like, yeah, well, that gets.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: To the next one. Here is. We then see that he ends up being inspired by. They have a new nanny.
Who is this? An Irish immigrant. This Irish, young Irish girl. She looks like she's like 12 or something like that. Who is, I think a nanny or some sort of servant in their house.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, she's like a housemaid, I guess. But she seems to primarily take care of the children.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Yes. Because we see her. He sees her one night telling like ghost stories to the children.
And this inspires him, the idea of like the ghost story and that sort of thing. And then he talks to her more later and she goes on to explain that, oh, the idea that like on Chris Christmas Eve in Irish tradition, the idea of like the veil being thin and spirits kind of communicating or passing, you know, like on Christmas Eve. That being a time where, you know, spirits are more likely to engage with humans or something like that. And this kind of also leads into his idea for A Christmas Carol.
And then later it even gets to the point where she kind of like becomes his muse, which is interesting. I wanted to know if any of that was historical. Slash in the. I'm gonna say historical. I want to clarify. As far as we know, this is a relatively accurate biography.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Well, it was. I mean, Les Stanford, who wrote it, like, is a historian.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Right. So. Yeah. So is any of that historical? Does it come from the book?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: I have so many thoughts on this.
As far as I know, Terra was completely invented for the movie.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Like wholly new character just for this movie.
I don't have a problem with the addition of this character.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Per se.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Although I did think she was pretty. One dimensional.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. To be fair, most of the characters.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: In this pretty one dimensional. That is also fair.
I do have some misgivings about depicting the most famous and successful British novelist of all time as making a creative muse of his Irish nanny.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: The multiple layers of power dynamic there are really something.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: It is a lot. Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: I also want to express some additional discomfort with that storyline owing to the fact that at age 46, Dickens divorced his wife, who we see in this movie. Yes. His wife of nearly 20 years, who gave him 10 children, mind you, and proceeded to hook up with an 18 year old actress.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: And there was even a point in the movie where I felt like the film was going to imply that Kate would think they were having an affair.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: It's the scene at dinner where he says, like, no, I need. I need Tara to bring me. Yeah.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: He's like, oh, send a tray to my room. And Kate's like, I'll bring it. He's like, no, I want Tara to do it.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And she has this look where it almost feels like the movie's going to go down. This subplot of her being like suspicious that they're like having an affair or something. I want to say it wouldn't be having an affair. It would be him raping a 12 year old because she's like a child.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I'm not. I don't know how old.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: I don't know how old she's supposed to be. But that she. That actress looks under the age of 15. I don't. To me, I. She did not look like remotely even of the time period. She didn't look like she was supposed to be of like, consenting legal age to me.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Now, I'm not sure that that was what the movie was actually going for because the movie proceeds to do nothing with that. But, like, within the larger context of who Dickens was, it just gives me the ick.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: It was very strange. I thought that was. Yeah, that part towards the end and then just. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. Is there any inclination in the book that he was inspired by Irish ghost stories or folklore or anything like that? Is it. I was wondering if this character was like, you know, a creation that is representing the fact that he pulled inspiration from like, Irish folklore stories or something.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: I don't remember anything specifically about, like, Irish folklore. No.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Okay. I genuinely. I was like, is. Surely there's a reason they chose that. But that. You know what I mean? Because otherwise it just seems completely.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: I don't think so. I could be misremembering, but I don't think so.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Okay, we. We cut forward, we get a line. I believe this is one of the publishers that's. No, it's not. It's.
I don't remember who says this in the movie.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: It's.
I think it's just some other rich guy.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Oh, it's that guy at like the opera. Yeah, that's right. They're like. He's like leaving some show or it's. Or dinner or something somewhere. And as he's leaving, he bumps into this old rich guy and they're like chit chatting briefly and they're talking about the poor or something.
And this old random rich guy that was leaving the opera or whatever drops the line about the poor, about the poor dying, then they better do it and reduce the surplus population. Which is obviously a line directly in A Christmas Carol. And I wanted to know.
I think I already have the answer, but I wanted to know if that line, or any line, I guess, coming from interactions like that is mentioned in the book.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: No, it is not. And this is one example, a good example of the movie adding this kind of like, external inspiration that I really didn't like, completely agree.
I just feel like giving entire lines verbatim to random people he interacted with is a creative liberty. Too far.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: It's crazy. I completely agree. If you're gonna do that, the way you do it is you have somebody say a kernel of a line that's similar like you have him inter with this guy and the guy goes, and he says like something about the poor dying.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: And then he goes, well, they better do it then or something. And just that, like you just do that and then have him be like, he notes that down in his mind and then later he writes the actual line, Charles Dickens. Actually, I completely agree that it just feels. And it is almost kind of like. And I'm not even, I don't even care. I'm not defending Charles Dickens's honor, but like, like I don't give a shit. But like, it is almost kind of weirdly.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Patronizing is not the right word, but reduces his genius or his skill or talents in this movie by having whole, whole of some of the most memorable and like important lines in the, in the story be presented as though they were just completely taken from somebody else having said them and not him having written them. He just copied them from other people. Which may be true. Like, I'm not saying that could be.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: It could be.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: It could be true. But the fact that it seems like we don't have any evidence of that being the case. And obviously how would you. Unless he said, like, yeah, you wouldn't know where he got these lines. And so the movie, like implying that, oh, actually these lines, whole cloth he just took from random interactions with strangers. It's like, okay, so he didn't come up with these brilliant. This brilliant prose was not his doing. He just copied it from some randomness.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: No, I think you hit the nail on the head with comparing it to the Oppenheimer Marvel style name drop thing. Because really what this movie is doing over and over again is going. Did you catch that? That's from A Christmas Carol.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Did you get that? It's from A Christmas Carol. It's from A Christmas Carol, you guys.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: And it's crazy because obviously we know that we're watching a movie about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. It doesn't have to be that on the nose.
Yeah. To me it was wild that they wouldn't have kernels of the lines be given by other people that inspired.
No, it's just the exact verbatim line from the book said by another person. And you're like, okay, okay. And I have more about that later about kind of the weird way that this movie venerates Dickens but also.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Kind of diminishes his talents by like foisting it up. We'll talk. I have a whole thing about it later that I want to get into, but on a separate question. But yeah, it's fascinating.
Another line that we see, we move forward a little bit. He's out wandering the streets one night. I think it's that same night, after he leaves that opera, whatever, wherever he was, I don't think we see. See what he was doing. But he leaves and it's. Everybody's in, like, suits and stuff. I assume he was at some sort of show.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah. He leaves and then he sees the guy, like, trying to sell the children.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Which was obviously a reference to ignorance and want. Because they're, like, under his coat.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't get with that one.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: That's because it's not in the Muppet version.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I've seen other versions, but.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but. And then he, like, runs down an alleyway and comes out into a graveyard.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah. He comes out in the graveyard and he sees this funeral happening in the middle of the night.
And it's like, for some old rich asshole, he overhears, like, the gravediggers talking about it. And there's one guy there at this funeral and nobody else there. And this is, again, where he's getting this idea for this old miserly guy who dies alone and nobody cares because he, you know, nobody liked him because he was an asshole. And the guy who is attending the funeral, they say, is, like, this guy's business partner.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: And he. This guy ends up walking over and it is Christopher Plummer who eventually will be playing Scrooge in the scene movie. So the implication is that this is kind of Scrooge, like.
Or the idea this is that random. Some random guy that.
That Dickens then bases the character of Scrooge on, essentially.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: But he walks over and he says, like. He says humbug to. I don't remember what. I think maybe Dickens says, like, merry Christmas or, like, have a good evening. Or, like, good evening or something. He might even say, like, merry Christmas or something.
And the guy turns to him and goes, humbug. And this is where he gets humbug from. Is this random guy attending this funeral? And I wanted to know. And again, part of it is, like, who knows how much of the movie is even intending for this stuff to be literal. Like, maybe the idea is that this funeral he's seeing isn't actually happening.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Because we'll get to it later. But, like, with the characters he's seeing, like, maybe this is supposed to be in his. But I don't think that's the case.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: But I think some of it. It's complicated, but, like, I think it's. It's kind of messy in terms of what I think we're supposed to interpret. Literally happening versus his mind.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Kind of imagining.
But is there any implication in the book that Dickens gets humbug from some random old man attending a funeral of his business partner?
[00:23:34] Speaker B: No, there's not. Not in this book.
And I. I didn't like this either for the same reasons we've been discussing. I don't have a problem with him being inspired by, like, seeing a funeral with a Warner. I think that would be fine. But all together, it's just too on the nose. Like, you do, like, one or the other. Don't have him literally meet Scrooge.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Unless it is supposed to be him. Like, imagine him meeting. But it's not clear in this scene.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: If he is imagining it or if it's actually happening.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: I think it's supposed to be actually happening.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: I do too.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: It sure seems like it. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: But I don't know for sure.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So then he has. Now he has his idea. After seeing all these events and kind of inspiring him, he has his idea for his new story and he goes to pitch it to the publishers. And while he's there, I wanted to know if any of this came from the book. Like these alter he has. They ask him what the title of the story is after he pitches it. And he says the first idea he comes up with comes up with this humbug, A Miser's Lament. And then he says, or, like a Christmas song or Christmas ballad or some such nonsense or something like that. And I wanted to know if, like, the alternate titles or, like, potential titles for the book came from the book.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: There's nothing about that mentioned in this book I did not try to look up.
I'm sure it's noted somewhere if he.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Had, like, working titles.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: If he had, like, working titles for this.
But it's not mentioned in this specific book. I did think this exchange worked fine.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was fine. It's a fun little scene. I think him like, coming up with. That's one of those creative liberties where even if that is not true. Fine.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: That's a fun, playful little moment of him, like, kind of pitching potential names for it before landing on A Christmas Carol.
But. So he pitches it to him only to be rejected. The publishers are like, hey, this one Christmas isn't that popular. Nobody cares about Christmas.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: And you know, that sort of thing. And then we get another moment where one of the publishers drops a verbatim line from A Christmas Carol where he Says, what is Christmas except an excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December? Which obviously is a line Scrooge has in the book. And I wanted to know if it came from. If there's any inclination that that line wasn't inspired. I know the answer.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah. The answer is no, at least as far as I know.
He did pitch the idea to his publishers, only for them to be pretty unenthusiastic.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: So that.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: That aspect of it, like I said, he'd had three pretty major flops in a row and his publishers were like, honestly, understandably leery about a new project that also felt like a gamble.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: So. But he believes in it a lot. So he decides to finance the publication of this book himself. Yeah.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: We then get the introduction of a small subplot that isn't a huge. It becomes very important for kind of a central thematic thing that the movie is doing. But we get this. We get this set up that we find out that his dad has been pawning. That Charles Dickens's dad has been like, selling, collecting and selling old scraps of paper that have Dickens's autograph on them and stuff like that to basically try to make money off Charles's name.
And we'll find out later. The whole reason for this is because his dad is very bad with money and just spends kind of. Has always been irresponsible with money with, like, lending or borrowing money and all that sort of stuff. And so he's like, constantly in debt and all that kind of thing. And I wanted to know if that element of his dad, you know, selling off his signatures and stuff like that came from the book, because I thought that was interesting. And like I said, it does actually kind of matter for the whole narrative of what this movie is doing that.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Actually does come from the book and from Charles Dickens's life.
His parents apparently always lived outside their means. And then after he got famous, they did things that embarrassed him, like asking his friends for money and selling bits of paper with his signature on them.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: There you go.
Another event that then transpires to kind of set up the dire straits of.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Circumstances that lead to the creation of A Christmas Carol is that on top of all the money issues that Dickens is having, we. We see him and Forrester go to their lawyer, or Dickens's lawyer, I think it's his lawyer, and are talking to him and they. About this legal case they were doing where they were suing somebody for copyright infringement because somebody had taken one of his other books and basically just like, copied it verbatim and like slightly changed a few things.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: And we're reselling it. And so they're hoping. He's kind of hoping that this, the money from this lawsuit will help smooth things over so that, you know, he won't be in such a bad predicament.
And we find out though, he's talking to the lawyer, lawyer's like, well, good news, we won the case. Bad news, the defendants are bankrupt. They have no money. So you're not going to get any money from this.
And I wanted to know if that element came from the book and if like this idea of all of these different kind of events conspiring to force him to write this masterpiece in six weeks, which is kind of the whole ticking clock premise of this thing is that he has to get this book out in time for. Because it's a Christmas story. He has to get this book out in time for Christmas, which is very rapidly approaching.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: This actually does happen in the book, but it actually happens after. A Christmas Carol is a runaway success.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: So it doesn't contribute to the thing I'm talking about.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: No, it doesn't.
But when Dickens attempts to sue a publisher for printing a re originated version of the book, which is literally the exact same text with a couple things changed, he wins the case. But the defendants then immediately declare bankruptcy. So he doesn't see any money from it.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: So it was somebody republishing A Christmas Carol.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: The book talks a lot about the publishing industry at the time and particularly copyright law, which barely existed.
And it was like the Wild West. Like you could take somebody's work and pretty much do whatever you wanted.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: And there was really nothing that the authors could do about it.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: And Dickens was actually a huge like, proponent for like copyright law and particularly international copyright law.
It was one of the ways that he had a huge influence on publishing.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Huh. Interesting.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: And I did like the movie's addition of having Dickens refuse to send the publishers to debtors prison.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the lawyer's like, well, they won't give you any money because they're bankrupt. But good news, we'll get them thrown in prison, basically. And Dickens goes, no, don't do that. He goes, don't press charges for that. Because it's kind of his whole moral thing of like, he has like, he's big moral objections to like debtors prisons and all that sort of stuff, which is the movie, you know, ties to his writing of this story and kind of the trauma around it that led to the creation of this tale.
So big question. One of the things, the big kind of the big creative choice that the movie makes is that it decides to physically manifest. Not well, physically in the movie, but manifest the characters from a Christmas character or Christmas Carol in Charles Dickens world in a way where he, like, interacts with them. That is how the movie portrays.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Charles Dickens writing process is that he essentially imagines the characters as walking, talking, real individuals in his world. And then he kind of, like, interrogates them.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah. He, like, converses with them in order.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: To figure out who they are as characters in order to write them. And I wanted to know if the book at all alludes to the idea that this was somehow part of Dickens's writing style or his writing process. Like, is that. Is it alluded to that, like, did Dickens write. Write down, like, how he. You know, kind of how his writing process worked and how he envisioned characters and did. Did. You know, maybe he wrote, like, in his notes, like, you know, when. When I'm writing my characters, I envision them sitting across the table from me and I have a conversation with them, like. And that's how he writes his characters.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: And.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Or did the movie just invent this?
[00:31:55] Speaker B: I have no idea.
This book doesn't describe anything close to what's depicted in the movie. But this book also is not really about his writing process.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Which the movie kind of is at times, at least for sure.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It's possible that that was something gleaned from some other source.
Also possible that the movie just decided it would be a neat way to depict his imagination.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I moved to this other note I had originally. I think I had this in, like, odds and ends, but I thought it made sense. Here is. Is I. Because right around this is when we see one of his, like, stroke of genius moments where we. He, like, has an idea and he, like, starts writing down all this stuff.
And some of those stroke of genius moments in the. In the movie are a bit silly. But also I felt like sometimes they're not, like, wildly off how writing can feel sometimes where it does kind of feel like stuff just comes to you and it just kind of pours out.
Although I also. And this is what I was alluding to earlier, this whole thing with the characters kind of showing up and him interrogating them to, like, figure out who they are as characters is like. He comes up with the name Scrooge, and then Scrooge, like, manifests in the room.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: And then the rest of him figuring out who Scrooge is as a character. Is him having a conversation with Scrooge.
And I wonder if it makes the creative process. The way it's depicted in this movie makes the creative process feel a bit external.
Almost like divine inspiration. Because the way Scrooge and Marley and all these other characters show up and kind of. It's Marley specifically was the one that made me think. This is when he convinced Marley. Marley comes in and he like has this very interesting conversation with Marley. But Marley is the one providing the insights into who Marley is as a character.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah, he kind of info dumps.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Yes. And.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: And not only who he is as a character but like metaphorically like what he represents in the story and all that sort of stuff.
And I, I do wonder and kind of worry if that could be read by some people as Dickens getting that inspiration externally. When in reality what I think the movie is trying to do is.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: Representing Dickens internal kind of self examination and creative process.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: As this external like conversation. It's a, it's a more interesting way to. As opposed to just having a voiceover where we hear Marley or Dickens think through like his, his ideas of what Marley as a character should be. Having him have a conversation with Marley is a very. Is a more compelling visual way and, and just narrative way to you know, kind of show that creative process. But to me, and it does feel again like I said, kind of like it externalizes the creative process. And I could imagine people being like.
I don't know if confused is the right term, but it just, it, it almost makes creative like it almost feels like it slightly diminishes Dickens is ability and skill and like I said, his genius by having these. It almost feel like his characters and the stuff he is writing is something coming from outside of him that he is like observing.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I know what you're getting at and I'm not really sure how to put my finger on it either. But I totally understand what you're getting at. I do think that the movie is intending to outwardly visually depict his internal creative process.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: But it also feels a bit strange.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know how. Yeah, it's not even bad because I know what the movie's going for and I get it, but it's also not really. I will say this. It's not how my writing process works or you know, and so it's. Seeing it depicted that way feels kind of strange and I just, I don't know, it just never, it never really like.
I also get it like from a screenwriting point of view, like I'm Imagining writing the script and I'm like, oh. And then Marley, like, you know, Scrooge shows up and he like has a conversation with Scrooge where he figures out who Scrooge is as a character. I can understand why you would write that, to depict that. Him kind of developing the character as Scrooge because.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but. Yeah, but something about it does almost feel like it's taking that creative agency away from Dickens.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I don't know, it's not really, but it kind of feels that way. It's weird. It's hard to describe. I don't know.
Anyways.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: So then we find out, we get some flashbacks. We find out that Dickens, when he was a little Charles, when he was a little kid, his dad ended up getting arrested for being in debt essentially and not paying off his debts. And he was drug away and the family was drug away and thrown in a debtor's prison. And initially I thought Charles was left at like some sort of labor house or something. But I guess the idea is just that he had to work at this factory to support himself. I don't know, whatever he had to. He had to go work in a shoe blacking factory in order to.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Survive.
And I was unsure if that was also at this point in the movie when the first time we start getting that. I was unsure if that stuff was supposed to have actually happened in his past or if this was like a nightmare he was having that was like inspiring.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: I don't know. It becomes clear that that did happen. But the way it. We'll get to this later.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Because it is initially depicted as him having a nightmare.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: It is depicted as him having a nightmare.
It's a nightmare that it's a memory we find out. But it's also the way it is shot is so. Because it is a nightmare. I think it's so ridiculous and like overly.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: It's kind of heavily stylized, super heavily stylized.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: And we'll get more into it later. But it's super heavily stylized in a way where I was honestly unsure if it was meant to be a real thing that happened in the past or like his own kind of creation.
And so I wanted to know if it comes from the book, because that will. I mean, and again it becomes clear later in the movie that this did actually happen. But at this point it would make it clear for me if it did it happen in the book?
[00:38:01] Speaker B: Yes, it did. Yeah.
All of that is accurate to Dickens's early life. His father was sent to debtors prison and Charles became the family breadwinner at 12 years old and he worked in a shoe blacking factory while his family was in debtors prisons.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Was it all. I was confused by this. In the movie it seems like he's the. They take the other kids.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Like what was going on there?
I am not an expert in how debtors prisons worked at this particular time and place. But apparently that was. Yeah, that was like how things were done. Like the whole family went and they lived in this debtors prison.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: But why didn't he then?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: I guess because he was old enough to work.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Okay, sure.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: And this book does not go into like whether he was working to support himself or whether he was working to like pay off their debts. I don't know that.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Okay. Because I thought. And I'd have to go back and watch. But he had a sibling, right?
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: How old was his siblings? I guess younger than him is the idea because he looks so young in those scenes and now I know obviously labor laws and shit. Like you know, he. He may have been old enough, but I. I didn't. I thought he looked not that much older than his sibling. Maybe he did. I don't remember. I don't know why I'm going in. It doesn't matter.
Suffice it to say I was a little confused by all of that and like why his mom. Like everybody got. But. But apparently that's what happens.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that was how that worked.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Okay. Glad we don't do that anymore in that specific way.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Moving forward a little bit, we then have a scene where we're introduced to Charles Dickens's sister. She comes to visit with her husband and their son and we, we are introduced and I can't remember what Henry is.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Henry.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Henry is her. His nephew's name and his. Henry is literally just Tiny Tim to. Exactly. He has the crutch, he has the cough, he has everything. He is just Tiny Tim.
And I wanted to know if that is true from real life if like Tiny Tim was based on his nephew.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: So I went and looked this up because this was not in this specific book. But I wanted to make sure. And the answer is yes, actually. Okay. This is like the one thing. So she had a son named Henry who was disabled and he is said to have been the inspiration for Tiny Tim.
Wikipedia did not detail if he had like the crutch and the cough and everything exactly like Tiny Tim.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Which is what the movie does. Which makes it takes it from sure to like kind of grown inducing. It's all so tidily presented where you're just like, well, there's Tiny Tim. He's literally just exactly like every portrayal of Tiny Tim you've ever seen.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Right?
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Like to a T. And it's his, you know, his sister's son. And you're. It's just.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: This is making it sound like I dislike this movie more than I did. Cause I didn't actually dislike this movie all that much. I kind of.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was fine.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: It kind of just washed over me and was like, eh, whatever.
But those moments were definitely the parts where my eyes were rolling and I was like, what are we doing? Like, again, it's fine. Have it be. And it seems like that's actually true. Like that it was based on Henry, this. His disabled nephew or whatever. If that's the case, just make it a little more subtle. Just. Just add a little bit of subtlety to it. To where, you know, maybe he has the cough but not the crutch. Or. And. And fuck me if it's true. Maybe he had both. Maybe he literally was Tiny Tim. Like, I don't. You. Like you said, you didn't look into the specific detail or you couldn't find any specific details outlining that. Maybe that is true. But, boy, it comes across in the movie as just completely overwrought. And like, to steal from the.
That review, that word that I didn't know before, tenured. It is just insanely tenured. Which I think just basically just means like, lacking subtlety and kind of written for like, the least common denominator in the audience.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: So. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: I also want to mention that the book does talk about Dickens's sickly younger brother as a possible source of inspiration for Tiny Tim. Apparently Charles called him Tiny Fred.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Which delighted me.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember you laughing about that when you read that in the book.
I assume there's nothing remotely related to the scene where Scrooge shows up to give him notes. Dickens notes about how he feels that his side of the argument should be better heard.
He. He, like, Scrooge really does show up and say, debate. Debate me in the marketplace of ideas, bro. Which I thought was a fun scene in the movie where. Where Scrooge comes up and it's like, hey, you're presenting my side of the argument pretty poorly here. I think people need to hear, like, better arguments.
And he really does say, debate me, bro. And I wanted to know if.
Obviously not the physical, like the imaginary manifestation of Scrooge, but if there was anything mentioned in the book of, like, somebody, his. His friend, the publishers, somebod hey, maybe you need to present the. The other side of the argument. We need. We need a fair and equal representation of.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Fair and balanced representation of Scrooge's politics.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: I don't recall anything about that being in the book. No.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Okay, then we get to maybe my biggest question, because this is crazy to me. We talked about Tara earlier, but he's having a conversation with Tara, and he's talking. She has read, like, a first draft of the story.
And in the early draft of the story, Tiny Tim, after everything happens and the whole night happens, Tiny Tim still dies. And this upsets Tara greatly. And she says, like, oh, no, you have to save Tiny Tim. Like, he has to. But then she goes on to really, like, the crux of what she's saying is that she, like, starts kind of, like, almost through tears. Like, crying, like, no, Scrooge can change. Like, he can become a better. Like, that is kind of becomes the crux of her point.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: And that as a result of him becoming a better person, Tiny Tim should be saved. And to me, and. Because. And initially in this first interaction, I was like, I couldn't tell how much the movie was trying to imply that Tara gave Charles Dickens the idea.
The redemption arc idea of the story.
Because I was like, is this movie truly implying that it was this child who gave the idea to have Scrooge change his ways and save Tiny Tim to Dickens? I was like, was. It was originally Dickens just going to keep.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: Scrooge being selfish and cruel at the end?
And.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: I guess you can answer that, because it kind of rolls into my next question.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: But.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: I. I think that is what the movie is implying.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Okay. Because they go. They continue to go harder on it, where. Because initially I wasn't sure if, like, I was like, is the movie implying that.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Saving Tiny Tim was her idea? Which I could buy that maybe. But it. It then goes further, and it really does seem like the whole. The whole point is that in the. In the early versions of this. I don't even understand what the early version of the story was, because this movie genuinely implies that Tara is the one who convinces him, and then ultimately he himself convinces himself, which we'll talk about here. But she's the one who, like, plants the idea in his head. Not just that Tiny Tim shouldn't die, that's fine. Like, if she was the one who's like, oh, he should save Tiny Tim, whatever. Which. Whatever.
But beyond that, that Scrooge should have, like, a character arc and should be redeemed and should become a good person at the end.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: And because we see later that Dickens is really struggling with the idea that, like, a man like Scrooge could become good and like at all, let alone in one night.
And the movie would go on to connect this to Dickens own insecurities, like his imp. A little bit of imposter syndrome, but also his anger at his father. And it's very much wrapped up in the fact that. That he doesn't think that his father can change. And, like, he always views his father as this disappointing, selfish, kind of irresponsible man, and he can't change. So he. He. He finds it hard to. To write this character of Scrooge having this moment where he changes.
And so if that's the case, I guess my question is, what the. Was the book about originally?
[00:47:04] Speaker A: It makes no sense to me.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Okay.
So I'm not sure about.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: There being an early plan for Scrooge's character to not be redeemed.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: Yes, surely that makes no sense. He has to. That's the whole point of the story. Right, Right.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: And this book does not imply anything like that. And I'm inclined to think that that would not be the case because, like you said, that's the whole point of the story.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: That's the whole point of the story.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: And also, Charles Dickens writing is, if nothing else, incredibly sentimental. Yeah, like, very sentimental. I just have a hard time. I would have a hard time believing that his original plan was not for Scrooge to be redeemed.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: I agree. Which is my. Again, and I don't want to stress this. What the fuck is the movie implying? The original version of the script was he has all these events happen.
He stays an ass. Like, what is the movie? Because. Because again, it's one thing if the movie is saying, she's like, no, Tiny Tim can't die. And he's like. Because the movie kind of wants to have it both ways there, in my opinion. Sometimes it feels like the movie is playing that, implying that it was just the idea of Tiny Tim surviving that he was, like, rebelling against and, like, didn't want to do, and that it's Tara who, like, kind of really pushes for that. And then Forrester also at one point is like, I told you Tiny Tim should survive. And, like, I said the same thing. And, like, these other people are, like, pushing for Tiny Tim to survive, and that being the thing that he's kind of, like, struggling with and doesn't want to do. But there are other times where very explicitly the movie is going, he doesn't think a man can change. Like Charles Dickens doesn't think a man could change. And it's. It's Tara and these other people and then that leading to his big confrontation with himself and Scrooge, who is kind of a manifestation of himself and his own insecurity and stuff at the shoe blacking factory later.
All of that is what leads him to then decide to write the ending where Scrooge is redeemed.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: But that makes no sense, because otherwise, what is the story before that? What would the early drafts of the story have been?
[00:49:16] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Unless I'm completely misinterpreting the movie, but that is 100 how it came across to me.
Do you get, like, this.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: No, I. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I just don't know. I don't know how to.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Did you see it that way? Did you interpret it that way, though? Like, did you.
[00:49:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: This.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Well, I think. I think the movie really, really, really wants to have this, like, thematic through line where Charles Dickens learns that actually.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: People can learn from their path. Like, they want him to go on his character arc.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: Yes. And forgiving his father.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: Forgiving his father. And learning that people can change and they can learn from the mistakes that they've made.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Which is, like, all fine and.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: Well, fine and good. But you're doing that within the framework of a story where he's writing a story that's literally about that.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: And. And we're. And at a point where he has early drafts of it done and.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: Like, to the point where. Because we get to the end. Because Tara has read the part where Tiny Tim dies and is upset about it. So he wrote the ending.
I. I just. And so I'm like, what is. It Just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand. And I agree. I think it's just the movie trying to like Shoehorn.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the movie really wants that thematic.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Thematic arc through into it. But then that messes with narratively, like, what the heck A Christmas Carol was about prior to him having that realization.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: And, like, having that before that character arc is complete. I don't know what he thought or what the movie wants us to think A Christmas Carol was about prior to that.
It doesn't make any sense to me. I. I don't know. Maybe I'm overdoing it, like, overselling that. But it. That was maybe my biggest confusion in the whole. And biggest issue with the whole movie was just like. Because I also get what they're doing. And I think it like works okay. If you literally don't think about it at all.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I mean, honestly, maybe a lot of people aren't going to.
[00:51:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: But.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what. And again, I'm not a scholar on this. For all I know, there was an early draft of A Christmas Carol where Scrooge did not get redeemed. I've never heard of it.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I also, I.
Sorry. Yeah.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: And it's certainly not something that's mentioned in this book specifically.
I know it's a pretty common interpretation to kind of make a connection between Scrooge and Dickens, like, particularly the description of Scrooge's unhappy childhood to Dickens own childhood.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: And I think that makes sense.
[00:52:04] Speaker B: So from that perspective, it's not a far fetched idea.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: No.
Like, it's almost works. Like, yeah, almost works. It's just when you actually think about it, I just, I can't piece together what the. I don't. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't. But like, like I said, if I squint and don't think about it, if I just like, if I like, watch the movie without remotely thinking about, like, you know, if I just focus on his, like, personal character arc, you're like, okay, yeah. But then I think about what I genuinely would be fascinated to know what the movie thinks. The version of A Christmas Carol prior to him having that big character realization and confrontation at the end and kind of realizing men can change, people can change, people can grow and become better. What does the movie think A Christmas Carol was about prior to him having that realization and rushing home and like rewriting the ending or whatever, you know, and like, like writing the ending of it? Like, was it genuinely the movie thought A Christmas Carol or is proposing that A Christmas Carol was. This rich asshole, is a rich asshole, does all these bad things, gets visited by three ghosts.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: Wakes up on like, is, feels scared and all these things, but then decides to still be an asshole. Like, what. It would be the worst book. Like, what's the. And maybe it wouldn't. But it just. It wouldn't even be a worse book. It would be an interesting. It would be a realistic book, honestly, probably. But, like, it would.
I just, it's so interesting to me. It's such a strange thing that I feel like. It almost feels like a thing that, like, nobody thought about while making the movie and then afterwards went, oh, shit, what are we?
Because, like, again, I can get what they were doing and why they were doing it. And I can imagine getting caught up in like doing Charles Dickens's character arc and then getting to the end of being like, oh, shit. But that doesn't make sense in relation to what he was writing.
I don't know. Anyways, we can move on so that we get it. We get a scene in the movie where. Because he's so mad at his dad and this is right prior to his big kind of come to Jesus moment, or come to Scrooge moment, I guess, where. Where at the end. But he. He's very upset with his dad and he has this big confrontation where he just berates his dad, yells at him and kicks him out. And it's like, you're a loser, You've always been a loser.
[00:54:32] Speaker A: You know, you've always been a failure, blah, blah, blah, and just screams at him, tells him to get out. And this was the one scene that was the closest to a genuine. Evoked, the closest thing to it, a genuine emotion out of me other than like amusement. Because the rest of the movie, there's like fun scenes and there's like amusing scenes and it is mostly like a comedy kind of like a feel good, emotional, Christmassy comedy kind of thing. This is like one scene where I'm like, oh, I actually kind of. This is like a.
I genuinely felt bad for his father in that scene. And I wanted to know if any of that relationship dynamic came from the book or that scene specifically.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: But you know, that scene does. No, that scene is not in the book.
The movie does quite a bit of work to like, rehab his relationship with his parents.
The book talks a lot about how his parents mismanaged money for their entire lives and then when Dickens became successful, they mooched off of him.
It does mention at one point that Dickens bought them a house in Devon to try and get them away from everything that they could spend money on in the city. So that part's accurate.
But there was no scene in which Dickens angrily kicks them out or any indication that he ever reconciled with them in the way that the movie shows.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: The movie genuinely is like, happy ending time.
Yeah, kinda Happy Christmas movie ending time. Yeah.
There's another great interaction that was another really good scene that I actually liked quite a bit where Catherine, Kate, his wife, played by Morfydd Clarke, who, half the scenes I didn't think looked anything like her. And then the other half of the scenes I was like, oh, yeah, that's Galadriel. For people who don't know, she plays young Galadriel in the Rings of Power series.
But yeah, she plays his wife in this. And they have this interaction where he's been kind of while he's been writing this book. It's been a very 10 spends time in the household and he's been under a lot of stress and all that. And they have this interaction. She has this big monologue about how difficult it is to live with him and about how he's. His. His mood shifts so kind of randomly and. And everybody's kind of like walking on eggshells to not annoy him or get in his way. But also, you know, just all of these different things and just how he's not an easy man to live with. And I wanted to know if any of that was inspired by. I'm not asking if that exact conversation or scene happens, but if her sort of, you know.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Discontent with their situation or struggle with their situation was inspired by like, real life events in the book.
[00:57:10] Speaker B: So.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: The book does not go into their relationship a ton.
It does talk about how, like, they maybe were not each other's first choice.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: For a spouse, but kind of describes their relationship as like, amicable and respectful.
[00:57:33] Speaker A: Which it is mostly in the movie.
[00:57:35] Speaker B: At least up to a certain point.
[00:57:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Which again, the movie mostly depicts it that way. They don't seem to hate each other or anything. And even in that scene where she's talking about that, I think it still feels like it's not like a hatred or anything. It's not like she's been hiding this deep seething disdain for him or something under the surface. It's just that she's explaining to him like, hey, man, you're not super easy to like, live with.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: And I have to imagine that the real Kate probably wanted to say some of those things because the book includes some brief excerpts from some of Dickens letters. And I have to say that he seemed absolutely exhausting to be around.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: That's unsurprising.
Yeah. I could imagine somebody like that being, yes, very difficult to be around. So, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that that would be potentially based on reality.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: So the end of the movie, the kind of. The big climax is that Dickens realizes he needs to go confront his demons by. By journeying to the shoe blacking factory he worked in as a child, where he literally confronts his demons in the. In the. In the vestige of Scrooge.
And I wanted to know, vestige probably is not the right word. Whatever.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: Is that the right word?
[00:58:48] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know. I just. My brain just said it I'm very tired, so. But he goes and he confronts his demons, and it's Scrooge. And he. Basically, I wanted to know if anything about, like, that of him, like, confronting his childhood demons came from anything mentioned in the book. And then we'll get into my final question here.
[00:59:07] Speaker B: The book does not mention anything about him doing this. No.
[00:59:11] Speaker A: Okay. And that kind of leads into my question. This is like less of a question, more of a discussion thing. But I. I assume there's also nothing of this. The movie does this whole meta thing where Dickens is confronting his own demons in the form of Scrooge and then subsequently writes the ending of his own story by excising those demons and then. And kind of confronting them and like realizing within himself his own issues and insecurities and realizing the ways in which he needs to change.
Allah. The way in this Christmas Carol, Scrooge confronts his demons, realizes he needs to change. So we see Dickens do this in the movie, and then he rushes home and writes.
Finishes the story in the same way that Scrooge rushes home at the end of A Christmas Carol. Yeah, or. Or not. I guess not rushes home, but he's already home.
He wakes up and rushes out to go seize the day and, you know, blah, blah, bl.
To celebrate Christmas. And I thought the. The parallels, the kind of meta thing we're doing, where the structure of A Christmas Carol is reflected in the narrative structure of this movie and Dickens's tale is interesting and clever. I will say I'm not sure it's as emotionally resonant as the movie wants it to be.
At least it didn't super connect with me, but I thought it was kind of cool and clean.
The big issue, like I said, is the thing I already addressed earlier, where that doesn't really work with the book.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Right.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: Unless I'm just misunderstand. Unless there is a way that the book could have worked prior to him having that realization that I am just not getting. But it seems to me the whole point of the book of what he was writing is the redemption is the redemption arc. And it seemed the reason he was writing it. It seemed like going into the book and so him having that realization as he's finishing the book makes very little sense to me, but it's at least kind of interesting. And like I said, I assume there's nothing remotely like this.
I don't even know what I'm asking, but thoughts.
[01:01:19] Speaker B: I mean, I agree with you. I think it's interesting. I think it's a neat idea.
[01:01:25] Speaker B: Nothing about it seems to come from the book.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:29] Speaker B: In fact, I never got the impression from reading this that Dickens struggled with like writer's block or like imposter syndrome or anything.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Writer's block is like the big thing in the movie where he does get blocked, they say, and he like can't figure out how to end the story or whatever.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: The book describes him as driven by single mindedness while he was writing A Christmas Carol.
[01:01:54] Speaker A: Right.
[01:01:54] Speaker B: Like, literally describes him as like turning down social engagements and things because he has to finish.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: Which we see a little bit of in the movie. Yeah. Like the idea that he's like taking meals in his. Yeah, that sort of thing.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: But I think it's a good ending for the movie. I, I like that, I like that it's kind of narratively connected to A Christmas Carol. Even if it doesn't like quite work perfectly.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: It's, it's.
[01:02:23] Speaker B: I think it works like thematically as an ending.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: It does and it doesn't. It's almost, it almost makes me more mad because it's, it's clever and interesting in a way that I think is, is clever and interesting.
But it's almost.
[01:02:39] Speaker A: I almost hate it more because it's clear that they just came up with a clever, like the, the clever idea of the narrative parallels between the story they were showing here and the actual A Christmas Carol and thought that was really clever and interesting and then kind of worked backwards into how they got there.
[01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: And then as a result of that, had the whole issue I talked about earlier where I just don't think it makes any sense that he has this realization about how to end the book after he's been writing it for five weeks or whatever. Like, it just doesn't make any sense to me. And that almost annoys me more that they. So they're like, no, but we gotta have this cool ending so we gotta figure out a way to make it work. And then when it doesn't work, they go. And nobody will notice or. I don't know what they thought. I. Or I'm just missing something. That's always possible that I am missing something.
[01:03:27] Speaker B: But yeah, I, I totally get what the movie is doing because it's telling a story and your stories have to have conflict.
[01:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[01:03:39] Speaker B: The movie depicts the process of him writing A Christmas Carol as like, far more difficult than I got the impression of reading the book. Like far, far more difficult than I got the impression of.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Which again, I get, I totally get. Like, it's. You're making a dramatic movie. It needs to have those stakes and the. And the. The elements of conflict and. And obstacles in his way and. And. And emotions and. And things that he needs to figure out and realizations that he needs to come through as a character. Come to as a character. And I get all of that. And. And I don't even hate what. How they did it all. Like, I've already went on a lot enough about it. It's just. It's such an interesting, weird movie with the way they decide to do that that is like equal parts kind of brilliant and really fucking stupid. Like, I. It's like both to me in a way that I find hard to describe. So. All right. I do have a couple more questions that I want to talk about in Lost, in Adaptation. Just show me the way to get.
[01:04:49] Speaker B: Out of here and I'll be on my way.
[01:04:52] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[01:04:54] Speaker B: And I want to get unlocked as soon as possible.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: I still. What? By the end of the movie, wasn't entirely sure what Forster's relation to Dickens was.
I assumed he was, like, his friend. He just seems to be his friend. Yeah, but I didn't know if he had, like, a job related to Dickinson somehow. Like, I was like. Because he seems to be there when they're talking to the publishers. He's, like, there with.
[01:05:14] Speaker B: Right.
[01:05:14] Speaker A: Like. And I was like, oh, maybe he's kind of like his agent or something. And I didn't know if you had any additional information because I know he's a real guy, obviously, so.
[01:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, he was a real guy. John Forester. He was Dickens close friend and his eventual biographer.
And according to Wikipedia, he was, quote, called to the bar, but he did not ever practice as a lawyer. I don't know if this means that he took the bar exam but never practiced or was qualified to take it, but never did.
Not a clue. The movie does seem to have him acting as, like, agent slash lawyer. Kind of.
[01:05:51] Speaker A: Kind of. Well, he has a lawyer, too. That's that old guy.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: So I don't know, but I don't think he did that in real life. According to the book, his attorney was a man named Thomas Mitten.
[01:06:02] Speaker A: So, yeah, he kind of seems to act like an agent.
[01:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, as far as I know. Like, as far as I know, he was just his good friend.
[01:06:09] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: I mentioned this earlier and I. So these last. This one I have here.
I don't know why I put this here.
[01:06:19] Speaker B: It's not really a question, but that's okay.
[01:06:21] Speaker A: It's not really a question. I think I had it.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: It is kind of something that got lost in adaptations.
[01:06:26] Speaker A: But I alluded to it earlier. The flashbacks to Charles Dickens in the Shoe Black Factory.
The movie's depictions of those scenes were so overwrought and, like, vaudevillian.
[01:06:38] Speaker A: That I thought they completely lost any effectiveness at evoking, like, actual sympathy for his situation or his plight. It was so ridiculously over the top. And the way it was lit and shot and depicted and like, it was like a, like watching a cartoon. It was like watching a stage play of, like, Oliver Twist, which I think is what they're going. Yes, I think they're going for, like, a theatrical version of Oliver Twist because obviously, like.
[01:07:04] Speaker B: Because obviously. Yeah.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: And so that seems like what they're going for. But in this movie, it. It fails because it. I. It was so silly that, like, what the point, the purpose this is serving in the movie is giving it, laying the groundwork for why Charles Dickens is the way he is, why he feels about his father. The way he feels about his father, why he has these really deeply conflicted, like, kind of emotions about his father, why he hates his father in certain ways, why he has these very strong convictions about poor houses and poverty and all these sorts of things. And that's all fine, but the depiction of it in the movie, the way they show him going through all this stuff, that is all very fundamental to who he is as a person. Again, looks like this ridiculous, over the top theatrical thing where you're just like, I, I have no real emotional connection to this because it doesn't feel real at all.
[01:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, yeah, I, I 100 agree with everything you just said. I. I'm sure they were going for a Dickensian.
[01:08:06] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[01:08:07] Speaker B: But it felt too disconnected from everything else going on in the movie to be effective.
[01:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just like, it's. Yeah, that's one of those things where to me, it feels like a directorial choice that was more worried about being, like, clever than it was about, like, actually telling the story effectively. Like, that's an idea you have. Like.
[01:08:29] Speaker B: Because I think it would have been way more effective to lean into realism.
[01:08:32] Speaker A: Yes. To really lean into there. Like, how this affected him and why this.
[01:08:36] Speaker B: This is the way it is now. If you want to go a little more theatrical for, like, specifically when he's having a nightmare.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: Sure. That first.
[01:08:43] Speaker B: That's one thing.
[01:08:44] Speaker A: Yes, that's one thing. Like that first moment, maybe, where you introduce that backstory, but then it continues several times and every time it's that same heightened, ridiculous kind of.
Yeah.
Theatrical thing. And it just, you. It completely loses any emotional weight because you're like, this is silly. This is ridiculous. And again, like I said to me, it's a choice that is very much in service of style over, like, the actual story. Because I can imagine as a director being like, you know, it'd be fun. Hey, Charles Dickens, he wrote Oliver Twist. What if we do a ridiculous heightened version of Oliver Twist for the flashback scenes showing Dickens leading an Oliver Twist like life? That's great. It's a reference. Oh, that's very clever. Like, blah, blah, blah. But it's just. Just completely ruins the emotional impact of it entirely. Anyways, last question I had.
When did Christmas Carol actually get printed? I don't know if the movie said for sure. Maybe it said at the very end.
[01:09:39] Speaker B: I think it was in the end.
[01:09:40] Speaker A: I think it was in the end card. And I wrote this earlier because they're, you know, we have this ticking clock running up to Christmas. And I was like, when did it actually get printed? Like, how close are we to Christmas here? Because we're talking about how it needs to be published in time for Christmas. And I was like, how. How early before Christmas did it actually get published?
[01:09:56] Speaker B: Oh, they cut it real close.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: He had 6,000 copies ready for sale on December 19th.
[01:10:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:10:03] Speaker B: Of 1843. And they all sold out.
[01:10:06] Speaker A: That's crazy. Yeah, yeah.
[01:10:07] Speaker B: It was literally was like an overnight success.
[01:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's what it says at the end. And. Yeah, clearly. Clearly was. All right, those are all my questions. It's time now to find out what Katie thought was better in the book.
[01:10:19] Speaker B: You like to read?
Oh, yes, I love to read.
What do you like to read?
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Everything.
You mentioned that this movie starts depicting Charles Dickens on a trip to America. Yes, and my first note was, very first thing I wrote down. Boy. That is not how his trip to America was described in the book.
Because he did go on a tour in America, like shortly before writing A Christmas Carol, like the year before, maybe.
And he was super excited about it because Dickens was a capitalist. Actually.
[01:10:58] Speaker A: Actually.
[01:10:59] Speaker B: And he viewed America through truly rose tinted glasses.
[01:11:04] Speaker A: Interesting.
[01:11:05] Speaker B: He thought America was going to be so great and so fun. But once he got there, he was like many of us, deeply disappointed.
Basically, he found Americans to be classless and unhygienic.
[01:11:23] Speaker A: Okay, so he's just dick.
[01:11:25] Speaker B: I mean, he was kind of a dick.
[01:11:28] Speaker B: He was also supposed to go to the Deep south as part of his tour and ended up canceling that leg. Can you guess why?
[01:11:36] Speaker A: Was he opposed to slavery?
[01:11:38] Speaker B: He was okay, there you go, I. I'm not really. The. The book did not detail why he scheduled to go to the Deep south in the first place.
[01:11:45] Speaker A: Like, are you hoping that whole thing would get resolved?
[01:11:48] Speaker B: It's funny to read because the way that it was written kind of implied that he didn't know about slavery until he got there. And I was like, surely that's.
[01:11:58] Speaker A: Surely that can't be true. Yeah.
[01:12:00] Speaker B: But. Yeah, I don't know. But he. Yeah, he was supposed to go to the Deep South. And then he was like, I'm not doing that.
[01:12:06] Speaker A: All right.
[01:12:08] Speaker B: The movie's romantic side plot with Forster, where he, like, has this. This woman he's been courting and wants to marry, was strange.
[01:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:12:21] Speaker B: I. I was like, what is going on with this? Because he's like. He mentions that he's courting this woman, he wants to marry her.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:28] Speaker B: And then, like, later on in the movie, they're engaged, but then. Then they're not because.
[01:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:35] Speaker B: Her family decides she's not good enough for him.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Her father says that he's not good enough for her because he's the son of a butcher.
[01:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:42] Speaker A: Is what he says.
[01:12:44] Speaker B: And then at the end, they're just together again. It, like, resolves itself out of nowhere.
[01:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah. She's like, oh, my father changed his mind.
[01:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And I turned to you. I turned to you after that and I was like, did I, like, miss something while I was taking a note? I'm guessing that there must have been some plot point that ended up on the cutting room floor, because what it.
[01:13:05] Speaker A: Feels like was supposed to have happened is that at some point Dickens.
[01:13:09] Speaker B: Yes. Was going to, like, intervened on his.
[01:13:11] Speaker A: Intervenes on his friend's behalf. Goes, writes a letter, talks to the father, does something. Uses his skill with the quill to, you know, do you know, something? Does something convince the father that actually Forster is a great guy or what? I. Whatever. And I. Unless I blanked out, passed out for a few seconds, I don't remember that happening in the movie. And I think you might be right, that it may have just been a drop or a scene that got cut or. Which seems crazy because they kept every other scene of that.
[01:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:40] Speaker A: Maybe we missed something.
[01:13:42] Speaker B: Maybe.
[01:13:42] Speaker A: The only other thing I could think is that maybe her father was a character in the movie, that. That him and Dickens had an interaction and we just didn't realize that that was his father. That was his father or something. That was the only thing I could think. And we were taking notes on something else and just didn't realize what was going. I. That's the only thing.
[01:13:59] Speaker B: I don't know.
Another thing that I didn't really understand in the movie. Like, I understand what the movie was doing, but I. And I might be misinformed, but I don't think his childhood was, like, a secret.
[01:14:14] Speaker B: Like, I felt like the movie was implying that he was keeping his. His past, like, this big secret and he didn't want anybody to know about it.
[01:14:22] Speaker A: And he's definitely embarrassed by it. I don't know if it's supposed to be a secret, per se, but he's definitely embarrassed by it and doesn't like talking about it.
[01:14:29] Speaker B: And that was. I don't know. That was just. Again, I don't know everything there is to know about Dickens. That was not a vibe that I got from the book. Okay, my last note here.
[01:14:40] Speaker B: There were other things that I could talk about, but these were really just so different.
[01:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I think that's a good point. It's very clearly very different.
[01:14:50] Speaker B: And we talked about a lot of stuff that. But I didn't care for that.
[01:14:55] Speaker A: Yes, I'm saying we've also talked about quite a few things that you did not care for in the movie already.
[01:14:59] Speaker B: But my last thing here was that.
So the movie snatched up that title right quick. The man who Invented Christmas. That's a great title. Yes, but it doesn't really get into that.
[01:15:13] Speaker A: It really doesn't. We have one throwaway line when he's first talking to the publishers about how Christmas isn't that popular. Popular, yeah, that's it.
[01:15:20] Speaker B: But the book actually really gets into the history of Christmas in England.
[01:15:26] Speaker A: See, that would be interesting.
[01:15:27] Speaker B: Which was fascinating, I guess, but. And also gets into how the popularity of A Christmas Carol helped to make it a major holiday again, which was also fascinating.
Side note, guess which sect of Christianity to come out of England hated Christmas and try to outlaw it.
Oh, go on, give that a wild guess.
[01:15:48] Speaker A: Was it the Catholics?
[01:15:50] Speaker B: It was not. Oh, who came from England? Oh, the Quakers to America? No, no, no.
[01:15:56] Speaker A: Is that not the Quakers?
[01:15:57] Speaker B: The.
[01:15:57] Speaker A: The Pilgrims that were.
[01:16:00] Speaker B: You're so close.
[01:16:02] Speaker A: Puritans.
[01:16:03] Speaker B: It was the Puritans.
[01:16:04] Speaker A: Sorry, my. My religious history is lacking.
Was it with the. Were the Quakers not the people.
Whatever.
[01:16:12] Speaker B: I don't think Quakers are the same as Puritans.
[01:16:14] Speaker A: No, I know they're not. I'm. It's been a long time since I took that. Those history classes.
[01:16:20] Speaker B: No, I was reading the book and I was like, a course, Puritans didn't like Christmas.
[01:16:25] Speaker A: Of course they didn't Yeah, I know. Absolutely.
[01:16:31] Speaker A: The only other thing the movie does is it does at the end, circle back around in the ending, end of the movie title cards and go, by the way, this made Christmas really popular.
[01:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:16:40] Speaker A: Like, okay, so that's. Yeah.
All right, let's go ahead and talk about what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would.
[01:16:52] Speaker B: Happy endings only happen in the movies.
Thackeray. Thackeray, as the friend who's always gleeful over bad news I thought was fun.
[01:17:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: And this was a real literary critic at the time who famously dragged Dickens work, like, every time he published something. But he did write a positive review of A Christmas Carol, which we see in the movie. Which we see in the movie.
[01:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I did. My favorite scene with him was the one. I think it's his first scene or second.
[01:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Where he comes up and he, like, can't wait to tell Dickens about how everybody hated his latest book.
[01:17:26] Speaker A: That part. But my favorite part was then where he's. As he's leaving, he goes, oh, somebody. He says the name of some other author who's, like, over in the other part of the restaurant, he's like, I got to go tell him how much his. Like, there's some thorough. He has some aside about how, like, his book was also panned, and he's excited to go tell him about how badly his book is.
[01:17:45] Speaker B: I have to go offer my condolences. And he's clearly, like, thrilled I have.
[01:17:50] Speaker A: To offer my condolences for his bad review of his recent book or whatever, but he's clearly, like, loving it. Yeah, that was it.
[01:17:56] Speaker B: No, I. I thought that was great. Yeah. We all know that guy.
[01:18:00] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[01:18:04] Speaker B: Despite my previously noted misgivings about Tara, I did like the scene where she and Charles exchange books.
[01:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:11] Speaker B: I thought that was nice.
[01:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And also at the end, too, when they get it back, and I thought they're A interaction at the end was nice, too. Yeah.
[01:18:18] Speaker B: The guy in the blacking bottle mascot costume.
[01:18:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:18:23] Speaker B: Was so goofy, but I kind of loved it. It felt like a fever dream. Like, I thought it was gonna be something he was hallucinating for a second.
[01:18:33] Speaker A: Well, I liked it because it reminded me of, like, when you see those, like, Victorian era, like, Halloween costumes sometimes. It was that kind of thing. Where it is is almost like a nightmare kind of, like, thing. Yeah.
[01:18:45] Speaker B: I thought the scene where Forester modeled as the ghost of Christmas Present was funny. I thought that was fun.
[01:18:52] Speaker B: I liked Order now and avoid Disappointment on the marketing sign for A Christmas Carol as he's struggling to actually finish the novel as. As a creative relatable.
[01:19:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:19:05] Speaker B: I also liked the little exchange between Dickens and Scrooge where he, Dickens says, I'm the author here. And Scrooge just goes, allegedly.
[01:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:16] Speaker B: I also really liked the scene where Forrester was helping Charles work out Scrooge's character motivations. Really? Like sitting in the restaurant. He's like basically just asking him why over and over again.
[01:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:30] Speaker B: I did think that the visual hits.
[01:19:32] Speaker A: Him with that Socratic method.
[01:19:34] Speaker B: Yes. Right.
[01:19:36] Speaker B: I did like the visual of Scrooge's grave showing up as Dickens is starting to like, figure out the end of the story. I thought that was fun.
[01:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah. At the blacking factory. Yeah.
[01:19:46] Speaker B: And I also liked the newfangled Christmas tree at the end of the movie.
[01:19:54] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[01:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:19:54] Speaker A: They were talking about like, oh, it's a Christmas tree.
[01:19:56] Speaker B: It's a Christmas tree.
[01:19:57] Speaker A: Popular.
[01:19:58] Speaker B: We just imported it from Germany.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: It's very popular in Germany. Germany.
[01:20:02] Speaker B: Everybody's gonna have one because the queen has one.
[01:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. No, that was good. I like that too. That's the other little, like.
[01:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:20:09] Speaker A: Illusion to Christmas, like becoming like a thing. Yeah. All right. We got a couple things to talk about in the movie. Nailed it.
[01:20:19] Speaker A: As I expected.
[01:20:21] Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. When this movie opens, we see Dickens, like powdering his face before he goes out on stage in America. And he was purportedly quite vain about his experience, about his appearance.
[01:20:36] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:20:36] Speaker B: Which was something that the American newspapers mocked him for when he visited.
He was apparently quite the dandy.
[01:20:47] Speaker B: He did blow a bunch of his money on a giant house that he made really fancy updates to.
[01:20:53] Speaker A: We occasionally see this Italian guy who's doing like renovations.
[01:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And that was part of the reason that, like, because he, when he was. When he was driven really high on the hog and all of his books were huge successes, he bought this like gigantic house and was updating everything and then that money kind of dried up.
[01:21:14] Speaker B: The Dickens is. Did have a fuck ton of kids.
[01:21:16] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:21:17] Speaker B: 10. 10 of them, to be precise.
[01:21:22] Speaker B: And the line.
I forget exactly when he says this.
[01:21:26] Speaker A: This is when he's pitching it, I think.
[01:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:27] Speaker A: He's pitching it to the publishers and his is like his kind of like elevator pitch of like what it is.
[01:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And he describes A Christmas Carol as. He says it's going to be a hammer blow to the heart of a smug, self satisfied age. And I don't think that this was the exact quote from one of the letters he Wrote about a Christmas Carol, but it's pretty dang close. I remember something very similar to that from the book.
[01:21:55] Speaker A: All right, we got a handful of odds and ends before the final verdict.
[01:22:09] Speaker A: In retrospect, it was a harbinger of what was to come. But the opening title drop in the movie, while very overwrought, which is why it was a harbinger of what was to come, I thought was a lot of fun. It's set, he's like in his office and he's sitting down to write the title. He's like. It's a close. Close up of him, like his hand coming down to the paper with the quill and then literally like to the music, the. The man who Invented Christmas, like, title pops in over his hand hovering over the paper. And then right after the title comes in, a big blob of ink falls on the page and he doesn't write anything because it's. He doesn't have any ideas yet. But I thought it was a very fun, dramatic way to kick the. Like to do the title drop. I was like. That felt like it had. I was like, okay, maybe this movie will have some sauce. But then it just.
That was like. That was subtle. Honestly, on. In this movie's whole. In the range of how this movie kind of does things, that that title drop was actually on the subtler side, which was not a good sign for the rest of the movie. But another thing I did like in the movie was the lighting. I thought it actually looked pretty good most of the time. It actually had a fair amount of depth and col.
It wasn't. It didn't, you know, it didn't fall victim to a lot of modern movies that are just kind of like washed out and gray.
[01:23:33] Speaker A: I've seen a lot of worse looking movies with higher budgets than this movie because this is not like. This wasn't like a huge movie with a bit. You know, this is a relatively small budget produced by like a British film company or whatever.
Fair amount of times it looks pretty generic. The color grade in particular really leans into the like blues and. Or like the teals and oranges that are kind of like the generic quote unquote, Hollywood color grading, where all of the shadows are kind of bluish and tealish and all of the highlights are kind of orangey yellow, like golden colored.
But I really like some of the scenes where they have those big overlit windows and there's a ton of haze in the air and we get these like pooling lights that like this pooling sunlight coming through the windows into these fairly dark rooms that reminded me of kind of like oil paintings and stuff. I thought some of those scenes where they really leaned into like.
[01:24:27] Speaker A: Motivated lighting from the windows and. And really like playing with like the. The smoky atmosphere and stuff like that I thought looked pretty cool. Other times it kind of looks generic and whatever, but I've like I said, I've seen worse looking movies.
I thought his library slash office was cool as hell.
[01:24:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:24:46] Speaker A: The layout of it, like was really unique and different. Like.
[01:24:50] Speaker B: And they really went for it with the set dressing too.
[01:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
But I just really liked how it was. Not like it's like a little library office thing, but it just didn't look like any other version of that that I had seen in anything before. Like the architecture of it. And he has this little staircase over the door that's kind of fun where he has this little like lofted area and there's books everywhere. It looks very cozy. But also I just thought it was a cool like, set. That specific room.
[01:25:18] Speaker B: I thought the sets in general looked pretty good. A little clean for Victoria London, but like pretty good. Costumes and makeup I also thought were good.
[01:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:28] Speaker B: Like nothing mind blowing, but pretty good.
[01:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:33] Speaker B: I wrote this down when we get the scene of him like in his office making sounds, trying to come up with Scrooge's name.
And I just wanted to note for posterity that Scrooge is actually a word.
[01:25:48] Speaker A: And was prior to.
[01:25:49] Speaker B: Yes, was prior to. It is. It's an 18th century variant of. Of scourge.
[01:25:55] Speaker B: Which means to squeeze, press or crowd someone.
[01:25:59] Speaker A: Oh. So probably very likely where he.
[01:26:01] Speaker B: Yes. Tight fisted hand at the grindstone.
[01:26:04] Speaker A: Because the movie kind of just makes it seem like it's just a word.
[01:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. Yeah, because he's literally just like making sounds.
[01:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah, he's like doing. Yeah. That thing.
Which while it's. That was one of those moments that seems silly, but is also. I'm like, as somebody who has. Has invented names of things, who has invented drug names and stuff like that, that is a thing you do. Like, I have sat there before and just like said noises, trying to come up with a word that is interesting and that I think works for a specific thing. So it's a little. But finding out that that's probably very much not how he came up with the name for Scrooge. Yeah.
Christopher Plummer, one of his final roles, if not his final role. I thought he was really good at it. Yeah, he's great as Scrooge. I thought he did a Fantastic job. Some of his scenes, he's just.
It was, it was a unique take on Scrooge from what I'd seen, but very much in line with the canon of Scrooges that have come before. But I thought he put his own little spin on in a way that was interesting and I thought he was fantastic.
Dan Stevens was okay.
[01:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah, he was.
[01:27:10] Speaker A: He wasn't awful.
But I will say that he didn't hold a candle to Christopher Plummer. And I will say there was so many times, especially towards the end of this movie where I kept imagining Nicholas Hoult playing.
[01:27:26] Speaker A: Charles Dickens in this movie. And boy, the movie I don't think would have been good then.
But holy shit, Nicholas Hoult doing. Because he would have nailed this character.
[01:27:36] Speaker B: Oh yeah, he would have been an.
[01:27:37] Speaker A: Incredible self important but struggles with. With these inner demons and like fluctuates.
[01:27:43] Speaker B: Between and like flamboyant.
[01:27:45] Speaker A: Flamboyant, but also kind of an asshole but also ignorant of his own like weirdness and shortcomings as a per. You know, like the scenes where the scene. I'm imagining that scene where Catherine like confronts him about Catherine. It's funny that. Yeah, but it confronts him about like how difficult he is to live with. I'm just imagining Nicholas Holt playing that scene instead of Dan and just. Oh, it would have been like I said, I. Not that the movie would have been great if they kept everything else the same, but it would have been worth it just for his performance alone, I think. Whereas the movie is not Dan Stevens. Again, not a bad performance, I don't think. I think he's fine. He's like, okay, but man, that would have been incredible.
[01:28:28] Speaker B: I want to read a quick little excerpt of something from the book. This has nothing to do with, with the movie or like this story as an adaptation at all. It's just something random. That was in the book that I had thoughts about.
[01:28:46] Speaker B: In Dickens time. The notion of a narrator author standing in the wings of a fictitious story, always ready to step forward and explain the actions and motives of a character or to deliver an exegesis on the nature of the world surrounding him was completely acceptable.
For one thing, in an age when education was less than universal and where relatively few attended university, it only stood to reason that an informed author who was at all serious about his craft might have something instructive to pass along about the workings of human nature and the laws that govern commerce.
[01:29:25] Speaker B: So basically.
[01:29:28] Speaker B: This novel just has a little aside about how in Dickens time it was perfectly acceptable for the narrator or the Author of a story to explain.
[01:29:44] Speaker B: Why is this character doing this? Why does this character feel this way? What's going on here?
And I read that and I was like, oh, my God, we're gonna have to go back to doing that.
We gotta start doing it again because nobody has any media literacy.
[01:30:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna.
[01:30:03] Speaker B: Is this how we cure the lack of media literacy?
[01:30:07] Speaker A: I don't know. Could be.
[01:30:08] Speaker B: Start explaining everything in your book.
[01:30:12] Speaker A: The Worst.
We can't go back to that. I won't have it.
[01:30:15] Speaker B: We're gonna have to.
[01:30:16] Speaker A: I won't have it.
[01:30:18] Speaker A: Before the final verdict, we wanted to remind you you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about the man who invented Christmas. This, let us know what you thought. Was it good, Bad, Indifferent?
You know, we would love to hear and talk about it on our next prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. We would appreciate that. And you can Support
[email protected] ThisFilmIsLit get access to bonus content.
Last month we put out our episode on Revenge, the 2017 film. This month we're doing four.
[01:30:57] Speaker A: Rankin Bass.
[01:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah, they're short, aren't they?
[01:31:00] Speaker A: Like an hour?
[01:31:01] Speaker B: I don't think so.
[01:31:03] Speaker A: I thought they were all like an hour. I was like, you signed us up for four hours of Rankin Bass, which it's fine, but I thought they were like an hour each, but maybe not. Maybe they're shorter than that. But anyways, we're gonna be watching four different Rankin Bass Christmas specials. Do you know which one's off the top of your head?
[01:31:21] Speaker B: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jack Frost.
[01:31:27] Speaker B: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, and the Year Without a Santa Claus.
[01:31:31] Speaker A: There you go. So those four we will be watching and talking about for this month's Patron bonus episode. So look out for that next week sometime probably. I think we're doing it this weekend potentially. So look out for those. You get access to that, the five dollar level. And if you support us at the $15 a month level, you get access to priority recommendations or if there's something you would love for us to talk about on the podcast, you can support us at that level and recommend it. And we will add it to our list as soon as we possibly can. Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
[01:32:00] Speaker B: Sentence fast, verdict after.
That's stupid. I haven't read all that much Dickens.
I read A Christmas Carol the last time that we covered it and I once read the first quarter or so of Great Expectations, but I never got around to finishing it. It this book is the only thing approaching biographical that I've ever read about him. And it contained far less story than I thought it was going to, but I enjoyed is definitely more along the lines of non fiction biography than it is a narrative about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol.
The movie is literally the opposite and I thought it was fine. It's probably not something I'd choose to watch again, but it was a perfectly serviceable film and fine for the Christmas season.
I think it's especially good if you're looking for something like family friendly, but not like a cartoon.
[01:33:00] Speaker A: It's perfect for turning on in the background during a family Christmas party because you don't have to pay that much attention and you could be like, oh look, it's screw. He's talking to screw. Oh, that's where humbug came from. Oh, you know, you could.
[01:33:14] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:33:14] Speaker A: Like, that's why it exists like that.
Which is also why it's not very good.
[01:33:19] Speaker B: But anyways.
[01:33:21] Speaker B: What you're going to enjoy more will really come down to what you're looking for in this historical exploration of A Christmas Carol. If you're looking for a cozy little story about how the novel came to be, you want the movie. If you're looking for a more in depth exploration of the novel's inception and historical influence, you want the book.
For me, I did find that historical track to be more satisfying. I like learning about history and I thought the book's forays into the history of the publishing industry and the history of Christmas itself were fascinating.
So for that reason am going to give this one to the book.
[01:34:04] Speaker A: Katie, what's next?
[01:34:06] Speaker B: Well, up next we're gonna talk about A Christmas Carol.
[01:34:11] Speaker A: Yes, we are.
[01:34:12] Speaker B: And that film adaptation is currently being chosen by our patrons.
[01:34:17] Speaker A: Yes. So for people who don't know if you're still here at this point, we've already done A Christmas Carol once.
[01:34:22] Speaker B: Yes. We covered A Muppet Christmas Carol like our. That was our very. No, that was like 2017. That was our very first Christmas episode.
[01:34:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. So like eight years ago.
[01:34:33] Speaker B: But we have been scraping the bottom of the Christmas movie, well for a couple years now.
[01:34:39] Speaker A: Turns out there aren't as many adaptations of Christmas books as we maybe hoped there had been. So.
[01:34:46] Speaker B: So we are returning to the the urtext. The urtext. Yeah. We're returning to the. The echelon of Christmas Carol and we're going to talk about another film adaptation of it.
[01:35:03] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And if you wanted to vote. Well, it's too late now. By the time you're hearing.
[01:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it is too late now.
[01:35:09] Speaker A: We were letting all of our patrons pick that one. So if you support us at Patreon, you could be involved with fun little polls like that. They also got to pick. What?
[01:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Which Rankin Bass.
[01:35:19] Speaker A: Rankin Bass. Ones we did for episode. So come back in two weeks time, right before Christmas, actual Christmas, we'll be talking about A Christmas Carol and one of the adaptations. I can tell you what it's down to. It's down to either Scrooged or the Patrick Stewart led Christmas Carol.
[01:35:36] Speaker B: There was a tie between those two. So we had to do a light. We had to do a lightning round runoff.
[01:35:41] Speaker A: And as recording, we don't know which is gonna win. But yeah, we will know by the time this is out. So that will be what we're talking about. And in one week's time, we'll be previewing whichever one of those movies wins, as well as hearing what you all had to say about the man who invented Christmas. Until then, that time, guys, gals, not minor pals.
[01:35:59] Speaker B: And everybody else, keep reading books, keep.
[01:36:01] Speaker A: Watching movies and keep being awesome.
