magiadoreal

Oliver! (Reino Unido, 1968). Direção: Carol Reed. Rot. Adaptado:  Vernon Harris baseado no romance de Charles Dickens e no musical de Lionel Bart. Fotografia: Oswald Morris. Música: Johnny Green. Montagem: Ralph Kemplen. Dir. de arte: John Box & Terence Marsh. Cenografia: Vernon Dixon & Ken Muggleston. Figurinos: Phyllis Dalton. Com: Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Mark Lester, Harry Secombe, Jack Wild, Hugh Griffith, Joseph O´Connor. Oliver Twist (Lester) após aprontar muitas no orfanato onde vive, é levado para ser vendido e  é comprado pelo dono de uma funerária. Expulso de lá, parte para Londres sozinho. Faz amizade com o jovem Artful Dodger (Wild), que o leva para sua morada, na casa do Sr. Fagin (Moody), que comanda um grupo de crianças que praticam pequenos furtos.  Acusado erroneamente de autor de  um furto, cai  nas graças do rico e respeitado Sr. Brownlow (O’Connor), que o adota. Porém, logo ele se torna vítima da ganância do inescrupuloso Bill Sykes

I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident that it took no distinctness of the shape, and that it was the revival for a few minutes of the terror of childhood. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

It is of course Dickens who most acutely imagines what it would be like to be an illiterate creature in a world full of letters, signs and advertisements: "It must be a strange thing to be like Jo! To shuffle through the streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness to the meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and at the corners of the streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that language - to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps Jo does think, at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? ( Bleak House , 1853, ch. 16) (Philip Davis, The Victorians , pp. 234-5)

"Make them lauugh, make them cry, make them wait" was [Charles] Dickens' famous advice to [Wilkie] Collins. It was not so good for the 'non-sensational writer, who does not rest his interest on playing bopeep with a secret" Philip Davis, The Victorians , pp.231.