IMDB lists 70 entries for the character Ebenezer Scrooge. Everyone from Jack Palance to Vanessa Williams (her character was called Ebony Scrooge) have “bah humbugged” their way through the role.
Jim Carrey joined that list in a big budget Disney motion capture version of A Christmas Carol. But why have the character and the story of the man who hated Christmas stayed popular since Charles Dickens penned it 166 years ago?
The first reason may have appealed to old Scrooge’s frugal nature. The story is in public domain, meaning there are no pesky payments to the Dickens family for using the character, but to be made (the first film came in 1901) remade (21 times on film and dozens more made for TV) then turned on its head and remade again and again, there must be something else about the story’s humbuggery that resonates with viewers. The Life and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge author Paul Davis says the story is one of those rarities that is so familiar it’s almost part of our collective DNA.
“My acquaintance with Scrooge seems preliterate,” he wrote, “different from my sense of … Dr. Doolittle or Robinson Crusoe. I remember when I first met the Hardy Boys, but I feel as though I’ve always known Scrooge and Tiny Tim.”
Some scholars think the story’s ability to seem current, no matter when it is restaged, is a major selling point.
“What it all boils down to is that A Christmas Carol is that rare and precious thing, a story for the ages,” said the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, “like other such stories — the Bible … the plays of Shakespeare — becomes a distinct and different entity in each age.”
Perhaps these days of economic uncertainty have given the story a timely slant as Scrooge’s penny-pinching ways could be seen as something to be emulated. The bottom line, however, may be the simplest explanation of all; A Christmas Carol is a tale of redemption that confirms the fundamental spiritual nature of Christmas itself. In other words, it makes us feel good.
Around this time of year “A Christmas Carol” is omnipresent. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey of redemption, courtesy of three mysterious Christmas ghosts, runs on an endless Yuletide television loop and has been adapted as an opera, ballet, a Broadway musical, animation and even a BBC mime production starring Marcel Marceau.
A new film, “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” aims to tell the story behind the story. “Downton Abbey’s” Dan Stevens plays Charles Dickens, the Victorian writer who, when we first meet him, is out of ideas and money. “My light’s gone out,” he moans. When he devises a Christmas story, his publishers, who have gotten rich off his previous works, scoff. The holiday season isn’t a big enough deal for their readers, and it’s only six weeks away. How can he finish a novel and how can they publish it in such a short time? He perseveres and we see how real life inspiration and his imagination collide to create the self-published book that redefined Christmas celebrations for generations to come.
Using flashbacks to Dickens’s childhood in London’s workhouses and dramatic recreations of encounters with the characters—including Christopher Plummer as Scrooge—that would soon populate his book, the film attempts to show “the blessed inspiration that put such a book into the head of Charles Dickens.”
Often more literal than literate, “The Man Who Invented Christmas” is handsome film that plays like a series of “a ha” moments than a serious exploration of the creative process. What it does, however, is entertainingly paint a picture of life in Dickens’s Victorian home, and the external influences that sparked his imagination.
As Scrooge Plummer hands in a performance that makes us wish he’d play the character for real. In a very likable portrayal Stevens links Scrooge’s transformation to Dickens as he battles his own personal demons on his way to personal redemption. All bring a light touch and even when the going gets tough there is an endearing quality to the material. Even the condescending critic William Makepeace Thackery (Miles Jupp) isn’t played with malice.
“The Man Who Invented Christmas” is a festive film, a movie for the holidays that reminds us of the spirit of the season. No “Bah! Humbugs” here.
IMDB lists 70 entries for the character Ebenezer Scrooge. Everyone from Jack Palance to Vanessa Williams (her character was called Ebony Scrooge) have “bah humbugged” their way through the role.
