Reptileenbu
Did you people see the same film I saw?
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Jeffrey Young
It's not easy to choose which of the many film adaptations of 'Scrooge', or, "A Christmas Carol" is the best. It's better to say, which does a fan like the best. For me I like this 1970 adaptation the best followed by the 1984 version and the Patrick Picard version. I do not include the animated cartoon versions for comparison.
I am not a trained psychologist for starters although I have read something of human psychology in college and on the Internet.
Fans throughout the ages pondered just what was the problem with Ebenezer Scrooge's pathological greed? The answer is in the word, 'pathological'. When applying the psychology of the malevolent personality 'Dark Triad' to Ebenezer Scrooge, the man's pathology reflected mostly narcissism and probably some nonclinical sociopathy. In all the film adaptations you clearly hear Scrooge openly think of himself as a generous, honest man who is taken advantage of by thieving, cheating humanity, whom he despises, being the consummate misanthropist.
But the catalyst of Scrooge's personality neuroses is his 'fetish' with money. His obsession with wealth overextends to the actual physical possession and touch of gold specie where it has now become a fetish. You see Scrooge constantly touching and counting gold coins far beyond the necessary time to handle it.
Indeed, Scrooge's classic greed is just the overt manifested system of neurosis, narcissism, nonclinical pathology, fetishism, misanthropy, and ultimately his own unrecognized self-hatred projected and channeled externally onto others as their fault, not his. Therefore the one tragic scene where Ebenezer coldly breaks up with his fiancé, Isabel, is not a tragedy at all. It was the best thing that could happen to both people. Ebenezer was already down the dark rabbit hole when Isabel (never dismiss woman's intuition) realizes for both of them that happy marriage is an impossibility. The breakup between both people no doubt prevented future misery, unhappiness and possible tragedy. Isabel was smart enough to call it quits and Ebenezer, in his last act of unknowing compassion let her go. Ebenezer's final redemption and rebirth into humanity and compassion is his successful psychological therapy which restored the benign personality of his youth. Of course there's much more to that as the original intent of, "A Christmas Carol" was spiritual and Christian. Applying 21st century psychology to it makes Scrooge more understandable even if not more sympathetic.
jellopuke
A great musical with tremendous use of panavision, excellent choreography and catchy songs. Finney takes a while to get used to as he is super over the top, but it fits the style and you get used to it after a while. A fun movie that even left the kids singing along.
knight072
While they did stick, for the most part, with the original language and story. There were one or too things that were changed that annoyed me a little. a) The ghost of Christmas present was supposed to be a giant robust man with a bare chest. b) Completely missed the line 'Come in and know me better man'. c) The ghost of Christmas present was supposed to age and wither towards the end of his visit. There were other things but those were the most annoying to me.I found the singing very Oliver like and and, in my opinion, completely pointless and annoying.Overall, I did enjoy the film but being a massive fan of the book maybe I'm a little over-critical I just can not see why people feel the need to alter/embellish what is one of the finest Christmas stories ever written.
lapthomson
So uplifting, funny and the most entertaining version of the Dickens classic. I fell in love with it as a child and I am so thrilled to see it on the rare occasions it is aired each Christmas season. I still discover something new I didn't recognize when I watched it previous times. Thank you AMC for airing it here this year! Albert Finney does a remarkable job as Ebenezer Scrooge and the cast and music in this production are brilliant. The humor in this story is great, you've just got to catch it in those thick British accents. I had never read or seen the classic versions of A Christmas Carol. When the movie was released, I was 12 years old. This one was the only one that held my interest as a child and I still find it the most entertaining and heartfelt today.
