Oliver Twist
If you are at all familiar with this Charles Dickens novel as a movie then you probably think of it as a musical. Its never crossed my mind until seeing this version, but a musical seems like massive perversion in light of the extremely grim subject matter, which has almost no lightness about it at all.
Oliver Twist is a boy that is orphaned in 18th century England, and that’s not a good thing. Such kids were placed in orphanages/factories that were run for profit. That means that the owners are under no obligation to invest said profits back into the care of the children. So, the kids are wearing rags and eating gruel. The classic crime, immortalized by this story, is simply asking for more food from the cheap swindlers that run the place.
Oliver, whose name was given to him arbitrarily, by one of his handlers at the orphanage, knows the difference between right and wrong. He’s got an instinct for it even if he’s never actually been in a place that anyone could call “right†in his life. So, he decides to just escape from his existence as an orphan after a series of disappointments regarding a job where he was assigned as a servant.
Thus far, Oliver has only encountered adults that act in the most hypocritical manner and people that are honest in their distain for a kid that’s at such a lowly station in life. However, on his trip to London he does encounter at least one kind person, and perhaps such events are what’s keeping him alive.
Finally, when he gets to London, fairly broken, he’s taken in by a gang of thieves that are orchestrated by an old man named Fagan. The implication throughout the story is that the people in this time period have taken Christian charity and turned it into something evil. Although it’s not mentioned in the movie Fagan is a Jew that has essentially gone wild with his focus on money and offers a brand of kindness that is no less hypocritical and mercenary than the Christians.
Everyone is a horrible fraud except several of the kids in the gang of thieves as they exhibit a certain understanding and sympathy for each other’s condition. Oliver gets a lot of help and protection from the others and from a few of them that are near adults, but not so near that they forget what it was like to be a little castaway.
Another character that exhibited genuine qualities is the villain of the story. Although it was unsaid, he seemed to be a grownup product of Fagan’s crime machine. He is a type of Frankenstein monster that I’m sure began in innocence, but ended up as a hateful being bereft of any love or compassion. He is a man of his times and for his times.
Despite the ugliness of it all Oliver does find a certain weird tenderness in Fagan, and we can conclude that maybe Fagan is a psychological victim of the harsh economic times as well. He always seems at odds with his owe sinister plans. However, Oliver soon finds a genuinely good alternative to the life of a quasi-free thief, and that alternative is hard won, but I won’t give all of that away.
The reason that this movie is important to see is because Charles Dickens actually lived a life much like Oliver’s, so you are learning while watching the film. You are learning about a life that has been all but wiped out by the invention of welfare and other social programs. It’s good to keep in mind how we want life to be for ourselves and others and especially what happens to little children that come blamelessly into the world.