Australian TV series based on Dickens
[ad_1]
The Australian series “The Artful Dodger” was released on Disney+ – a continuation of the classic plot of “Oliver Twist”, turning it inside out.
Charles Dickens’s novel “Oliver Twist” is famous for its famous happy ending: the villains are defeated, the good people are rewarded – it was from here that the writer’s happy endings began to come in droves. True, if you look closely, it turns out that Dickens’s goodness is somehow limited, and even in the happy ending, the novel did not lose its inescapable bitterness: the world has not changed one bit for the better, Oliver just fits in well in it. The evil genius of the street children, Fagin, as we remember, was sent to the gallows. And Oliver’s former accomplice in the gang of thieves, Jack Dawkins, nicknamed the Artful Dodger, is sent to a penal colony in Australia, like the last trash.
That’s where we find him 15 years later: lo and behold, the guy has settled down! During the sea wanderings, thanks to the thieving dexterity of his fingers, Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster with an excellent Dickensian physiognomy) turned out to be a good naval surgeon. Having settled in Port Victoria, he took a job as a doctor at a local hospital – but he had to work for lodging and food. But Dawkins no longer has a passion for theft, so he earns his living by playing card games. Until he encounters local swindler Darius Cracksworth (Tim Minchin) – he beats our aesculapian with an ace in his hole and demands from him an exorbitant debt of 26 pounds, equal to the annual earnings of local workers. If the Dodger does not get the money, Craksworth and his accomplices threaten to cut off his hand – and goodbye to his surgical vocation. Here, like a jack-in-the-box, Fagin (David Thewlis) appears in the plot – the scoundrel, who escaped the gallows in his homeland, is brought on a ship in shackles with the rest of the exiles and only by the mercy of the Dodger is not sent to hard labor. Fagin, as a skilled devil-tempter, immediately begins to push the Dodger onto the path of sin – and he would be glad to get out otherwise, but the card was unsuccessful.
It is at this point that Oliver is first mentioned in the series: “You and I still have a lot in common,” Fagin assures the Dodger, “we both hate Oliver Twist!” – “Everyone hates him because he’s an idiot!” – Dodger kicks back. Closer to the end, we will see Oliver himself – to make sure that the Dodger is absolutely right.
It’s not the first time Dickens has seen a film adaptation take issue with his novel—the fiery Oscar-winning musical Oliver! (1968) Carol Reed painted the gloomy bottom of London with bright colors and depicted the new social order generated by capitalism as cozy – the writer considered it a breeding ground for vices and a branch of hell on earth. The creators of “The Dodger” reproduce this hell in life-size: Port Victoria is ruled by a soft-bodied governor, under whom the chain dog (and saint!) Captain Gaines (Damon Herriman, who twice played Charlie Manson, is terribly convincing in the role of another monster) kills and maims people. Gaines’ soldiers, accustomed to dealing with convicts with all possible cruelty, are ready to break anyone’s head, and the prison and gallows in Port Victoria are never empty. The only decent person among the powers that be is the ambitious governor’s daughter Belle (Maia Mitchell) – without ever uttering the word “feminism”, the girl embodies its principles: away with boring marriage, when there is science and calling! — She passionately dreams of studying medicine and becoming a surgeon. On this basis, they agree with Plut, uniting for the sake of correcting wild local customs – and not only: it’s a young matter.
A special success of the series is the sharp, pulsating modern soundtrack (such an anachronism has already become commonplace for current Victorian TV series) and another new Victorian feature: bloody public medical operations are constantly being carried out on camera – these are the same ones, when they had no idea about any sterility or anesthesia , the doctor’s actions were watched by onlookers, like in a circus, and, God willing, one patient out of six survived. There’s a lot of things here: caesarean section, surgery on an aortic aneurysm, ligation of the carotid artery, excision of part of the stomach – and endless amputations. A real holiday for fans of medical realism “Knickerbocker Hospitals” (syphilis is also mentioned).
But if everything is clear with spectacular Victorian medicine, then what do modern screenwriters have with Dickens? Here’s what: Australians believe that evil can be overcome not by depressed righteous people with their dull goodness, but by enterprising, roguish outcasts from the bottom, crushed by social injustice, but who know how to get out. The world is certainly in evil, as it was under Dickens, and since then good intentions have periodically plunged it into greater evil, but it cannot be saved by fasting and prayer – in this paradigm, Fagin and the Artful Dodger suddenly turn out to be not such bad guys , or even heroes.
Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram
[ad_2]
Source link
