A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR A BROKEN WORLD

 

As Christmas was fast approaching, my partner and I began the debate of what holiday themed TV/movie viewing we’d like to see on those special days.  We quickly descended into bickering because we were both very fed up with the usual, traditional fair.  Eventually, I realized what we needed was something fresh and unfamiliar.  With that in mind, I came across an article online ranking various adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the classic Charles Dickens morality tale.  While scanning the article, I came across a mention of the FX/BBC produced 2019 three part miniseries starring Guy Pierce.  Without reading too much, the initial description of it being a darker, more modern interpretation was enough to intrigue me and we agreed to give it a go over three nights from the 23rd thru the 25th.  Now that we’ve finished it, I feel compelled to offer some thoughts as it certainly had an impact on me and I want to explore how and why.

I’ll start off by saying that I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers since, while it’s a well known story, there are many elements introduced into this version which will be unfamiliar and surprising and I don’t want to undermine that impact for those who choose to give this a go.  But I must offer a warning up front that this is a divisive rendition and it’s not going to work for everyone, especially if you’re a very conservative viewer clinging to traditional adaptations.  It’s also not recommended as “family” viewing.  This is easily the most adult rendering of this story you’ll ever encounter and the kids simply won’t dig it or will be requiring a lot of professional counseling after viewing it.

It doesn’t take long into the first chapter before you realize this is an exceedingly dark, bleak Victorian world.  I found it richly atmospheric and gloomy.  Everything is gorgeously rendered with impeccable cinematic details down to the sense of cold and misery that surrounds everyone on all sides.  Most adaptations I’ve seen tend to make this world seem somehow charming and quaint, but this is much more realistic in that the Victorian era in England was not a happy time for most.  Even the abode of the wealthy Scrooge is a dank, craggy edifice of shadows and emptiness.  The times were miserable and dirty and dismal and all of that is brought to visceral life, though still with a deeply beautiful reality. 

You also discover quite quickly that its near three hour runtime allows the story to penetrate deeper into the nature and motivations of the characters than most other adaptations.  This means taking some narrative liberties however, something that will not sit well with some, but I was open to these elaborations and found them well executed and reasonably extrapolated.  The first of these to be encountered is Jacob Marley, whom we get to see as he struggles back into the world for his ghostly visitation from his purgatory damnation.  He is played with desperate perfection by Stephen Graham, who I know mostly from his amazing interpretation of Al Capone in the HBO Boardwalk Empire series.  He does a brilliant job of conveying Marley’s sense of futility as he is tasked with the unenviable mission of trying to redeem his irredeemable former business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge.  That the opening scene of the series is a shot of a young lad pissing on Marley’s grave is an indicator of how gritty a rendition we are about to get.  That Marley’s ghost is all too aware of this as the wetness reaches his face in his coffin tells you that we’re not in your usual version of this story.

From here, we finally get to meet our updated version of Scrooge as played by Guy Pierce, who I know mostly for his portrayals of Peter Weyland in Ridley Scott's Prometheus & Alien: Covenant films.  Now, this Ebenezer is no mere "grumpy old miser".  This one is a truly, deeply despicable example of human depravity.  He’s mean, sadistic, manipulative and every bit the perfect portrayal of what it means to be a modern vulture capitalist.  Along with his partner Jacob, Scrooge & Marley’s company specializes in swooping in on struggling businesses, buying them up for a song and then selling them off in pieces for profit, leaving both the business defunct and its employees unemployed.  Sound familiar?  It should because this version of A Christmas Carol makes very pointed efforts to be reflective of the nature of the beast we find devouring our world today. This is where we find this take diverging from the sentimental family friendly favorites from the past.  Its bleakness and misery are very much necessary illustrations of the gravity of our own dark times. 

I’ve come across a number of online comments regarding this severity and how it goes against the sense of optimism and hope instilled by the more traditional approaches to the story, but I think this approach rings truer to our times than more maudlin efforts.  The producers of this adaptation have also taken some significant efforts to trace the causal relationships among the characters and events in ways I’ve never seen portrayed before, again an indulgence afforded by the runtime.  This is most evident in the heavy focus on the Ghost of Christmas Past and the things he shows Scrooge.  He is wonderfully realized by Andy Serkis, well known for his otherworldly creations such as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series.  Every time he admonishes Scrooge that “This is NOT about YOU!”, you can feel the dagger of realization twist in Ebenezer’s soul. 

The past is given a lot of weight in this interpretation and rightly so because it is there where we find the roots of all of these sins.  As heinous a character as Scrooge is, we’re able to comprehend the abuses that formed him, though they still don’t mitigate his crimes.  At least they are a much needed foundation upon which we can build a tiny sense of empathy so that the character does not become beyond any redemption. Where the past is normally used to highlight some of the “good times”, the focus here is much more dismal and devastating.  The case against him is immense and imposing and I did wonder how this could take him to the point we know he must reach by the end of his journey.  Where forgiveness is traditionally used as the balm to move him forward, this is not the case here and the screenwriter knows this isn’t possible given the severity of the transgressions we witness.  Therefor, finding another path forward is another one of this versions innovations. 

Casting the Ghost of Christmas Present as his deceased sister is another novel move for this story, though it’s less successfully manifested than the past with its rich, deep well to draw from.  It does have definite emotional resonance for me, but I wish she’d been able to do more than was allotted.  It’s one of the weaker aspects of this production, but is still supported by the tent-poles of the book-ending ghosts.  The best aspect of this chapter is the exploration of the Cratchit family and the impact of the monstrous thing done to them by Scrooge.  This is difficult to watch and likely the breaking point for many who are not prepared for the depths of his depravity and its adult nature.

Which brings me to the final apparition, the terrifying Ghost of Christmas Future.  It’s here that the emotional impact has to be brought to its climax and this is done most devastatingly when dealing with the possible fate of the the story’s most fragile, frail character.  This ghost makes a spectacularly crushing entrance and proceeds to show Scrooge a scene which shook me so terribly, I nearly burst into tears at the unimaginable horror of it.  It was something I was not expecting and the manner of its rendering is so effectively unnerving, it will haunt me for years to come.  Beyond the use of foul language and adult themes, this is the moment no parent will ever want their child to witness.  It’s almost more than I could bare.  It is, however, the thing that makes the difference and is big enough to achieve the ends that we all know must come in this story.  With all the cruelty and callousness of the events leading up to it, there was no other way to balance the scales.

To summarize then, I’ll reiterate that this version is not for everyone.  Some will downright despise it and I can understand why.  It’s not a traditional take on it and it’s heavy viewing for a holiday season meant for the celebration of love and family.  However, my take on it is that it’s the Scrooge our generation needs given the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves.  We live in a damaged, dying world being destroyed by humans who are of such a vile nature that we cannot turn away from this nightmare.  We have to show them as they are and hope that they change something before it's too late.  These people are not good souls hiding behind unhappiness.  They have committed serious crimes and we can't offer them forgiveness, but they can still do something decent before its too late.  What other chance do we have?  Dickens wrote this story for exactly this purpose, albeit a failed attempt as it has been over the ensuing generations.  We all know it, but I dare anyone to point to an example of a wealthy man who’s been convinced by it.  Yet the alternative is to surrender and I don’t think anyone wants to give up just yet. 

KRAFTWERK AT 50

50 years ago today, on December 1st, 1970, the world was introduced to a group who would change the nature of pop music forever. Recorded and mixed between July & September of 1970, the eponymous debut Kraftwerk LP would formally announce the arrival of Germany's most influential musical entity, not only of the decade, but for generations to come.

At the time, Kraftwerk were not quite the "machine" they would become in later incarnations. The group consisted of founders Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider, who were accompanied by drummers Andreas Hohmann (side A) and NEU! co-founder Klaus Dinger (side B). Production duties were handled by Conny Plank. Emerging from a previous incarnation known as Organization, Ralph and Florian were still very much into their more experimental phase with much of the album consisting of free-form improvisations with Ralph handling the keyboards and Florian on heavily processed flute. There's a bit of guitar and violin in there as well and a touch of electronic percussion and early synthesizer embellishments. There's very little to indicate the kind of rigid, precise compositional style the group would evolve into by the latter half of the decade, beginning with the landmark 1974 Autobahn LP. Only the opening number, Ruckzuck, offered any indication of this with its initial "motorik" rhythm and syncopated echoed flute layers. This style surfaces intermittently throughout the album, but the bulk of it floats freely in the either of spontaneous improvisation.

It is perhaps because of this divergence from the "classic" Kraftwerk approach that the first three albums from Ralph and Florian have been essentially excised from the group's canon of official releases. None of them have had official reissues since their release with the exception of the 1975 Exceller 8 album, which compiles tracks from those first three albums and was released after the success of Autobahn. Kraftwerk themselves have referred to their first three albums as "archeology" and have only hinted at the possibility of a proper remastered reissue at some point in the future, though there has been little evidence of that actually occurring. However, there have been unofficial CD and LP reissues on the market since the 1990s for determined collectors to get their hands on.

Regardless of its official status within the group, the album still holds the core DNA of what would come to be the building blocks of modern electronic pop music. Those first few minutes of Ruckzuck alone are enough to provide a signpost that points directly to that future. A half century on and we're still nowhere near seeing the end of that tsunami of influence lose its strength. This is the point of detonation for it.