[ThisWeek] Oliver Twist at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

Oliver Twist (PG-13)
Friday, January 6
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, January 7 & 8
4:00 & 7:00 PM
$5/Adult; $2 child 12 and younger
KFS passes accepted for Sunday showings
(see Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Kamikaze Girls (not rated)
January 13
7:00 PM
January 14 & 15
4:30 & 7:00 PM

Paradise Now (PG-13)
January 20
7:00 PM
January 21 & 22
4:30 & 7:00 PM

The Squid & the Whale (R)
January 27 at 7:00 PM
January 28 & 29 at 4:45 & 7:00 PM

Coming in February:
Sirius Idaho Theatre presents Sight Unseen; Capote; Pride & Prejudice

Regular movie prices:  $5/adult, $2/child 12 or younger
KFS passes accepted year-round for Sunday movies!

For more information, go to www.kenworthy.org or call 208-882-4127.
* * *

This week¹s review-

Oliver Twist 

Directed by Roman Polanski
Running Time: 2 hour, 10 minutes
Rated PG-13 for disturbing images

As reviewed by Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" and his previous film, "The Pianist," seem
to be completely unalike, but I believe they have a deep emotional
connection. "Oliver Twist" tells the story of an orphan in a dangerous city,
whose survival sometimes depends upon those very people who would use him
badly. "The Pianist" is about a Jew who hides himself in Warsaw during the
Holocaust, and at a crucial moment is spared by a German soldier. Both
Oliver and the pianist do benefit from the kindness of strangers, but the
intervention of their captors is crucial.

Oliver is about 10 when he is taken into the world of Fagin and his young
pickpockets, and Polanski was 10 in 1943, when his parents were removed by
the Nazis from the Krakow ghetto and he was left on his own, moving from one
temporary haven to another in the city and the countryside. In the black
market economy of wartime Poland, he would have met or seen people like
Fagin, Bill Sykes, Nancy and the Artful Dodger, resorting to thievery and
prostitution to survive. In that sense, "Oliver Twist" more directly
reflects his own experience than "The Pianist."

Now rotate the story another turn, and we find that Charles Dickens himself
spent a similar childhood. With his father in debtor's prison, he was sent
at 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory not unlike the workhouse where
Oliver briefly lands; he asks in his memoirs "how I could have been so
easily cast away at such an age." That Oliver, Dickens and Polanski all
survived to find prosperity and success could not erase the early pain, and
in "Oliver Twist" Polanski approaches the material not as another one of
those EngLit adaptations, but with a painful and particular focus.

The story, like many of Dickens' stories, centers on a young person who is
thrown into a stormy sea of vividly-seen adult characters, and is often
entirely in the dark about his own history and prospects. David Copperfield
asks at the beginning of his story "whether I shall turn out to be the hero
of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else." He is
writing, of course, after its events have all taken place, and still does
not know the answer.

Because the adult characters possess the power and make the decisions, it's
particularly interesting to see what Polanski does with the key character in
"Oliver Twist," who is Fagin (Ben Kingsley), the grotesque old man who rules
a household of pickpockets. Fagin is a Jew in the Dickens novel, an
anti-Semitic caricature (although to be sure the Christians in the novel are
also named by religion and are seen for the most part as hypocrites, sadists
and fools). Polanski's version never identifies Fagin as Jewish and does not
depict him as the usual evil exploiter of young boys. Exploiter, yes, but
evil, no: It is likely, as Fagin observes, that he has saved his charges
from far worse fates awaiting them in the cruel streets of London, and
taught them the skills and cunning to survive.

In Dickens there is always the contrast between horror and comedy; his
biographer Peter Ackroyd observes that the novelist sometimes referred to
his plots as "streaked bacon," made of fat, meat and gristle. There is the
sunny benevolence of Mr. Brownlow, who trusts the accused pickpocket with
money and books. The pure goodness of the old country woman (Liz Smith) who
pities and dotes on the child. The heroism of Nancy (Leanne Rowe), who risks
her own life to save Oliver's. And even the mixed feelings of the Dodger
(Harry Eden), who betrays Nancy to Bill and then has second thoughts and
regrets. 

True evil in the film is seen in Bill Sykes, who comes to such a ghoulish
and appropriate end, and also in the society which surrounds and permits all
of the characters. Dickens grew up in a world of workhouses for children,
child prostitution, "charity" institutions run with cruelty and greed,
schools that taught nothing and were run for profit, and people who preyed
on children, starved and mistreated them, and praised themselves for their
benevolence. Those who haven't read Dickens since school, or never, may
confuse him with the kindly storyteller of popular image; his works are
filled with such fury that he must create a Mr. Brownlow from time to time
simply to return calm to the story.

Polanski's film is visually exact and detailed without being too
picturesque. This is not Ye Olde London, but Ye Harrowing London, teeming
with life and dispute. The performances are more vivid and edgy than we
might suspect; Kingsley's Fagin is infinitely more complex than in the usual
versions. Jamie Foreman's Bill Sykes has a piggish, merciless self-regard.
Leanne Rowe, as Nancy, becomes not a device of the plot but a resourceful
young woman whose devotion to Bill is outlasted by her essential goodness.
And Barney Clark, who was 11 when the film was made, is the right Oliver, a
child more acted against than acting. Oliver Twist was Dickens' first proper
novel, after the episodic Pickwick Papers. In it he found his voice by
listening to the memories of the child he had been. Polanski I think is
listening to such memories as well.


As reviewed by Mick LaSalle writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" has been made and remade several times over,
but this time it's personal. Roman Polanski, who was stranded in Paris
without his parents during World War II, clearly understands the predicament
of the title character, an orphan in Victorian England. Personal experience
doesn't cause the director to emphasize the biographical parallels, nor does
it lead him into subjectivity or sentimentality. On the contrary, Polanski's
firsthand knowledge that such things can really happen to a boy results in a
grounded and unusually matter-of-fact adaptation.

People who like their Dickens served up with big chunks of ham may be
disappointed by Polanski and screenwriter Ronald Harwood's approach. Here
the characters are as big as life, but not bigger than life. Even the
presentation of the outlandish Fagin is just this side of caricature, with
Ben Kingsley presenting this monstrous figure as having a certain delicacy
and humor. Polanski does justice to Dickens' moral universe, in which the
motives and worldview of even the worst people are made comprehensible.

If there's a weak link in the film, it's Barney Clark, the 11-year-old
schoolboy that Polanski tapped to play Oliver. One would think this would be
a major flaw: At the center of the film is a character who doesn't exactly
grow, change or develop, who is something of a cipher in Clark's rote,
child-actor performance. Yet surprisingly, this hardly matters. The
essential thing is that Oliver look thin, angelic and pathetic, which young
Master Clark accomplishes just by standing there. With Oliver surrounded by
sinister adults, all Polanski has to do is cut to Clark looking mournful and
innocent, and the emotional point is made.
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
208-882-4127
Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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