Twisted
A baseball player with a .500 batting average would be MVP, but I don’t know if that standard holds for television. And I know one program that is just that hit or miss: Masterpiece Theater. As I wrote recently, Tess of the d’Urbervilles was splendid, but the Wuthering Heights which followed was lousy. Three weeks ago they began broadcasting Sense and Sensibility, and it was excellent. The cast–especially the actress playing Elinor Dashwood–was super, and, as you’d expect, the costumes and sets were enchanting. In the screenshot you see here, Elinor has just received Edward’s proposal. She had until moments before believed him to be married to another woman, which had broken her heart. But, as it turns out, that other woman had married his brother instead. When Elinor hears Edward say that he is, in fact, not married, she is overcome. What made the performance so affecting was the way the actress playing Elinor went from a placid expression to full-on break-down in an instant.
Last Sunday night, Masterpiece began broadcasting Oliver Twist, and it is, I am sad to say, awful. Scenes important in the book are excised, others not in the book are invented, as is much dialog. The characters do not seem at all like what I pictured from reading the novel. Worst of all is the ridiculously anachronistic soundtrack. There are screaming electric guitars. I suppose you could point out that almost every movie set before the eighteenth century has a soundtrack that is not, shall we say, historically informed. But Oliver Twist is set smack in the middle of the Romantic era, and it would have been so much less distracting to use acurate music.
So, I am a bit worried for what the rest of this season has in store. Meanwhile, note to self: if you ever become penniless, chose to live in the charming Devonshire countryside instead of putrid London.
Filed under: Literature and Books, Television on February 22nd, 2009
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