Friday November 13, 2009
Dickens of a film
By ANN MARIE CHANDY
Ghosts, time travel and atonement ... A Christmas Carol has it all.
IT’S only mid-November, but already the “Bah! Humbug” spirit is coursing through cinemas worldwide hoping to get a head start at the box office, thanks to yet another reimagining of the story of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. Based on Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol is quite possibly the most remade film ever. There are over 20 remakes listed online, including one with the muppets, another with Mickey Mouse and company, a musical, a political satire and one computer-animated version featuring anthropomorphic animals in the lead roles!
One has to ask ... do we really need yet another adaptation?
When examined from Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis’ point of view, the answer to that question has to be yes.
Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol uses performance capture technology (the same technique used for his earlier efforts, The Polar Express and Beowulf) – a process that the filmmaker remains very much enamoured by, despite moviegoers’ lukewarm reception to it.
“After falling in love with this digital cinema – since The Polar Express – I’ve been on a quest to think of movie ideas that can be presented in this new art form,” explained Zemeckis at a press conference in Los Angeles last month to promote the film.
“I just got hit with the idea that the book (Carol) hadn’t been realised in the way that it had been imagined by Dickens. And I felt that this could be the perfect way to take a classic story and re-envision it in a new and exciting way.
Carrey overload: In this scene from A Christmas Carol, Robin Wright plays Belle while Jim Carrey takes on the roles of the elder Scrooge, Ghost of Christmas Past (the lit candle) and the young besotted Scrooge. “Plus the rights were cheap ... public domain, you know?” chipped in actor Jim Carrey, eliciting much laughter from the international media that had assembled to get a quote or two from the funny man, who apparently rarely does private interviews.
Zemeckis and Carrey (who plays Scrooge and a host of other characters in the film) were joined at the media event by producers Steve Sarkey and Jack Rapke (Zemeckis’ long-time companions and cohorts in the company ImageMovers Digital), as well as fellow actors Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth and Robin Wright. The previous day, the same group – save for Carrey and Wright – had also turned up for round table interviews with selected members of the press.
Dickens’ Carol is about a curmudgeonly old businessman who is visited by his dead partner and three other ghosts (from the past, present and future) after which he sees the error of his ways, and decides to open this heart towards kith and kin and loosen his purse strings during the yuletide season.
Zemeckis chose to embark on this project because he believed that no film thus far had captured Carol in a way that Dickens had intended; he also believed that with performance capture (or “perfcap” as they say in Hollywood), he would be able to do just that.
If you’re familiar with The Polar Express and Beowulf, you’d have some knowledge of how perfcap works. Basically, the process uses digital tools and computerised cameras to capture the performances of actors in a full 360°.
“It’s like an elaborate tech rehearsal,” Zemeckis explained. The filmmakers are then able to create environments and characters of their choice, and blend everything together for the final product.
“We have a whole new array of techniques to capture every crease and every pore on the actors’ faces and record that in a very, very detailed way. The technology is liberating for me as a filmmaker,” said the 57-year-old director. “With A Christmas Carol, I was able to realise the characters and have them be stylised and exaggerated. I was able to create a perfect illustration of London 200 years ago. I was able to light the movie using only candlelight. Everything I wanted to do I was able to do using the digital tools,” he gushed, proud of his efforts to create a truly Dickensian world, bleak as it may look in some parts of the film.
For the movie, Zemeckis was also intent on adhering to Dickens’ descriptions of the ghosts. Hence, the Ghost of Christmas Past is a flickering flame – or in Dickens’ words “a bright, clear jet of light.” The Ghost of Christmas Present is portrayed as a giant in robes with a loud laugh (ho, ho, ho) and is almost identical to artist John Leech’s illustration in Dickens 1843 book; and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is represented by a shadowy phantom.
Made at a cost of US$200mil (RM700mil) and in two years, Carol looks far better than ImageMovers Digitals’ previous efforts and the filmmakers are pleased with how far the technology has evolved. Producer Rapke said: “If you look at Polar Express and you compare it to the imagery in A Christmas Carol today, we have made quantum leaps forward in the technology. It’s night and day. We have come a long, long way and we continue to try and refine that.”
While you may have your own reservations about perfcap and its effectiveness (some feel the bodies look lifeless and frightening), there is another dimension of Zemeckis’ Carol to savour. The film is presented in 3D which has earned it the description of being a “multi-sensory thrill ride”. Indeed, during the lovely opening credits, you’ll feel as if you’re hurtling through the snow-covered streets of 19th century London.
Carol is also a perennial favourite and (arguably) the world’s first time travel tale (needless to say, a big plus point for Zemeckis who was responsible for the Back To The Future movies). Plus, it has ghosts in it, and at its core is a story about atonement.
Carrey this time as the Ghost of Christmas Present (left) and the elder Scrooge. “It’s a universal story about human nature, of a character redeeming himself,” Zemeckis said of the 166-year-old story’s relevance today. “There are certain things that never change.”
Wright, who plays Scrooge’s lost love Belle in the movie (and who recently split from husband Sean Penn), offered that Carol “is like the greatest psychotherapy one could ever have. And at only US$10.95 as opposed to US$150 an hour. We all need to do this. Take a look at yourself.”
“The story is both timeless and timely,” Zemeckis replied, when asked if Carol served as a social commentary of sorts for the lean economic times we live in. “Dickens was very vocal about the class system in England at the time – the divide between the wealthy and the poor; and sadly, in this country (United States) we have the same system – it’s a by-product of capitalism.”
All the right moves
“I hate Christmas. Christmas is such a challenge isn’t it?” said Carrey – tongue in cheek, of course – as soon as he was introduced to the press. Famous for his very physical comedy and chameleon-like ability to take on various roles (Ace Ventura; Me, Myself And Irene; Liar Liar; Dumb And Dumber), Carrey performs the roles of Scrooge at every age, as well as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come in Carol.
How did he land the roles? It seems Zemeckis had him in mind from the start.
“When I did my first performance capture movie and I realised the potential of what could be done, I couldn’t help think that the greatest performance-capture actor that exists is Jim Carrey,” Zemeckis revealed.
Carrey, trim and fit at 47 and sporting a thick beard at this time, rued the fact that many people still think that all actors do in this medium is voice-over work.
“They are full performances by actors,” the charismatic actor offered, displaying his uncanny ability to be court jester one moment, then calm, serious and thoughtful the next. “There are certain aspects of the technology that are so exciting and amazing creatively that you can’t wait to see what it turns into.
“But for an actor there are extra challenges too. You have to create the ambience and the belief in your surroundings in your head.”
Back to Dickens: Robert Zemeckis uses performance capture technology to reenvision A Christmas Carol the way Charles Dickens had intended it to be. In performance capture, there are no costumes or sets to help the actor role play. Instead, the actors wear latex suits fitted with special markers on them.
“When we did one dance scene, we were clacking these pincers together with cameras on them and going ‘clack! clack!’ against each other’s heads – it was really disconcerting. Gary Oldman said to me at one point: ‘I never imagined it would be like this!’ He not only had the pincers and the cameras staring at him, he also had a crane up his butt!”
Nonetheless, Zemeckis and his fellow filmmakers felt that Carrey came through with flying colours. Producer Sarkey revealed: “He’s an incredible performer. It amazed us how he managed to create these distinctive characters – not just their accents – but their physicalities, too. We knew he was going to be great, but he was even greater.”
When questioned about his multiple roles in Carol, Carey admitted that it was initially a daunting challenge.
“The regional accents and all that ... Colin how were they?” Carrey turned to ask Englishman Colin Firth who plays the part of Scrooge’s dapper young nephew Fred. Firth (pretty darn dapper in real life, too) nodded smiling, and said: “They were all great”.
As the Elder Scrooge, Carrey uses the Queen’s English; as the Ghost of Christmas Past he puts on a very light Irish accent; and the Ghost of Christmas Present possesses a Yorkshire accent. (The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come does not speak, thankfully some may say).
How did he do it? “I had Barbara Berkery ... a wonderful voice coach.” In truth, however, the accents are sometimes difficult to decipher, and one reviewer (from Irishtimes.com) said that the middle spirit can’t decide if he’s from Liverpool, Birmingham or Turkmenistan!
While the ghosts are a big part of the tale, it is Carrey’s Scrooge that makes the greatest impression – hooked nose and all.
Did a previous Scrooge characterisation inspire him perhaps? “Alistair Sim was my favourite,” Carrey revealed, referring to the Scotsman who played the role of Scrooge on celluloid in 1951.
“When I was a kid I watched that version every year. That was a man who was born to play Scrooge. His whole being had an acid reflux bitterness to it that was splendid to watch. And I kind of wanted to have that feeling – you know the kind of feeling that causes rheumatism, that eventually will eat you alive from inside,” Carrey said, making everyone laugh.
In a separate interview Carrey commented that the wonderful thing about perfcap technology was that it enabled someone like him (someone whose natural being does not have an acid reflux bitterness to it, presumably) to be cast in a film that he would never be cast in otherwise. “If I have it in my soul to play the character, it doesn’t matter what my face looks like, or my age. It’s really liberating.”
Carrey added that the physicality of the art form was also a dream come true for someone like him. “Quite honestly, you can use everything you’ve got. Even the fingers turn into these long spindly little things ... it’s almost like puppeteering in a way.”
O Captain, my Captain
With films like Romancing The Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Contact and Cast Away under his belt, Zemeckis has earned a reputation for being a master storyteller. But what inspires the next story? “I never have a plan,” he said. “Whatever pops into my head.”
Up next, incidentally, is Yellow Submarine. Set for 2012, Zemeckis confirmed that his company ImageMovers Digital would be turning the 1968 Beatles animated film into 3D performance capture, similar to Carol (one of Zemeckis’ first few movies was I Want To Hold Your Hand in 1978, inspired by the Beatles).
“Yes, it’s fantasmagorical! It’s the digital trip,” Zemeckis said of Yellow Submarine, provoking Carrey to burst into an impromptu John Lennon impersonation. “I’m not saying that we’re beh-ter than Jesus,” Carrey drawled like a true Scouser. Cue laughter all around again.
(According to Rollingstone.com, Zemeckis would like for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to be a part of the movie but the two surviving Beatles have not reverted yet.)
Meanwhile, the takings appear to be slow at the box office (Carol opened as last weekend’s top movie in the United States but below expectations with only US$31mil/RM108mil). According to the Los Angeles Times, Disney says in its defence that Christmas-themed movies opening in early November tended in the past to have a much greater final gross. For example, Zemeckis’ last holiday-themed film – The Polar Express – had an exceptional run, cruising from a US$30.6mil (RM107mil) five-day opening to a US$162.8mil (RM569.8mil) final gross. So, they say, there’s hope yet.
Regardless of how it fares commercially everyone on board Carol has faith in Zemeckis’ mission and vision.
Carrey put in succinctly: “It’s so important to trust your Captain. To have that faith and to love his work. Acting is always uncomfortable – you’re never satisfied – and the thing that saves you in the worst of moments is ... it’s Zemeckis man ... it’s going to be beautiful.”
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