cinemabon
11-07-2009, 08:02 PM
A Christmas Carol – by Robert Zemekis
The story is the same: Scrooge is miserly and learns to accept the spirit of Christmas after three ghosts remind him of his frailty as a human being and the need for brotherhood to sustain any civilization. With the advent of computer graphic programs, the presentation of the old story has changed. So Robert Zemekis, who brought us another computer animated tale in “The Polar Express,” returns to give us the classic Dickens tale nearly word for word. Only the staging has changed and the dialogue embellished here and there.
First of all, to say we have come a long in way in computer animation would be an understatement. During the opening shot, Zemekis draws us into an opening book from the two dimensional world into a three dimensional one. This is as old as Disney when we looked into the book “Pinocchio.” However, unlike drawn animation, in the digital world, we see incredible detail that wraps all around us in this world of early 19th Century England, specifically the world of Dickens’ London.
In 1843, the world had completely lost its Christmas spirit at the time Dickens published this novella. He looked around and realized that civilization seemed headed toward a disastrous end. Thousands of people worked and slaved to benefit a very small privileged class of individuals. They perpetuated a system meant to prey on the poor and disadvantaged: work houses, debtor’s prisons, factories with long hours and terrible conditions with worse wages. The city trapped hundreds of thousands of people in this system of poverty. Life offered them little comfort except for cheap gin, prostitution, and gambling. Health care did not exist, nor did the opportunity for advancement through education (Hence, the two evils – ignorance and want). People learned trades, which were usually passed down through families. Dickens tried to change this world through a story.
In the 2009 film, “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Robert Zemekis, the spirit of the original novel lives on through the performances of Jim Carey along with a fine supporting cast that includes Gary Oldman, Robin Penn Wright, and Cary Elwes. You may remember this couple as Buttercup and stable boy from “The Princess Bride.” All of these actors play multiple roles throughout the film, voicing a variety of characters. However, the main character of Scrooge in all of his forms is Jim Carey. Gary Oldman plays both Cratchit and Marley. The animators have played off the actors’ portrayals by animating the faces to match their characters.
From the first scene, we see this is not “Polar Express.” This film has a very dark and menacing side, as does the novel. Zemekis took his time with a long take on Scrooge’s face during Marley’s burial. We see a careful study of what it takes to be miserly. The detail in skin and emotion from Scrooge is very realistic. Zemekis carefully mapped out this opening scene with wonderful precision. Perhaps he did it too well, as our expectations for the rest of the film are high based on this scene. In fact, the scene that follows – Scrooge walks down the street and makes other people cringe at his approach – has so many wonderful details that it would take several viewings to see everything included in the perfectly framed shots. This film takes full advantage of the widescreen image and will be impossible to watch on anything except that format.
Unfortunately, like “Polar Express,” the trouble with “A Christmas Carol” quickly becomes apparent on two fronts. While Zemekis has beautifully created old London with so much detail and precision it cries out for a technical Oscar, the performances start to fall flat the moment he introduces other characters. You can see where the animators responsible for Scrooge and a few others in scenes meticulously crafted these faces to show the right timed emotion. However, when minor characters enter, the film falls on its three-dimensional face. The same “doll’s eyes” event happens that plagued “Polar Express.”
To explain my position, I must revert to how a real person behaves. An actor does not focus on one thing for very long. When the camera comes in for a close up, a good actor will provide very subtle moves impossible to duplicate from take to take. Each performance will be unique. This provides a director with the proper take to establish the mood. When looking for fluidity in animation, different means are used to create those “emotions” by using stock “faces.” Yet, when Zemekis tries to mimic human faces in a real three dimensional setting, the results fall flat (unless you wish to bring up Gollum in “Lord of the Rings.” However in that case, Jackson focused on one character and not a whole movie of them.). The strange stare from people’s faces quickly detracts from the rest of the film. The minor characters lack that eye “contact.” They stare in whatever direction their face points.
My second objection is using the “3-D” for effect instead as an enhancement. As soon as filmmakers discovered that throwing something at the camera made us all go, “Wow!” they started throwing things at the camera. Overdone, this quickly becomes a distraction to storytelling instead of a way to enhance it. When the director goes “flight crazy” and starts to fly the camera through a series of narrow escapes, the effect begins to fall flat. Soon, we’re flying in so many directions we become disoriented. The film becomes a story of effects and not one with a plot. This could have been a good film if Zemekis concentrated on telling the story instead of building an amusement park ride. While I love the three-dimensional filmmaking process for realism, I hate the in-your-face style that will drive people from the process in droves if they are not careful. (I feel the same can be true for CGI). Tell the story. Add effects if needed to tell the story.
Finally, Zemekis departs from the novel and goes out on a limb to make the story modern. He starts to add some grizzly details to point of being extremely uncomfortable. My son leaned over to me as the second ghost’s part ended. As his time comes to an end (retro?) he melts away in horrific fashion.
“If this is the mild stuff,” my son wondered, “how bad will the last ghost be?”
As we watched the second ghost literally dissolve through various stages of “acid-eats-you-away” the third “scary” ghost appears. To say he was scary was an understatement. This is not a family movie for children. They’ll be frightened to death. The third ghost takes Dickens to the level of horror, with nightmare scenarios that go far beyond the story to address childhood fears that involve being chased by demons and shrinking in size. I expected giant rats spitting venom next (thought they did not appear).
Artistically speaking, “A Christmas Carol” is a masterpiece of animation. It defies anything made to date and its high-definition that shows skin blemishes and wood grain added intense realism to a world where dancing women can float up to the ceiling. Defying gravity is hardly realistic, however the director can take poetic license as long as he brings the story back to earth. Yet he does not. On Christmas day, we again fly through the air around London for about the tenth time and Zemekis makes his slam dunk final statement about Christmas (probably not one shared by Dickens). The emphasis that this is a Christian holiday is more than blatant, as Zemekis stops the camera in front of a steeple’s cross (left screen) with St. Paul’s cathedral on the right side of the screen while we hear, “…Christ is born in Bethlehem.” So this “Christmas Carol” is less about the film’s end narrative as is the obvious message “this is a Christian holiday, and don’t you forget it!” All that other stuff about goodwill toward men? They’d better be Christian men.
The story is the same: Scrooge is miserly and learns to accept the spirit of Christmas after three ghosts remind him of his frailty as a human being and the need for brotherhood to sustain any civilization. With the advent of computer graphic programs, the presentation of the old story has changed. So Robert Zemekis, who brought us another computer animated tale in “The Polar Express,” returns to give us the classic Dickens tale nearly word for word. Only the staging has changed and the dialogue embellished here and there.
First of all, to say we have come a long in way in computer animation would be an understatement. During the opening shot, Zemekis draws us into an opening book from the two dimensional world into a three dimensional one. This is as old as Disney when we looked into the book “Pinocchio.” However, unlike drawn animation, in the digital world, we see incredible detail that wraps all around us in this world of early 19th Century England, specifically the world of Dickens’ London.
In 1843, the world had completely lost its Christmas spirit at the time Dickens published this novella. He looked around and realized that civilization seemed headed toward a disastrous end. Thousands of people worked and slaved to benefit a very small privileged class of individuals. They perpetuated a system meant to prey on the poor and disadvantaged: work houses, debtor’s prisons, factories with long hours and terrible conditions with worse wages. The city trapped hundreds of thousands of people in this system of poverty. Life offered them little comfort except for cheap gin, prostitution, and gambling. Health care did not exist, nor did the opportunity for advancement through education (Hence, the two evils – ignorance and want). People learned trades, which were usually passed down through families. Dickens tried to change this world through a story.
In the 2009 film, “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Robert Zemekis, the spirit of the original novel lives on through the performances of Jim Carey along with a fine supporting cast that includes Gary Oldman, Robin Penn Wright, and Cary Elwes. You may remember this couple as Buttercup and stable boy from “The Princess Bride.” All of these actors play multiple roles throughout the film, voicing a variety of characters. However, the main character of Scrooge in all of his forms is Jim Carey. Gary Oldman plays both Cratchit and Marley. The animators have played off the actors’ portrayals by animating the faces to match their characters.
From the first scene, we see this is not “Polar Express.” This film has a very dark and menacing side, as does the novel. Zemekis took his time with a long take on Scrooge’s face during Marley’s burial. We see a careful study of what it takes to be miserly. The detail in skin and emotion from Scrooge is very realistic. Zemekis carefully mapped out this opening scene with wonderful precision. Perhaps he did it too well, as our expectations for the rest of the film are high based on this scene. In fact, the scene that follows – Scrooge walks down the street and makes other people cringe at his approach – has so many wonderful details that it would take several viewings to see everything included in the perfectly framed shots. This film takes full advantage of the widescreen image and will be impossible to watch on anything except that format.
Unfortunately, like “Polar Express,” the trouble with “A Christmas Carol” quickly becomes apparent on two fronts. While Zemekis has beautifully created old London with so much detail and precision it cries out for a technical Oscar, the performances start to fall flat the moment he introduces other characters. You can see where the animators responsible for Scrooge and a few others in scenes meticulously crafted these faces to show the right timed emotion. However, when minor characters enter, the film falls on its three-dimensional face. The same “doll’s eyes” event happens that plagued “Polar Express.”
To explain my position, I must revert to how a real person behaves. An actor does not focus on one thing for very long. When the camera comes in for a close up, a good actor will provide very subtle moves impossible to duplicate from take to take. Each performance will be unique. This provides a director with the proper take to establish the mood. When looking for fluidity in animation, different means are used to create those “emotions” by using stock “faces.” Yet, when Zemekis tries to mimic human faces in a real three dimensional setting, the results fall flat (unless you wish to bring up Gollum in “Lord of the Rings.” However in that case, Jackson focused on one character and not a whole movie of them.). The strange stare from people’s faces quickly detracts from the rest of the film. The minor characters lack that eye “contact.” They stare in whatever direction their face points.
My second objection is using the “3-D” for effect instead as an enhancement. As soon as filmmakers discovered that throwing something at the camera made us all go, “Wow!” they started throwing things at the camera. Overdone, this quickly becomes a distraction to storytelling instead of a way to enhance it. When the director goes “flight crazy” and starts to fly the camera through a series of narrow escapes, the effect begins to fall flat. Soon, we’re flying in so many directions we become disoriented. The film becomes a story of effects and not one with a plot. This could have been a good film if Zemekis concentrated on telling the story instead of building an amusement park ride. While I love the three-dimensional filmmaking process for realism, I hate the in-your-face style that will drive people from the process in droves if they are not careful. (I feel the same can be true for CGI). Tell the story. Add effects if needed to tell the story.
Finally, Zemekis departs from the novel and goes out on a limb to make the story modern. He starts to add some grizzly details to point of being extremely uncomfortable. My son leaned over to me as the second ghost’s part ended. As his time comes to an end (retro?) he melts away in horrific fashion.
“If this is the mild stuff,” my son wondered, “how bad will the last ghost be?”
As we watched the second ghost literally dissolve through various stages of “acid-eats-you-away” the third “scary” ghost appears. To say he was scary was an understatement. This is not a family movie for children. They’ll be frightened to death. The third ghost takes Dickens to the level of horror, with nightmare scenarios that go far beyond the story to address childhood fears that involve being chased by demons and shrinking in size. I expected giant rats spitting venom next (thought they did not appear).
Artistically speaking, “A Christmas Carol” is a masterpiece of animation. It defies anything made to date and its high-definition that shows skin blemishes and wood grain added intense realism to a world where dancing women can float up to the ceiling. Defying gravity is hardly realistic, however the director can take poetic license as long as he brings the story back to earth. Yet he does not. On Christmas day, we again fly through the air around London for about the tenth time and Zemekis makes his slam dunk final statement about Christmas (probably not one shared by Dickens). The emphasis that this is a Christian holiday is more than blatant, as Zemekis stops the camera in front of a steeple’s cross (left screen) with St. Paul’s cathedral on the right side of the screen while we hear, “…Christ is born in Bethlehem.” So this “Christmas Carol” is less about the film’s end narrative as is the obvious message “this is a Christian holiday, and don’t you forget it!” All that other stuff about goodwill toward men? They’d better be Christian men.