Stage and screen adaptations of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol have become as traditional as the goose. From Alastair Sim to the Muppets, Michael Newton chooses his favourite Scrooges – past, present and future
Though the forthcoming BBC series, Dickensian, may alter this, it’s a fair bet that if you dropped into conversation that an acquaintance was “a perfect Pecksniff” or that someone had “a touch of Mrs Gamp” about them, you’d be met by a blank stare. If you described someone as “a bit of a Scrooge”, on the other hand, almost everyone would catch your drift. While some Dickens characters are more or less forgotten, others remain part of the national consciousness. Growing up in the English-speaking world, it’s hard to avoid encountering Scrooge, his name was so well chosen for a miser, a glorious melting together of “scrape” and “ooze”. Over the years, Jim Carrey,...
Though the forthcoming BBC series, Dickensian, may alter this, it’s a fair bet that if you dropped into conversation that an acquaintance was “a perfect Pecksniff” or that someone had “a touch of Mrs Gamp” about them, you’d be met by a blank stare. If you described someone as “a bit of a Scrooge”, on the other hand, almost everyone would catch your drift. While some Dickens characters are more or less forgotten, others remain part of the national consciousness. Growing up in the English-speaking world, it’s hard to avoid encountering Scrooge, his name was so well chosen for a miser, a glorious melting together of “scrape” and “ooze”. Over the years, Jim Carrey,...
- 12/19/2015
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
Brief Encounter was laughed at by audiences when first released, and Dr Zhivago was scorned by critics. Now, argues Michael Newton, we can appreciate them as two of the greatest love stories committed to film
David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) and Doctor Zhivago (1965) both came into the world looking likely to fail. The British critics loved Brief Encounter, while audiences let it pass by; the critics savaged Zhivago, though the public adored it. The reputations of both films remain mixed. It is striking how many of the legends about Brief Encounter involve people finding it ridiculous. While Lean was filming Great Expectations in Rochester, Kent, Brief Encounter was screened to a predominantly working-class audience; one woman at the front started giggling during the love scenes, and pretty soon most of the audience were laughing with her. At a preview, the critic James Agate loudly provided a running commentary on the film’s faults.
David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) and Doctor Zhivago (1965) both came into the world looking likely to fail. The British critics loved Brief Encounter, while audiences let it pass by; the critics savaged Zhivago, though the public adored it. The reputations of both films remain mixed. It is striking how many of the legends about Brief Encounter involve people finding it ridiculous. While Lean was filming Great Expectations in Rochester, Kent, Brief Encounter was screened to a predominantly working-class audience; one woman at the front started giggling during the love scenes, and pretty soon most of the audience were laughing with her. At a preview, the critic James Agate loudly provided a running commentary on the film’s faults.
- 11/13/2015
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
Big, grizzled, with spit and stubble, Orson Welles dismantled the notion of what a movie star should look like. As it returns to cinemas, Michael Newton celebrates his Touch of Evil, the last great film noir of Hollywood’s golden age
In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver finds himself in the kingdom of Brobdingnag, where the people are 60ft tall. Scale is everything; blown up to gigantic proportions the human face becomes rough, pitted, the seemingly immaculate skin unmasked as imperfect. In the 20th century, Brobdingnag transformed into the picture house, a place for the pygmy public to stare up at the great stars. However, far from seeming less perfect, the enlarged human face seemed more wonderful, smoothed-out by celluloid, unattainable. Yet still strangeness clung to these super-sized persons, those colossal faces.
Welles understood this, and so returned us to the Swiftian vision. In his movies, the human...
In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver finds himself in the kingdom of Brobdingnag, where the people are 60ft tall. Scale is everything; blown up to gigantic proportions the human face becomes rough, pitted, the seemingly immaculate skin unmasked as imperfect. In the 20th century, Brobdingnag transformed into the picture house, a place for the pygmy public to stare up at the great stars. However, far from seeming less perfect, the enlarged human face seemed more wonderful, smoothed-out by celluloid, unattainable. Yet still strangeness clung to these super-sized persons, those colossal faces.
Welles understood this, and so returned us to the Swiftian vision. In his movies, the human...
- 7/2/2015
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
Congratulations, Michael Welch! The Twilight star, who played boy next door Michael Newton in the first three films, popped a big question to his model girlfriend Samantha Maggio last night at a Beverly Hills charity event for a youth organization working to end the global water crisis. YouTube stars Andrea Russett, Connor Franta and Kian Lawley were also on hand at the Thirst Project gala to witness the adorable proposal, which happened on stage! "Well I had a pretty good night... #ThirstGala," the 27-year-old actor tweeted alongside a picture of the newly engaged couple. In another snapshot, Welch's leading lady looks absolutely shocked to see her husband-to-be get down on one knee...
- 7/1/2015
- E! Online
An Eric Rohmer season opens today at BFI Southbank and runs through January 27. "Most people know that Rohmer is very French, very chilly, very flat and very static," writes Michael Newton in the Guardian. "However, what most people know is entirely wrong." David Jenkins at Little White Lies argues that The Green Ray (1986) "stands among the headiest pinnacles of modern cinematic art." And Nathan Silver (Exit Elena, Soft in the Head) urges us to catch A Tale of Winter (1992): "We have something here that presents the craziness of love so elegantly and forcefully that it’s necessary viewing for every human interested in matters of the heart (which is most of you, I hope)." » - David Hudson...
- 1/1/2015
- Keyframe
An Eric Rohmer season opens today at BFI Southbank and runs through January 27. "Most people know that Rohmer is very French, very chilly, very flat and very static," writes Michael Newton in the Guardian. "However, what most people know is entirely wrong." David Jenkins at Little White Lies argues that The Green Ray (1986) "stands among the headiest pinnacles of modern cinematic art." And Nathan Silver (Exit Elena, Soft in the Head) urges us to catch A Tale of Winter (1992): "We have something here that presents the craziness of love so elegantly and forcefully that it’s necessary viewing for every human interested in matters of the heart (which is most of you, I hope)." » - David Hudson...
- 1/1/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
'If I'm wrong, I'm insane. If I'm right, it's worse': in conspiracy films – from Rosemary's Baby to State of Play – solving the crime does not bring peace. Michael Newton investigates a rich cinematic genre
Some believe that JFK was shot by his driver, some that Bobby Kennedy was killed by one of his guards; some believe the world is ruled by a Yale fraternity, some by lizard-aliens in disguise; some believe that Obama is a Communist mole; some that, back in 1966, Paul McCartney died. These notions are, at best, deluded; but as potential pitches for an as yet unmade Hollywood movie, they might just secure the contract. For, in movies, you can believe that the moon shots were faked, or that men are replacing their wives with compliant robots, or that space shuttles are firing earthquake-inducing weapons, or that the world itself is a delusion – and in each case you could be proved right.
Some believe that JFK was shot by his driver, some that Bobby Kennedy was killed by one of his guards; some believe the world is ruled by a Yale fraternity, some by lizard-aliens in disguise; some believe that Obama is a Communist mole; some that, back in 1966, Paul McCartney died. These notions are, at best, deluded; but as potential pitches for an as yet unmade Hollywood movie, they might just secure the contract. For, in movies, you can believe that the moon shots were faked, or that men are replacing their wives with compliant robots, or that space shuttles are firing earthquake-inducing weapons, or that the world itself is a delusion – and in each case you could be proved right.
- 2/8/2014
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
Based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents remains one of the very best ghost films. As it is re-released for the festive season, Michael Newton explores the freedoms and horrors of trusting your own imagination
One late Victorian Christmas Eve, around the fire, a man settles down to read aloud to the other house-guests the manuscript of a ghost story. His tale is that of a governess in another country house decades before, and of her two charges, a boy called Miles and his sister, Flora. Removed from the world in an idyll of apparent purity, things darken as the governess perceives, or perhaps merely imagines, that the children's last governess, Miss Jessel, and her Heathcliff-esque lover, the virile servant, Peter Quint, have returned from the dead to possess the children. And then a darker fear comes to her mind: what if the children are complicit in their corruption?...
One late Victorian Christmas Eve, around the fire, a man settles down to read aloud to the other house-guests the manuscript of a ghost story. His tale is that of a governess in another country house decades before, and of her two charges, a boy called Miles and his sister, Flora. Removed from the world in an idyll of apparent purity, things darken as the governess perceives, or perhaps merely imagines, that the children's last governess, Miss Jessel, and her Heathcliff-esque lover, the virile servant, Peter Quint, have returned from the dead to possess the children. And then a darker fear comes to her mind: what if the children are complicit in their corruption?...
- 12/28/2013
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
As Sean Connery named the favourite British star of Us audiences, we've news on what else is coming up today, plus a look back over weekend highlights
On the site today
Jeremy Kay on the Us box office over the weekend, including The Counselor's flop and Jackass's triumph
Judi Dench and Stephen Frears talk Philomena on video
Our top 10 series tackles war movies
Meryl Streep, Milla Jovovich, Cameron Diaz tipped for "female Expendables"
Sean Connery is America's favourite British film star
Ben Affleck was "reluctant" to take Batman role and is planning to direct untitled geopolitical thriller
Andrew Pulver reports on Hitchcock collaborator Edith Head's costume designs getting Google-ised
And this evening Stuart Heritage will be liveblogging Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
You may have missed
Mark Kermode reviews all the big cinema releases including The Selfish Giant and Ender's Game
Always wondered what kind of art Sly Stallone makes?...
On the site today
Jeremy Kay on the Us box office over the weekend, including The Counselor's flop and Jackass's triumph
Judi Dench and Stephen Frears talk Philomena on video
Our top 10 series tackles war movies
Meryl Streep, Milla Jovovich, Cameron Diaz tipped for "female Expendables"
Sean Connery is America's favourite British film star
Ben Affleck was "reluctant" to take Batman role and is planning to direct untitled geopolitical thriller
Andrew Pulver reports on Hitchcock collaborator Edith Head's costume designs getting Google-ised
And this evening Stuart Heritage will be liveblogging Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
You may have missed
Mark Kermode reviews all the big cinema releases including The Selfish Giant and Ender's Game
Always wondered what kind of art Sly Stallone makes?...
- 10/28/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
From Nosferatu to Twilight, gothic films have explored what frightens us – and why we are willing victims of our fear. A few days before Halloween, and as the BFI begins a nationwide season, Michael Newton is seduced by horror, sex and satanism
Beyond high castle walls, the wolves howl. The Count intones: "Listen to them! The children of the night! What music they make!" And those words usher you into a faintly ludicrous cosiness, the comfortable darkness of gothic. For gothic properties are altogether snug, as familiar as Halloween costumes – a Boris Karloff mask, the Bela Lugosi cape, an Elsa Lanchester wig. So it is that many of us first come to the form through its parodies; I knew Carry On Screaming! by heart before I saw my first Hammer film. And yet, within the homely restfulness, something genuinely disturbing lurks; an authentic dread. And watching these films again, we...
Beyond high castle walls, the wolves howl. The Count intones: "Listen to them! The children of the night! What music they make!" And those words usher you into a faintly ludicrous cosiness, the comfortable darkness of gothic. For gothic properties are altogether snug, as familiar as Halloween costumes – a Boris Karloff mask, the Bela Lugosi cape, an Elsa Lanchester wig. So it is that many of us first come to the form through its parodies; I knew Carry On Screaming! by heart before I saw my first Hammer film. And yet, within the homely restfulness, something genuinely disturbing lurks; an authentic dread. And watching these films again, we...
- 10/26/2013
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
In the 1940s and 50s, the Boulting brothers won over filmgoers and critics with a series of classics – from Brighton Rock to Private's Progress. As the BFI begins a retrospective, Michael Newton explores their version of Britain
The history of the Boulting brothers is the history of British cinema in miniature. The brilliance, the comforts and the disappointments are all there. In the 1940s, they take off from documentary realism to reach the heights of noir extravagance, before falling back into a gently unexciting worthiness. At the start of the 1950s they produce two fascinating oddities, characteristic of the oddity of the times. Later that decade, they turn to cosily satirical farce, the products of an exasperated, grump. The 1960s see them trying to get with it and making a middle-aged effort to "swing", but also creating one work that finds a vulnerable, extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives. And after that comes a petering out,...
The history of the Boulting brothers is the history of British cinema in miniature. The brilliance, the comforts and the disappointments are all there. In the 1940s, they take off from documentary realism to reach the heights of noir extravagance, before falling back into a gently unexciting worthiness. At the start of the 1950s they produce two fascinating oddities, characteristic of the oddity of the times. Later that decade, they turn to cosily satirical farce, the products of an exasperated, grump. The 1960s see them trying to get with it and making a middle-aged effort to "swing", but also creating one work that finds a vulnerable, extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives. And after that comes a petering out,...
- 7/26/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Herzog's films portray humans as frail creatures caught in the gap between an indifferent nature and a punishing God. Ahead of the UK release of As Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing, which Herzog executive produced, Michael Newton celebrates a unique world view
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
- 6/1/2013
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
His characters are uncool, preppy and full of the self-dramatising melancholy of youth, yet his films are hugely likeable. His latest, Damsels in Distress, continues his peculiar cinematic vision
Every great American film-maker struggles to create their own peculiar vision, just as the studio men struggle to stop them doing so. Yet few visions are quite so peculiar as Whit Stillman's, and few have seemed so marginal to the industry of which they are a part. It's hard to say how much impact his films have had; there have been, for reasons beyond his own control, too few of them. He has succeeded in getting four films made: a comic trilogy set in the 1980s, Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), and now the about-to-be released "campus comedy" Damsels in Distress. On one level it may seem a rather meagre body of work. However, for some, myself included,...
Every great American film-maker struggles to create their own peculiar vision, just as the studio men struggle to stop them doing so. Yet few visions are quite so peculiar as Whit Stillman's, and few have seemed so marginal to the industry of which they are a part. It's hard to say how much impact his films have had; there have been, for reasons beyond his own control, too few of them. He has succeeded in getting four films made: a comic trilogy set in the 1980s, Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), and now the about-to-be released "campus comedy" Damsels in Distress. On one level it may seem a rather meagre body of work. However, for some, myself included,...
- 4/20/2012
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
There's no denying it - awards season is finally upon us. Dust off that tux and/or tiara, and join the party
The big story
You couldn't escape it: this was the week when the awards season (for so we must describe it) kicked into high gear. On Sunday night, we had the Golden Globes, which was monitored in a fantastically popular liveblog by Hadley Freeman and Joshua Alston. It was the first major red carpet splurge of the season, and – as was widely expected – French silent film The Artist walked off with the biggest haul of gongs. Ricky Gervais tried but failed to disgrace himself, Hollywood's finest graced the podium, and, if you still want to know, the full list of winners is here. Then 48 hours later it was back to London, as the nominations for the 2012 Baftas were announced. Again, The Artist did best, but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy...
The big story
You couldn't escape it: this was the week when the awards season (for so we must describe it) kicked into high gear. On Sunday night, we had the Golden Globes, which was monitored in a fantastically popular liveblog by Hadley Freeman and Joshua Alston. It was the first major red carpet splurge of the season, and – as was widely expected – French silent film The Artist walked off with the biggest haul of gongs. Ricky Gervais tried but failed to disgrace himself, Hollywood's finest graced the podium, and, if you still want to know, the full list of winners is here. Then 48 hours later it was back to London, as the nominations for the 2012 Baftas were announced. Again, The Artist did best, but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy...
- 1/19/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Film's favourite Pm, David Cameron, stepped in to give his views on what sort of features deserve lottery funding – the big ones
The big story
What sort of British films do we want? Or, more specifically, what sort of British films does David Cameron want? More commercial, big-box-office ones it seems, as the prime minister carefully primed the media for the publication of the government's film policy review. His "remarks" were fed to the press overnight, in advance of his visit to the James Bond studios at Pinewood – leading to immediate suggestions that garlanded veterans like Mike Leigh were "finished". More films like The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire, please, said Cameron – but, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out, when politicians meddle in film-making, disaster is never far away. Perhaps Cameron could reflect on what might happen to a film he claimed to admire, Lindsay Anderson's If..., if it had it been around today.
The big story
What sort of British films do we want? Or, more specifically, what sort of British films does David Cameron want? More commercial, big-box-office ones it seems, as the prime minister carefully primed the media for the publication of the government's film policy review. His "remarks" were fed to the press overnight, in advance of his visit to the James Bond studios at Pinewood – leading to immediate suggestions that garlanded veterans like Mike Leigh were "finished". More films like The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire, please, said Cameron – but, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out, when politicians meddle in film-making, disaster is never far away. Perhaps Cameron could reflect on what might happen to a film he claimed to admire, Lindsay Anderson's If..., if it had it been around today.
- 1/12/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
It's A Wonderful Life is a Christmas tradition – and the film that has preserved Frank Capra's popularity. It is too easy to dismiss his work as sentimental, prudish and politically naive, argues Michael Newton. Many of his movies are still magical
Of all Hollywood directors, Frank Capra is the most loved and the least respected. From the early 1930s to the mid 40s, as the maker of such classic movies as It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), he achieved fame, won Oscars and found huge audiences. Yet for every film-fan who warms to his work, there's a hard-nosed critic eager to pounce on this purveyor of "Capra-corn". He offers a personal vision, but it's one that has been judged suspect, offering up a sentimental and duplicitous Americanism. To those on the left, he has seemed a fascist; to those on the right,...
Of all Hollywood directors, Frank Capra is the most loved and the least respected. From the early 1930s to the mid 40s, as the maker of such classic movies as It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), he achieved fame, won Oscars and found huge audiences. Yet for every film-fan who warms to his work, there's a hard-nosed critic eager to pounce on this purveyor of "Capra-corn". He offers a personal vision, but it's one that has been judged suspect, offering up a sentimental and duplicitous Americanism. To those on the left, he has seemed a fascist; to those on the right,...
- 12/18/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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