I don't know what goes on in Robert Zemeckis' head. With a talented cast including Jim Carrey, Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth, and Gary Oldman, why exactly would he want to use motion capture technology to create a creepy animated version of A Christmas Carol rather than just film it in live action? I don't get it.
I went to see Disney's A Christmas Carol less because I felt the need to see another adaptation of it than because my friend Matt Henerson had several small roles1, though the mo-cap/animation thing meant he was entirely unrecognizable. Seeing it on a weekday morning almost two months after its release meant that I got to watch it in solitary splendor, my very own private showing at the local multiplex.
I've read A Christmas Carol a number of times, and seem to have a few scraps of lyrics from a musical version of it stuck in my head from a childhood production, perhaps from being in it myself, though I honestly don't recall.2 Knowing the book well, I was in many ways quite impressed with the film. The story is faithfully adapted, with very few cuts, none of them critical. Much of the dialogue is word-for-word accurate. The voice acting is excellent. Great attention was paid to little details from the book, like the fiddler dunking his head and the game of guessing an animal at Scrooge's nephew's house.
I was even, for once, not entirely displeased by the dance scene, the famous Fezziwig's ball. They set it in 18133, according to a friend of mine who advised on the dancing, and actually did a few recognizable scraps of Sir Roger de Coverley, which is mentioned by name in the book. Just as importantly, in the previous dancing, everyone was actually dancing, rather than walking, with lively steps and kicks and capers. The first dance was some sort of odd circular thing; the lines were improper in Sir Roger; they had absolutely no business morphing into waltzing (though I appreciated the period rather than modern hand-hold); and having Mrs. Fezziwig actually tossed head-over-heels in the air was completely unnecessary...but it still felt much more of the era than any number of couples walking around looking stately to the century-out-of-date Hole in the Wall. This is important, given the description of the dancers in the text:
...people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.
While I'm a dance historian and a stickler for accuracy, I have quite enough theatrical background to understand the need to serve the needs of art and story as well. I can forgive quite a bit of detail if the feel is correct, and this film, unusually, strikes a pretty good balance. Kudos to my sadly-uncredited friend, Alan Winston, who managed to convey all the important elements of period dance in his advice!
With all that's good in the film, it's really a shame that Zemeckis made it with motion capture. For all the excellent detail in the faces and dress of the main characters and the meticulous scenery in London and the countryside, I found the whole thing terrifically creepy. I seem to be very susceptible to the "uncanny valley" effect. Motion capture's close-but-not-close-enough look worked perfectly for Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but makes for very disturbing human characters. The odd proportions of some of the people, with heads far too large for their narrow shoulders; the weird height differential between Cratchit and Scrooge that made the former resemble a hobbit; and, most of all, the faces of all the minor characters, made me edgy and unhappy throughout. While Scrooge, Cratchit, Fred, and the Ghost of Christmas Present were very well done, most of the other characters had fake-looking faces with odd skin textures, with the woman and children being the worst. Little Fan and Tiny Tim were especially eerie, like dolls out of a horror film -- hardly the reaction one wants to have to Tiny Tim in particular! I half expected all the minor characters to pull off their faces and turn into monsters out of a Doctor Who episode. I suspect this is a budget issue; it must cost a fortune to correctly render each character, so they did the important ones and skimped on the rest. This is why I wish they'd just filmed it live action with some aggressive CGI to enable Jim Carrey to play his multiple roles (Scrooge and the Ghosts). Motion capture seems like so much effort for such inconsistant results.
And it wasn't just the people. All the flames in the film made me intensely nervous. They flickered just a bit too slowly, so that they seemed to flow more than dance. It made me twitch in my seat. Hair texture was unevenly executed. While some was well done, Scrooge's locks looked more like felt ribbons, and I was unpleasantly distracted by the Ghost of Christmas Present's not-quite-right chest hair. Fabric textures were odd; I spent much of the film wondering what Scrooge's nightshirt was supposed to be made of, and his bed curtains were perhaps meant to be printed velvet but bore an unfortunate resemblance the sort of fleece blanket you can buy as a "no-sew" craft project. The women's costumes at Scrooge's nephew's house were also somewhat oddly proportioned, like they weren't wearing underpinnings; I had to look carefully to be sure they weren't still in particularly clingy 1810s styles, a bit of fashion confusion which should be completely impossible.
So while I still responded to the story, the intense wrongness of the film's look made me miserable. What a terrible waste of such a careful adaptation!
There were also some irritations. Zemeckis couldn't quite leave well enough alone. He just had to sex up Scrooge's travels with the Ghosts by having him zoom madly across the London sky like an aged Victorian Iron Man, swooping over and around and between buildings, silhouetted against the full moon, etc. I could almost see the Disneyworld ride taking shape in front of me and was not too surprised to see a plug for the a video game during the credits. I almost jumped out of my skin at the door-knocker-into-Marley effect, even though I was expecting the change. And did the story really need a car chase, of all things? Not that two hell-horses (apparently borrowed from Peter Jackson's depiction of the Nazgûl) drawing a black carriage that storms through the streets and alleys of London in pursuit of a terrified Scrooge weren't exciting -- I'll bet that chase will be on the ride, too -- but the Ghosts hardly need such cheesy interpolations to be effective. And the scene with all the unhappy ghosts floating around bore an unfortunate resemblance to Disney's Haunted Mansion ride. Didn't they already make that into a movie? Zemeckis should have trusted the power of the story and skipped the bells and whistles.
Despite all of this, Dickens' story really is idiot-proof, even Zemeckis-proof, and Scrooge's evolution from miser and misanthrope to a jolly and generous soul still tugs the heartstrings in all the right ways. I walked out of the theater singing Christmas carols and went home to reread Marvin Kaye's very interesting sequel (discussed in an author interiew here).
1 He writes: "I'm afraid much of what I acted and all of what I voiced is gone from the final cut. This doesn't surprise me much, by the way, but yes, I am the--now silent--poulterer. I am also a blind man whose dog Scrooge scares, and a knife wielding apparition in the Chistmas Future portion of the evening, but beyond that, I'm several dozen of the people walking around London, setting tables, waiting to get my goose cooked in the public ovens, listening to carolers--my caroling was cut, alas--like that."
2 I don't remember being in it, but I can't think of any other reason lyrics from a school production when I was in maybe 4th or 5th grade would be stuck in my head like this. Can anyone identify the adaptation from these lyrics?
A man named Ebenezer Scrooge was stingy, mean, and old,3 There's a perennial bit of confusion about exactly when the story takes place and how old Scrooge is. The film gives his birth year as 1786 and the year of the main story as 1843. That makes him fifty-seven. But he's visually much older in the film: stooped over, heavily wrinkled, and generally looking more like a man in his eighties or nineties. He also seems too young at Fezziwig's ball, more seventeen than the twenty-seven the film's dating would have him. Ah, well. Scrooge's actual age and the timing of Fezziwig's ball is something I've tried to resolve from the text myself, and it's just not clear.
And like his gloomy counting house, his heart was bare and cold.
But as he counted up the gold that his mind could never leave,
Young people in the square outside celebrated Christmas Eve.
Holly ho, holly ho ho ho
Holly ho, holly ho
Sing a Christmas carol written lo-o-ong ago
I found the whole thing terrifically creepy. I seem to be very susceptible to the "uncanny valley" effect. Motion capture's close-but-not-close-enough look worked perfectly for Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but makes for very disturbing human characters.
I felt the same way, watching Zemeckis's other motion-capture movie, Polar Express. If I had seen that one as a kid, it'd have given me nightmares.
Posted by: Serge | December 24, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Serge,
You may want to avoid Christmas Carol, then. Little Fan looks like she's a female version of the horror movie doll, what's its name, Chucky? Like she's about to open her mouth wide to reveal BIG SHARP TEETH and fasten them on young Scrooge's throat and shake him like a terrier...ahem. Motion capture faces, very disturbing, yes.
I skipped Polar Express because of this.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | December 24, 2009 at 11:26 AM
I'm not willing to ever watch A Christmas Carol again. I don't like the plot and nobody seems to be better than that.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | December 24, 2009 at 05:13 PM
I've never read Dickens's original, but I've seen most of the known adaptations. My favorite remains the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim. Speaking of which, what did you think of that one's rendition of Fezziwig's ball?
Posted by: Serge | December 24, 2009 at 06:13 PM
Serge,
Haven't seen it, so don't know!
I'm partial to Patrick Stewart's one-man theatrical version.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | December 24, 2009 at 07:19 PM
I liked the Alastair Sim a lot, but it's so long since I've seen it that I have no opinion on the dance material (and indeed, no memory if it). It was on TV in the 1970s and kicked off an Alastair Sim phase where I was watching anything that came by which he was in.
I saw the Patrick Stewart live here - he did a one-off as a benefit for Shakespeare Santa Cruz. The performance surmounted various technical difficulties and was quite compelling.
Posted by: Alan Winston | December 25, 2009 at 01:31 PM
If you click here, you'll be taken to YouTube. Sim's version of Fezziwig's ball starts at the 3:08minute point.
Posted by: Serge | December 25, 2009 at 02:48 PM
It's interesting that you mention the name of Sir Roger de Coverley. I've been hunting down the character (not the dance*) since we came here and I happened upon an old copy of The Roger de Coverley Papers in the for-show books in the shelves at the inn we stayed at coming to town. They were pieces from The Spectator. I looked all over for a copy at one of the used book stores in town. I sometimes think I might just go back to the hotel and ask if they'll sell me theirs; it's a nice little copy. I did finally get a selection of the stories from good old Project Gutenberg, so I at least have some to read. I can put them on my Sony Reader, I guess.
*The Complete Dancing Master has a piece called "Sir Roger" and another called "Roger of Coverley." I imagine the latter might be the one that was used in the movie, but they may both be named for the character, who was quite popular in, and after, his day.
Posted by: Kip Williams | December 25, 2009 at 10:49 PM
Serge,
That (Sims version) is actually a pretty good representation of Sir Roger de Coverley, though once again they've got the set improper (men on the women's side and vice-versa). The actual dance figures are quite good and the liveliness is very good. That's what most Jane Austen-film dance scenes should look like, and don't.
Kip,
If you mean the one in later editions of Playford (here), then I believe that is the same tune, but the dance figures given are not the ones they were using at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. I wrote an article about the latter figures on my dance blog here, if you want details. And yes, the tunes are probably named for the character.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | December 26, 2009 at 10:16 AM
The answer to your question, "Why motion capture?", is pretty much "Because Robert Zemeckis". He's apparently made some sort of philosophical commitment to make all his films that way from now on.
Posted by: Paul A. | December 31, 2009 at 02:54 PM
Paul,
Hopefully that will mean more work for my friend Matt.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | December 31, 2009 at 03:07 PM
Paul A... It's a good thing the technology wasn't ready in 1997 otherwise Zemeckis would have used motion capture for Contact.
Posted by: Serge | December 31, 2009 at 03:12 PM