Comments on: “Oliver Twist”: on depicting violence

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 21:18:10 +0000

I’ve never seen this, and had to turn it off as soon as the dog started freaking out. I watch the Walking Dead, but this was just too real.

By: FunkyPhD

FunkyPhD — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:48:44 +0000

The death of Nancy is arguably the most gruesomely violent scene in a novel up to that time. Dickens tells how Sikes burned the club he used to bludgeon Nancy, and “there was hair upon the end [of it], which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney.” He hit her so hard, in other words, that her hair came off and was presumably stuck to the club by her blood. Though “Oliver Twist” is a fairly early novel, Dickens was fascinated by this scene throughout his life. During the late 1860s, while still writing at his usual furious pace, Dickens did public readings (one-man performances, really) of scenes from his novels, and frequently concluded with “Sikes and Nancy.” Reportedly, it was harrowing, and raised his heart rate dangerously. Some of his friends thought that Dickens’ relatively early death (he died after a series of strokes at age 58) was hastened by his reckless insistence on performing “Sikes and Nancy” during his Farewell Tour of 1868-9. You’re right about Newton–no English actor could do a menacing turn as well as he did. Have a look at the 1941 version of Shaw’s “Major Barbara” (with Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller) for another great menacing Newton performance (but with a happier ending).

By: Steve57

Steve57 — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:33:02 +0000

The scene reminds me of Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Not merely because it’s from the same era. But it’s also about murder and dark secrets.

Anyway, that’s what I flashed back to when I saw this.

By: Ralph Kinney Bennett

Ralph Kinney Bennett — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 00:23:17 +0000

Please forgive my “y” on Dame Agatha’s name. Wish I could blame spellcheck for that.

By: Ralph Kinney Bennett

Ralph Kinney Bennett — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 00:20:46 +0000

Okay… So Dickens is anti-Semitic (and George Cruikshank, too) and Mark Twain is racist and Agatha Christy is racist and Shakespeare… Oh My! Don’t get me started. And I am beneath contempt for loving them all as giants of Western literature.

By: Frog

Frog — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 22:37:32 +0000

Ann, there is nothing good down the path you think Lean should have trod. It is the subtle, seductive path of Political Correctness, which seems so very good and right at the start (“I want the world to sing, in perfect harmony!”), and yet with every forward step proceeds further into the darkness.
The film could not be shown to the Krauts in Berlin until 1951? Were they in a late spasm of righteousness? The late, departed, obliterated European Jews had suddenly become the object of Kraut respect and love? Perhaps you can elaborate on this, since you brought it up.

By: Alan W

Alan W — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 21:29:26 +0000

I just noticed from IMDB that the silent Oliver Twist starred little Jackie Coogan best known as Uncle Fester and the kid who got ripped off by his parents.

By: Molly NH

Molly NH — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 21:16:58 +0000

Hypocrisy of Hollywood, gratuitous violence and guns a blazin , yet we are often “treated” to lectures from our bettors after some unfortunate horror, “It’s Time America give up guns” !

By: Ann

Ann — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 20:21:30 +0000

So, after the unimaginable suffering of the Holocaust, Lean decides the most important thing is to be true, and then some, to the book’s anti-Semitism. I find that appalling. Some others did, too. The film couldn’t be shown in the British sector of Occupied Berlin because of protests there, and it wasn’t released in the U.S. until 1951, and then with some of the worst of Fagin edited out.

By: Geoffrey Britain

Geoffrey Britain — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 20:08:13 +0000

“Bread and circuses” demand ever greater stimulation being essentially addictive in nature.