The Personal History of David Copperfield (Film Review)

[selenak]

This was the first movie I saw in the cinema since February, and I've been curious about it for a year now. It's, as advertised, a breathless, fast paced, wildly inventive version of David Copperfield, directed by Armado Ianucci, with a great cast multiethnic cast (colourblind in the British stage sense, hence, for example, Nikki Amuka-Bird as Mrs. Steerforth - who in this version is an amalgan of herself and Rosa Dartle - and Aneurin Barnard as her son).



In practically every interview I'd seen at the time this was released in Britain last year, our director emphasizes wanting to do justice to the hilarity of Dickens (something lost in some other adaptions), with the scene of drunk David (Dev Patel) at the theatre running into Agnes being a prime example.

This intention certainly was fulfilled, though in order to keep the lighthearted tone throughout, Iannucci had to ignore several of the novel's deaths and trust that the great speed of the film makes it impossible for the audience to linger on just how awful some of the events are. For example: in the novel, the destruction of David's carefree early childhood happens in several steps. First the psychoterror by stepdad Murdstone (and here what makes it extra awful is what Mr. Murdstone does to David's mother in addition to David, gaslighting her and terrorizing her and destroying every bit of self worth sense she has), then David gets send to his first school, then his mother dies, then he ends up at the bottle factory (and meets the Micawbers etc.), then he goes to Dover and ends up with his aunt. In the movie, the image of Mr. Murdstone's hand coming down on the paper house that the Peggottys' boat house is suddenly revealed at already sums up what will happen to David's home and life. We get the "teaching" scene, the beating, but then immediately fast foward to David being sent to the bottle factory (no first school interlude, which is why David won't meet Steerforth until he's already Dev Patel shaped) and meets the Micawbers. Mr. Micawber is played by Peter Capaldi in hilarious form, and the comedy of him avoiding his creditors dispenses with the lingering horror of home life a la Murdstone; even the child labor at the bottle factory is more picturesque than anything else. (Though Ianucci will get into the long term effect of this in a way that's not in the novel but very much in the life of Charles Dickens, more about this in a moment.) The two people who still die in the film are David's mother and Steerforth, but not Ham, nor Dora. Dora, breaking the fourth wall, asks David to write her out of the story since she "doesn't fit" instead. I guess if you haven't read the book, you take this to mean she and David break up gently, having figured out in time their marriage would be a mistake. As opposed David realising this after the marriage, and while Dora conveniently dies, giving Agnes and David to each other on her deathbed, she doesn't die until that realisation as well and truly hit home. So on the one hand, this is definitely David Copperfield: The Fluffy Edition.

On the other, Iannucci does something more than rearrange the material the novel gives him so it fits in two hours screen time. David Copperfield the novel is more overtly autobiographical than anything else Dickens wrote, but it still is a novel, not a roman à clef, with the differences between Dickens and David as strong as the similarities. Charles Dickens: very much not an orphan. By splitting his parents into the ghastly Murdstones and the lovable Micawbers, he ensures that David can loathe the former and love the later without any ambiguity in either case, to name just one key difference. However, Iannuci's film, which emphasizes David being a writer far more than any other version I've seen, including the novel itself, uses elements from Dickens' life not in the book to flesh David out as a character. Starting, of course, with the very beginning, which is David saying the famous first line of the novel as part of a public reading he does, the way Dickens did (and made a great success of it). The bottle factory episode in David's life is painful to him while he lives through it in the book, but when it's over, he doesn't feel any lingering shame. Charles Dickens, on the other hand, felt intense shame over having worked at a bottle factory as a child, he could not pass the shop as an adult man and took another road to avoid it, he couldn't bring himself to tell his wife about it (even when things were good), and when he did try to write an actual autobiography, he didn't get much further than this episode before breaking it off and writing David Copperfield instead.

This intense, very much class related shame that Dickens felt and David in the novel did not once he was no longer there is given to David in the movie. And that factors directly into his relationship with Uriah Heep, even before Heep tries to blackmail him with it. Incidentally, I'd never have thought of Ben Wishaw for this part, but he's terrific in it. Iannucci's take on David and Uriah feels like he's read George Orwell's Dickens essay, in addition to adding his own spin on it. It's very much a "Uriah embodies all I dislike in myself" alter ego thing since the movie's David never quite recovers that sense of identity lost when he was put in the factory and feels like a social climbing con man himself as opposed to a "true gentleman" when he's back among the wealthy. (Sidenote: in previous incarnations, I could never get into David/Uriah, not least because David is still a child when meeting Uriah and is nothing but creeped out and disgusted by him. Otoh, in the movie they're already Patel and Wishaw when meeting, which removes that factor.) The film is also more on Uriah Heep's side than any other version, stating with an eager to fit in again with the wealthy teenage schoolboys David employing his talent for impersonation (again, something Charles Dickens - an enthusiastic amateur actor who performed his novels more than he read them - had, but novel!David Coppperfield doesn't as far as I recall) to deliver a performance of Uriah, and while Steerforth and the other youths laugh we see Uriah in the background. Nor is his accent as over the top as in the other versions I've seen. He's still a ruthless social climber (and criminal), but he's not grotesque anymore. (And now I could see David/Uriah hatesex for these versions.)

Speaking of the talent to impersonate, another trait of Charles Dickens given to the movie's David is the constant noting down interesting phrases he hears, the being in love with language, and that, the movie connects with Mr. Dick (Hugh Laurie in a radiant performance), so often just a bit of (additional) comic relief at Betsey Trotwood's, whereas here his mental illness comes across as another version of David's obsessions without a creative outlet. The kite flying is such an emotional release, and it also showcases David being kind in the best way. When David near the end of the film starts to write the book we're in, which he narrates on stage, we hear fragments from Dickens' novel again, showcasing him/Dickens as a masterful wordsmith. The film thus is about David becoming not the hero but the writer of his own life, or a writer in general, in a way the novel is not.

Even Mr. Micawber is used in connection to this general theme. Orwell in his essay critisizes that Dickens in the end makes Micawber turns over a new leaf and reform by emigrating to Australia with the Peggotys and becoming respectable. The movie's Micawber does not; in his last scene, he asks David for a loan again, thus, like Dickens' own father (who was in and out of debtor's prison constantly through Dickens' childhood and when Charles had become a famous writer, wasn't above forging his signature), remaing incorrigable. But the connection between con man and writer - which John Le Carré drew for himself and his own con man father in his memoirs published a few years ago - is there though the film, with adult David catching himself at starting to use the same excuses Micawber did to get out of tight spots (and most embarrasingly, Uriah Heep catches him at it, too). And by making Micawber (trying his hand at impersonation) the lower class teacher Steerforth humiliates at Strong's school by using information David has unwittingly given him earlier, this episode gets deeply personal for the Micawber-liking audience, which I thought was cleverly done. My one complaint re: Mr. Micawber is that his moment of supreme glory is no longer there, because he doesn't temporarily align with Heep. Thus, he can't the day by uncovering the proof that Heep has been responsible for Aunt Betsey's financial ruin and Mr. Wickfield's decline; instead, this is given to Agnes, presumably to give her more agency.

Lastly: having written David Copperfield fanfiction about her for Yuletide two years ago, I was curious how the film would deal (if at all) with Emily. First of all, during the childhood part, she's already a teenager when David is still a child, age wise between him and Ham. They play with each other, but there's no indication David crushes on her; instead, at the end of his first stay with the Pegottys, she already becomes engaged to Ham. (And then has apparently a ten years engagement, because she's still engaged when David brings Steerforth for a visit.) Otoh, within limited screen time, Emily's dream of being a lady is made clear while the movie roots her more physically than the novel does in her world of origin (we meet her when she's cleaning fish, and her hands are marked by hard work), and it's clear what happens when Steerforth shows up. Since I had reread the Emily passages for Yuletide in 2017, it had struck me then that even before Steerforth, the book makes it very clear Emily doesn't really want to marry Ham, she's doing it for her uncle and because everyone expects her to, but that Ham really is like a brother to her, and I wasn't sure whether that came across in the film, but never mind, it's a subplot. One thing I regretted was that Dev Patel and Aneurin Barnard - imo, as always - had no chemistry, because even teenage me when reading the novel thought there was a strong vibe between Steerforth and David and without homoerotic subtext, that relationship (and David being wilfully blind for a long time re: Steerforth's dark side, and even afterwards having strong feelings for him) doesn't really work. But: chemistry is in the eyes of the beholder.

Let's see, what else: I liked Rosalind Eleazar as Agnes, being so charming and radiant and confidant that it's a mystery why not everyone falls for her. Morfydd Clark does double duty as David's mother and Dora Spenlow - which makes even more sense in the novel because they are really a lot alike, which makes for an uncomfortable moment when David tries to teach Dora to be more practical and you suddenly remember Mr. Murdstone and his behaviour with David's mother - and the "write me out, Doady" moment has unexcpected subtle pathos if you are aware of Dickens' own private life and Dora's fate in the novel. Tilda Swinton makes for a great Betsey Trotwood, though I very much regret that her squaring off againsts the Murdstones does not happen in tihis film since this is my favourite Betsey Trotwood scene in the book. (It doesn't happen because David is no longer a child, he's a late teenager by the time he ends up with Aunt Betsey in the movie, and has just squared off against the Murdstones.)

In conclusion: great fun, very clever, and at times made me wish Iannucci would tackle Dickens himself in a biopic.

Comments

Betsey Trotwood vs the Murdstones scene (1)

[selenak]

MY aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I
observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the
visitor so much dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and
I sat by, with my thoughts running astray on all possible and
impossible results of Mr. Murdstone's visit, until pretty late in
the afternoon. Our dinner had been indefinitely postponed; but it
was growing so late, that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready,
when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation
and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride
deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of
the house, looking about her.

'Go along with you!' cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist
at the window. 'You have no business there. How dare you
trespass? Go along! Oh! you bold-faced thing!'

MY aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss
Murdstone looked about her, that I really believe she was
motionless, and unable for the moment to dart out according to
custom. I seized the opportunity to inform her who it was; and
that the gentleman now coming near the offender (for the way up was
very steep, and he had dropped behind), was Mr. Murdstone himself.

'I don't care who it is!' cried my aunt, still shaking her head and
gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. 'I won't
be trespassed upon. I won't allow it. Go away! Janet, turn him
round. Lead him off!' and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of
hurried battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting
everybody, with all his four legs planted different ways, while
Janet tried to pull him round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to
lead him on, Miss Murdstone struck at Janet with a parasol, and
several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted
vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young
malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the
most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens,
rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him,
dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding
the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the
constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and
executed on the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the
business, however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being
expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which my aunt had no
conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some deep impressions
of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and taking his donkey in
triumph with him.

Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had
dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of
the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My
aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the
house, with great dignity, and took no notice of their presence,
until they were announced by Janet.

'Shall I go away, aunt?' I asked, trembling.

'No, sir,' said my aunt. 'Certainly not!' With which she pushed
me into a corner near her, and fenced Me in with a chair, as if it
were a prison or a bar of justice. This position I continued to
occupy during the whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and
Miss Murdstone enter the room.

'Oh!' said my aunt, 'I was not aware at first to whom I had the
pleasure of objecting. But I don't allow anybody to ride over that
turf. I make no exceptions. I don't allow anybody to do it.'

'Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,' said Miss
Murdstone.

'Is it!' said my aunt.

Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and
interposing began:

'Miss Trotwood!'

'I beg your pardon,' observed my aunt with a keen look. 'You are
the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David
Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery! - Though why Rookery, I don't
know!'

'I am,' said Mr. Murdstone.

'You'll excuse my saying, sir,' returned my aunt, 'that I think it
would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left
that poor child alone.'

'I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,' observed
Miss Murdstone, bridling, 'that I consider our lamented Clara to
have been, in all essential respects, a mere child.'

'It is a comfort to you and me, ma'am,' said my aunt, 'who are
getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our
personal attractions, that nobody can say the same of us.'

'No doubt!' returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a
very ready or gracious assent. 'And it certainly might have been,
as you say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had
never entered into such a marriage. I have always been of that
opinion.'

'I have no doubt you have,' said my aunt. 'Janet,' ringing the
bell, 'my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down.'

Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at
the wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of
introduction.

'Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgement,' said
my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was
biting his forefinger and looking rather foolish, 'I rely.'

Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood
among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face.

My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on:

'Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an
act of greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to
you-'

'Thank you,' said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. 'You needn't
mind me.'

'To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey,' pursued
Mr. Murdstone, 'rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has
run away from his friends and his occupation -'

'And whose appearance,' interposed his sister, directing general
attention to me in my indefinable costume, 'is perfectly scandalous
and disgraceful.'

'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'have the goodness not to
interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the
occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the
lifetime of my late dear wife, and since. He has a sullen,
rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable
disposition. Both my sister and myself have endeavoured to correct
his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt - we both have felt,
I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence - that it is
right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance
from our lips.'

'It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my
brother,' said Miss Murdstone; 'but I beg to observe, that, of all
the boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.'

'Strong!' said my aunt, shortly.

'But not at all too strong for the facts,' returned Miss Murdstone.

'Ha!' said my aunt. 'Well, sir?'

'I have my own opinions,' resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face
darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each
other, which they did very narrowly, 'as to the best mode of
bringing him up; they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him,
and in part on my knowledge of my own means and resources. I am
responsible for them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no more
about them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a
friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not
please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a common
vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal to
you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the
exact consequences - so far as they are within my knowledge - of
your abetting him in this appeal.'

'But about the respectable business first,' said my aunt. 'If he
had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same,
I suppose?'

'If he had been my brother's own boy,' returned Miss Murdstone,
striking in, 'his character, I trust, would have been altogether
different.'

'Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still
have gone into the respectable business, would he?' said my aunt.

'I believe,' said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head,
'that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister
Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best.'

Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur.

'Humph!' said my aunt. 'Unfortunate baby!'

Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was
rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check
him with a look, before saying:

'The poor child's annuity died with her?'

'Died with her,' replied Mr. Murdstone.

'And there was no settlement of the little property - the house and
garden - the what's-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it - upon
her boy?'

'It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,'
Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest
irascibility and impatience.

'Good Lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. Left to her
unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward
to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him
point-blank in the face! Of course it was left to her
unconditionally. But when she married again - when she took that
most disastrous step of marrying you, in short,' said my aunt, 'to
be plain - did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?'

'My late wife loved her second husband, ma'am,' said Mr. Murdstone,
'and trusted implicitly in him.'

'Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most
unfortunate baby,' returned my aunt, shaking her head at him.
'That's what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?'

'Merely this, Miss Trotwood,' he returned. 'I am here to take
David back - to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as
I think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not
here to make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may
possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his
running away, and in his complaints to you. Your manner, which I
must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think
it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you
abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now,
you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever. I cannot trifle, or be
trifled with. I am here, for the first and last time, to take him
away. Is he ready to go? If he is not - and you tell me he is
not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what - my doors are
shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are
open to him.'

To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention,
sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and
looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned
her eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise
disturbing her attitude, and said:

'Well, ma'am, have YOU got anything to remark?'

'Indeed, Miss Trotwood,' said Miss Murdstone, 'all that I could say
has been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the
fact has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add
except my thanks for your politeness. For your very great
politeness, I am sure,' said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no
more affected my aunt, than it discomposed the cannon I had slept
by at Chatham.

'And what does the boy say?' said my aunt. 'Are you ready to go,
David?'

I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that
neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been
kind to me. That they had made my mama, who always loved me
dearly, unhappy about me, and that I knew it well, and that
Peggotty knew it. I said that I had been more miserable than I
thought anybody could believe, who only knew how young I was. And
I begged and prayed my aunt - I forget in what terms now, but I
remember that they affected me very much then - to befriend and
protect me, for my father's sake.

'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'what shall I do with this child?'

Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, 'Have him
measured for a suit of clothes directly.'

'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt triumphantly, 'give me your hand, for your
common sense is invaluable.' Having shaken it with great
cordiality, she pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone:

'You can go when you like; I'll take my chance with the boy. If
he's all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as
you have done. But I don't believe a word of it.'

'Miss Trotwood,' rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders,
as he rose, 'if you were a gentleman -'

'Bah! Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt. 'Don't talk to me!'