Yes, it has been lampooned and ripped off by just about every hack out there. So, I may as well get in line.
There is something about the story. I've read it a few times and it has a power. It is rare that there is a poor adaptation to the story.
The Patrick Stewart version was on the other night. It just stops me in my tracks. It is not in the book, but there is one particular scene with the Ghost of Christmas Past that works so well in this movie.
The spirit takes Scrooge to the time when Belle, his fiancee, is breaking off their engagement and walking away. The younger Scrooge does nothing. The older Scrooge is screaming -- more and more desperately as Belle get more distant -- at the younger Scrooge to go after her. To say something, anything. But, Scrooge can't change the past. Only the future. And he did.
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!
No comments:
Post a Comment