Christmas Roasting on an Open Fire
I had a fever of at least 102° F for two days and a half beginning midafternoon Christmas Day, and it was another day and a half before it got back to normal. It was an especially exhausting bout of the ‘flu (I wouldn’t be surprised to discover it were the not-swine ‘flu). But it gave me time to catch up on the Christmas TV specials.
It turns out that I remembered correctly: Rankin/Bass did adapt L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus as an animated Christmas special (although I thought it predated 1985...). And, although there is a reason one does not see that special on the holiday program schedules very often, it's fifty times better than the book. It's also about five times better than the Rankin/Bass special Jack Frost, mainly because that takes much less time to sit through than it takes to read Baum's book.
I noticed while watching the 1935 film adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Scrooge that several parts were much illuminated by what I've read so far in Stephen Nissenbaum's Battle for Christmas. For instance, Scrooge's vexation with Cratchit’s wanting Christmas Day off may not have seemed entirely unreasonable to contemporary people, as it would have been a matter of only twenty years or so since Christmas Day was not commonly a business holiday. Certainly Scrooge would have worked on Christmas Day in his youth. Scrooge's desire not to spend Christmas Day with his nephew and niece-in-law would have been likewise in keeping with the non-familial standards of Christmas practice of his youth.
The scene wherein two gentlemen solicit a Christmas donation for the poor from Scrooge, Christmas being the time of year when "want is most keenly felt," has greater significance when one knows that, despite the industrializing economy, the food market was still largely seasonal, and Christmas-time the one time when fresh food, especially meat, was plentiful: thus the poor would have been more easily reconciled to the poverty of their tables through much of the year, as even the wealthy would have been limited; but to be excluded when so many were enjoying the bounty of Christmas-time would have been a hard burden. I quote Dickens:
The 1984 adaptation with George C. Scott had always been my favorite but maybe isn't so much anymore. This time 'round it seemed to me that Scott's Scrooge is more cynical than mean. This difference seems important to me: the reclamation of a cynical Scrooge seems less wonderful than of a mean one. Or perhaps Scott just had too much personal presence to be a proper Scrooge. Worse, though, I thought Scrooge's nephew Fred was pusillanimous (and I like Roger Rees, who played him). I wonder what Ayn Rand "Objectivists" think of A Christmas Carol.
I paid attention to the opening credits of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and was amazed to see that it was directed by Chuck Jones of the Warner Bros.' Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies. Watching it, there did seem to be lots of LT/MM features, though I wonder if I'd think so had I been looking for similarities without knowing of Jones' involvement. Too late now.
It turns out that I remembered correctly: Rankin/Bass did adapt L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus as an animated Christmas special (although I thought it predated 1985...). And, although there is a reason one does not see that special on the holiday program schedules very often, it's fifty times better than the book. It's also about five times better than the Rankin/Bass special Jack Frost, mainly because that takes much less time to sit through than it takes to read Baum's book.
I noticed while watching the 1935 film adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Scrooge that several parts were much illuminated by what I've read so far in Stephen Nissenbaum's Battle for Christmas. For instance, Scrooge's vexation with Cratchit’s wanting Christmas Day off may not have seemed entirely unreasonable to contemporary people, as it would have been a matter of only twenty years or so since Christmas Day was not commonly a business holiday. Certainly Scrooge would have worked on Christmas Day in his youth. Scrooge's desire not to spend Christmas Day with his nephew and niece-in-law would have been likewise in keeping with the non-familial standards of Christmas practice of his youth.
The scene wherein two gentlemen solicit a Christmas donation for the poor from Scrooge, Christmas being the time of year when "want is most keenly felt," has greater significance when one knows that, despite the industrializing economy, the food market was still largely seasonal, and Christmas-time the one time when fresh food, especially meat, was plentiful: thus the poor would have been more easily reconciled to the poverty of their tables through much of the year, as even the wealthy would have been limited; but to be excluded when so many were enjoying the bounty of Christmas-time would have been a hard burden. I quote Dickens:
...turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes...All the best things to the primate taste-bud, sweet and "meat" or ketchup (a.k.a. umami).
The 1984 adaptation with George C. Scott had always been my favorite but maybe isn't so much anymore. This time 'round it seemed to me that Scott's Scrooge is more cynical than mean. This difference seems important to me: the reclamation of a cynical Scrooge seems less wonderful than of a mean one. Or perhaps Scott just had too much personal presence to be a proper Scrooge. Worse, though, I thought Scrooge's nephew Fred was pusillanimous (and I like Roger Rees, who played him). I wonder what Ayn Rand "Objectivists" think of A Christmas Carol.
I paid attention to the opening credits of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and was amazed to see that it was directed by Chuck Jones of the Warner Bros.' Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies. Watching it, there did seem to be lots of LT/MM features, though I wonder if I'd think so had I been looking for similarities without knowing of Jones' involvement. Too late now.
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 11:26
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home