Little Dorrit’s Conclusion

 Sunday saw the conclusion ofLittle Dorrit on PBS Masterpiece—and what a conclusion it was. Four lengthy episodes’ worth of questions were suddenly answered, followed by a blissfully satisfying marriage between Arthur and Amy (finally!). Reading through the fascinating Barnes & Noble discussion board with Andrew Davies, I was relieved to learn that I was not the only one who found the final episode difficult to follow. Rigaud is difficult to understand at best, but his revelation of Mrs. Clennam’s misdeeds proved impossible for me to comprehend. Apparently, there is a good deal of confusion relating to the relationship between Mrs. Clennam, Arthur, Amy, and the Dorrits. I googled for an hour after Little Dorrit ended, disturbed that after 5 episodes the puzzle still wasn’t complete, but found nothing. The impression was that Arthur and Amy shared the same mother—the poor dancer, who first gave birth to Arthur, whom Mrs. Clennam took away, by Mrs. Clennam’s husband, and then Amy while she was in the Marshalsea. Such a relationship would obviously make the marriage between Arthur and Amy incestuous, so that could not be the case, but the lack of clear names (even in the novel) seemed to offer no other explanation. Why else would Gilbert Clennam change his will than to bestow money upon the poor woman whose first child was stolen from her? Well, one knowledgeable contributor to the B & N board provides an good explanation.

I relistened to the Rigaud and Mrs Clennam confrontation scene and I still do not see any indication regarding Amy as being Arthur’s real mother’s child.   What Rigaud says as he is telling the story to Mrs. Clennam is that the poor dancer wrote to Gilbert Clennamabout what happened to her (her baby was taken away from her after birth) and he felt so grieved by her letter that he amended his will to leave a legacy to a child born as poor as she (the dancer) and on the same day that she (the dancer) died.  This new born child happened to be born in the Marshalsea prison (Amy).  Now what isn’t clear is whether Gilbert Clennam knew if the dancer’s baby was, in fact, his grandson Arthur.  Since the baby was taken away from its mother, I didn’t think that he knew that the baby was given to his son’s wife (Mrs. Clennam).  Otherwise, he might have intervened to force Mrs. Clennam to give the baby back to the dancer.  Mrs. Clennam had to block the contents of the amended will in order to protect the secret that Arthur was not her biological son.  Rigaudgave Amy two letters (one addressed to Amy and Arthur) that told both of them the entire situation regarding the will information and Arthur’s family history.  The timeline is like this – Arthur’s real mother had her child taken away from her.  When she died, approximately 20 years after Arthur was born, another child born from poor parents (the Dorrits) on the day of the dancer’s death who was designated as a legacy recipient of Gilbert Clennam.  So, Arthur never knew that his real mother was in poverty for 20 years after he was born.  The age difference between Amy and Arthur is the actual period of how long the dancer lived after giving birthto Arthur.  Arthur’s real mother did not die giving birtha new baby, but there was a baby born on the same day as the dancer’s death that was as poor as she (Amy).  So, Gilbert used his money to sort of help another poor soul when he couldn’t help the dancer directly. (Source)

So, Amy was merely the random recipient of Gilbert Clennam’s charity and benevolence; she is therefore wholly unrelated to the Clennam’ssave through her status as the beneficiary of Gilbert’s will. To be quite honest, I was expecting a more sinister revelation—the removal of a child from his birth mother is tragic, yes, but not deserving of five episodes of tension, ominous music, and foreshadowing. I greatly enjoyed Little Dorrit, but the ending felt anticlimactic. Am I missing something?

Andrew Davies mentioned that it might have been beneficial for viewers to have read the novel beforehand, and I am determined to read the book before I watch the film again. Little Dorrit’s incredible complexity (Dickensian—is that a good adjective?) ensures that one will find something new every time one watches it.

Fanny Dorrit was an absolute delight in episodes 4 and 5. I was thrilled that she received more screen time that simultaneously exposed more of her humanity as well as more of her cunning. She’s diabolical, yet not despicable, and her character is simply too bewitching not to like at least a little bit. Emma Pierson did a marvelous job—I find myself imitating her catchy, dainty exclamations of “Sparkler!” when frustrated with my dog. She says of her character, “Fanny’s a tough little cookie. . . She’s a bit of a madam and is absolutely her father’s daughter. He has taught her that whatever her circumstances, she is still a lady. She believes that with all her heart, despite the evidence to the contrary.”

Only Andy Serkis’s Rigaud is a more entertaining character. It was like watching Gollumin a suit with a French accent, and I mean that with the greatest praise I am glad Andrew Davies decided to write in more of Rigaud into the screenplay, though his very existence in the story still seems out of place. Perhaps if anyone else had played him, I might have wished him off the screen after episode 2, but Serkis makes him the single most diverting character in the film—superfluous, but side-splittingly amusing.

Mr. Pancks is another of Little Dorrit’s charms, albeit an unconventional one. Eddie Marsan portrays the seemingly acrimonious, but sympathetic debt collector whom Dickens imbues with a chronic snort; Marsan has appeared in a number of Hollywood films, such as Mission Impossible III and The Illusionist, and we will see him this fall in Sherlock Holmes.

While his creativity is unparalleled and his imagination impressive, I wonder if Dickens consciously or unconsciously threw in as many characters into his stories as possible, despite their relevance or lack thereof. Miss Wade and Tattycoram operate on the fringe in the story, and, with minor tweaking, could have been wholly cut out and all would have been well—or, if they are of more importance in the novel, small adjustments could have made them more central to the film. In a nutshell, my complaint would be this: too many characters and too little substance. Despite the 8 hour length, I still felt that some characters were not adequately fleshed out to deserve an appearance in the film at all. But I guess that’s why we run to Dickens, isn’t it? To become lost in another world? To be completely immersed in a place decades away from our own lives (though the economic themes bring Little Dorrit considerably closer to home)? For all the headaches it has brought, transporting myself into Dickens’s England five Sunday nights in a row made me look forward to the end of the weekend

That said, Little Dorrit was my favorite of the 2009 Masterpiece films. Great costumes, top notch acting, beautiful sets, and an intriguing story all make for another awesome Dickens adaptation and Davies film.

If you’ve missed any episodes, you have till the night of May 3 (eastern time) to view them all here.

The DVD is also now available from ShopPBS and Barnes & Noble—you’ll get a better price by $10 at the latter if you are a member.

I’ve compiled some reviews of Little Dorrit from various sources below.

LA Times: “Review ‘Little Dorrit’ on PBS”

Charles Dickens wrote big, long books, and when his books become movies it’s good to make them big and long as well. His many-tendriled, twisty plots can be pruned and compressed with some success—orphan meets Fagin, Fagin gets orphan, Fagin loses orphan—but plot isn’t what makes Dickens great. There are the huge cast of characters (not always engaged in moving the story forward), the splendid set pieces and the passages of social observation that all go into creating a world you can get lost in.

Washington Post: “Classic Dickens, Modern Lessons”

The fact that many people are unfamiliar with the novel or other adaptations was a big plus for those involved in the TV project, which airs as part of “The Tales of Charles Dickens” on PBS’s “Masterpiece Classic.”

“It was a pleasure to be introducing it to a wider audience,” Davies said, because fewer people will have expectations of how it should be done.

Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel: “Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit’ has a modern story to tell on PBS”

One of his most imaginative villains is not a human character at all, but a government agency called, with typical Dickensian [Ha! It is an adjective!] irony, the Office of Circumlocution. It is unclear what its original function was, but by the time we encounter it, the Office of Circumlocution has a grip over all of British industry to stultifying effect. Circumlocution is a sea of obfuscation that cannot be navigated; members of the Barnacle family, who run the office, force all visitors to file endless paper requests that go nowhere.

Philly.com, Arts & Entertainment: “Jonathan Storm: ‘Little Dorrit’: One dandy Dickens tale”

You pretty much know what to expect when Masterpiece visits the 19th century. But Little Dorrit stands at the high end of a very lofty list of period-piece achievement.

It’s big entertainment.

~ by Lady Ashley on May 2, 2009.