Based on the classic novel by Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist is another classic British film by the director David Lean. Of course, this is a very well known book, and there are actually several film adaptations. I am familiar with the adaptation Oliver!, which was a musical, and one of my fondest childhood film memories. So, obviously, this film had to live up to the expectations of the musical. And, actually, it did, to some extent.
This film is much darker than the musical-colour-extravaganza version. The setting, the characters, and the story are pretty much the same, but the tone and atmosphere of the gritty cinematography creates the much more depressing tone of the film. The opening scenes exemplify this strongly, and I was not too surprises when I read that this film, at its screening, caused quite an upset. One thing that upset me, quite a bit, was the character Fagin. In the musical he is such a lovable person, in a very strange way, but here he is much darker, menacing and generally a bastard. I guess this goes for a lot of the characters in this film. Fagin, though, is played extremely well by one of my favourite British actors, Alec Guinness, and this was his first breakthrough performance. Fagin is quite a larger than life character, but Alec Guinness plays him with enough subtlety to give the character some more depth. He does it perfectly, and Fagin is a typical you love to hate him and hate to love him character. Of course, the real bastard in this film is Bill Sikes, and he is much darker than I remember him, but there you go. Mostly, the casting in this film is perfect, except, I think, the role of Oliver. He is a tad bit boring, and doesn’t really do much, and lacks some natural charisma to make him likable. But he is just a kid, though, and the adult actors support him well.
The book, which I haven’t read by the way, I assume is quite long. Because it feels like the film doesn’t leave out too much, but at its relative short running-time, the film seems to zoom by at lightning speed. Everything seems somewhat rushed, as we are just going through the motions to get to the next part of the narrative. This is the thing I remain most critical to, as the film never really slows down and takes its time properly developing the story, but moves too fast from one point to the next. Oliver is also adopted by some rich family, but compared to the musical, this relationship I felt was never properly explored, and I wanted more time spent in such scenes. Comparing this and the musical is obviously quite hard, because of their very different styles, but I must say that, even though I thought this was great, I think I still prefer the musical. It has charm, beautiful cinematography, great acting and a very well developed story which, even with the excess of the songs, doesn’t seem to be rushed. 10-20 odd minutes more could have added a lot of pace and depth to this black and white version. Still, it has all the trademarks of a classic, and deserves its place within British cinema. It has a very dark atmosphere, which is interesting for the time it was made, and has that undeniable British charm that I quite love.
The film is very enjoyable in many ways, but at the end of the day, it suffers from the rushed storyline. Anyway, the casting is mostly great and the cinematography is great, what’s not to like?
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