Film Review
David Lean followed his superlative
Great Expectations (1946) with
this equally impressive re-telling of a popular Dickens classic
novel. Of the numerous film and television adaptations that
Oliver Twist has undergone, Lean's
is by far the best, surpassing even Carol Reed's version of the Lionel
Bart musical
Oliver!
(1968). It is often cited as Lean's finest film, rating at least
as highly as his other great cinematic achievement,
Brief Encounter (1944).
What makes David Lean's
Oliver Twist
so memorable is that it evokes so perfectly the world that Dickens
creates in his famous 1838 novel. It is a world of unremitting
cruelty, in which violence is endemic, and where a seemingly impassable
gulf separates the educated rich from the miserable poor. It is a
world where most characters are either irredeemably bad or inherently
good, a world of kindly innocents and wicked monsters. Through
the prism of a vulnerable eight-year old boy, Lean, like Dickens, shows
us the best and worst that humanity can offer.
Much of the film's impact derives from its excellent cast. In
only his second major film appearance (having debuted in Lean's
Great Expectations) Alec Guinness
is the definitive Fagin, capturing both the outwardly sinister and
inwardly tortured aspects of Dickens's original character. When
he first heard that Lean was intending to make the film, Guinness put
his name forward for the part with great enthusiasm, even though he was
only 34. Thanks to some very effective make-up, Guinness is
transformed into a man who is convincingly almost twice his age.
Unfortunately, his large prosthetic nose caused problems for the film's
American distribution. When the film's portrayal of Fagin was
judged to be anti-Semitic, several of Guinness's scenes had to be cut prior
to its US release.
After a nationwide campaign which drew over 1,500 applicants, the part
of Oliver finally went to John Howard Davies, the eight-year old son of
a screenwriter friend of the film's producer Ronald Neame.
It was a perfect piece of casting - under Lean's skilful direction,
Davies succeeds in conveying both the vulnerability and resilience of
his character, giving the film some moments of great poignancy.
The actor would appear only in a further three films, before retiring
from the limelight. He would go on to become one of the most
significant figures in BBC light entertainment from the 1970s,
producing and directing such shows as
The
Goodies,
Monty Python's
Flying Circus and
Fawlty
Towers.
One of the film's stronger performances comes from Robert Newton.
His portrayal of the villainous Bill Sikes ranges from the quietly
menacing to the utterly terrifying, and yet throughout there is also a
suggestion of pathos. Like most of the characters in the story,
Sikes is shown to be the victim of forces which cannot be controlled and which
ultimately lead to his downfall. At the time of making this film,
Newton had a drink problem, something which may have helped his
characterisation but which also caused great difficulties during the
shoot.
Nancy, the film's tragic heroine, was played by Kay Walsh. She
had previously worked on the screenplay for
Great Expectations and was married
to David Lean at the time. It was Walsh who
suggested the opening sequence for
Oliver
Twist, the hauntingly poetic scene in which Oliver's pregnant
mother is making her way across a windswept moor.
There are two more notable members on the cast list - Anthony Newley as
the Artful Dodger and Diana Dors as the undertaker's servant - very
early film appearances for both actors, who would each have a long and
successful acting career.
Cinematographer Guy Green and designer John Bryan deserve great
recognition for their contribution to the film. They had each won
an Academy Award for their earlier work on
Great Expectations and here they
both did an equally good job. The intricate
false-perspective sets of Bryan, combined with Green's effective use of
high contrast photography, creates a distinctive look that is
reminiscent of German expressionism. In many of the interior
scenes, dense shadows add greatly to the sense of menace and reinforce
the impression that the boy Oliver is caught in a nightmare from which
there can be no escape.
Green is also to be credited for some very ingenious point-of-view
shots, notably those where characters are struck, suggesting extreme
violence without showing physical contact. Another good example
of this "less is more" principle of which David Lean was particularly
fond is the traumatic scene in which Bill murders Nancy - the film's
most shocking sequence. Rather than show Bill cudgelling his
victim to death, the camera cuts away to his dog, which tries
frantically to get away from the scene of the killing - arguably the
most potent image in any of Lean's films.
Although David Lean would go on to make many great films - notably
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
and
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
-
Oliver Twist marks the
creative highpoint of his career. It is not only one of the
finest adaptations of a Charles Dickens novel but also one of the true
masterpieces of British cinema.
© James Travers 2008
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Next David Lean film:
The Passionate Friends (1949)