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Vanessa20

"A Christmas Carol" Pathos Poll

With the release of the Jim Carry "Christmas Carol," which I haven't seen yet but plan to, I just thought I'd ask something that I've been wondering about.

Which scene in "A Christmas Carol" (the book, the latest movie, any of the other movies, any stage version, etc) is the most tearjerking: Tiny Tim's death in the Yet-to-Come sequence or Belle (a.k.a. Emily, Alice, or whatever the adaptation wants to name her) breaking up with Scrooge in the Past sequence?

From what I've read, when the story first debuted, people would have said Tiny Tim all the way. Critic after critic labeled the Tiny Tim scenes the best part of the book and his death would leave the audience sobbing at Dickens' public readings. No one ever mentioned the Belle scene. But nowadays, when I read reviews of the different movie versions, the critics seem more immune to Tim and talk more about how heart wrenching the Belle scene is.

My guess is that this is because of changing statistics. When Dickens wrote the story, the infant mortality rate was high, and a lot of those sobbing people at the public readings had probably lost a child themselves. But since that happens less often now, at least in developed countries, the whole situation feels a little more sappy and melodramatic, especially since it's only a vision of a possible future and the boy ends up surviving after all.

But I thought I'd test the theory. Which of those two scenes tends to move you the most?
Beagle On Stage

Isabel leaving Scrooge. I think that scene gets increasingly played up as adaptations become more recent because people want a love story, and the death of Tiny Tim gets downplayed because of a tendency to want A Christmas Carol to be a pleasant family story (which, in my opinion, is misguided - guess what, it's a dark morality tale with ghosts, not a frigging hot chocolate romp through the holiday ivy.)

Part of it is also probably because the story doesn't have a huge female presence. In stage and screen versions, the closest thing to a female lead is Isabel (though occasionally Mrs. Cratchit, depending on the tone of that version), so it follows that they want to beef her part up.

I think you're onto something about infant mortality rate in the nineteenth century giving more impact to Tiny Tim's death for audiences of that time. But I find that in versions made for audiences of our day, that part gets glossed over. If it is mentioned in the yet-to-come segment at all (I find that the emphasis is often on Mrs. Dilber hawking Scrooge's stuff, and Tiny Tim's death only suggested at the end of Christmas Present), it's usually just a stoic scene with the Cratchits sitting around numbly reminiscing.

I won't be seeing the new version. I don't have the patience to sit through two hours of that high strung, loud dorkus-malorkus Jim Carrey doing funny voices and making crazy faces. He's too goddamned much.
nabla

I'm most familiar with the Muppet Christmas Carol, but for a puppet movie they make the Tiny Tim bit pretty sad.
jackissensational

Beagle On Stage wrote:
Part of it is also probably because the story doesn't have a huge female presence. In stage and screen versions, the closest thing to a female lead is Isabel (though occasionally Mrs. Cratchit, depending on the tone of that version), so it follows that they want to beef her part up.

Many modern productions cast a female as the Ghost of Christmas Past, the made-for-TV musical with Kelsey Grammer, for example. Jane Krakowski.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQkyxtLMwY
Beagle On Stage

I'm aware of that (and I believe it actually is a little girl in the book), but it isn't a mainstay. Even when it is done, Isabel is in the same segment and tends to take focus.
scottinkc

Re: "A Christmas Carol" Pathos Poll

Vanessa20 wrote:
... since it's only a vision of a possible future and the boy ends up surviving after all.


This is I think the reason that Tiny Tim dying has less effect on today's audiences. They already know that he won't die.

On the other side, poor Ebenezer has to watch himself get dumped every single time. It never changes. That's sad.
Beagle On Stage

Re: "A Christmas Carol" Pathos Poll

scottinkc wrote:
On the other side, poor Ebenezer has to watch himself get dumped every single time. It never changes. That's sad.


I like the versions better where she offers him an ultimatum and he chooses work/money over her. It emphasizes that he has brought his misery on himself, whereas in the versions where she is like stone and ditches him (a la George C. Scott), it puts him in the position of being a victim of her decision to leave, and it throws off the point of the scene.
Dax

Beagle On Stage wrote:
Isabel leaving Scrooge.


*nods*

In most movies that scene gets poignantly played as his older self bitterly denounces his younger as a fool. And you can see the self-hatred generated as a turning point towards a lonely life where he cannot simply learn to be a better man.
.
Mungojerrie_rt

nabla wrote:
I'm most familiar with the Muppet Christmas Carol, but for a puppet movie they make the Tiny Tim bit pretty sad.


I am really annoyed that they cut Belle's song from the DVD release. It makes the scene just go splat.
hyperactress23

Re: "A Christmas Carol" Pathos Poll

Beagle On Stage wrote:
scottinkc wrote:
On the other side, poor Ebenezer has to watch himself get dumped every single time. It never changes. That's sad.


I like the versions better where she offers him an ultimatum and he chooses work/money over her. It emphasizes that he has brought his misery on himself, whereas in the versions where she is like stone and ditches him (a la George C. Scott), it puts him in the position of being a victim of her decision to leave, and it throws off the point of the scene.


In the new 3D movie, she leaves him, while he asks her not to.

Personally, I chose Tiny Tim. Yes, I know he's not going to die, but I still tear up. Kid scenes really get me. Especially seeing the parents' faces as their children die.
Vanessa20

Beagle On Stage wrote:
(and I believe it actually is a little girl in the book)


It isn't described as being male or female in the book - it's just called "it" and is described as looking like a cross between a child and an old man.
Brigantine

yup.
Quote:
It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.


******

And I guess which is sadder depends on if you know the story or not- if you think Tiny Tim might actually die, then that is sadder, but if you know the ending then (also depending on how it's played) the scene with Belle could be sadder. **shrug**
ActingDude17

jackissensational wrote:
Beagle On Stage wrote:
Part of it is also probably because the story doesn't have a huge female presence. In stage and screen versions, the closest thing to a female lead is Isabel (though occasionally Mrs. Cratchit, depending on the tone of that version), so it follows that they want to beef her part up.

Many modern productions cast a female as the Ghost of Christmas Past, the made-for-TV musical with Kelsey Grammer, for example. Jane Krakowski.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQkyxtLMwY


The regional production I'm in does that too, and they've presented it annually since 1978.

I voted for when Belle leaves Scrooge but it really depends. If the actor portraying Bob Cratchit plays his cards right the other scene can be absolutely heart-wrenching. If he doesn't it's just another, "Oh yes, Tiny Tim dies" moment that doesn't bring real emotion to the story.
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