Armando's Tale of Charles Dickens
2012 · 60 MIN · IMDB 6.7 · 28 VOTES · DIR. Deborah Lee
Overview
Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.
Dialogue Timeline — 863 lines
A SAMPLE ACROSS THE RUNTIME — EVERY LINE IS SEARCHABLE
00:00:07 'This is Dickens World in Kent -
00:02:33 The thing is, he has a very driving narrative.
00:05:33 He'd give reign to the most inconsequential of thoughts.
00:07:33 and with Oliver Twist
00:09:58 "The first objects", he says, "that assume a distinct presence before me
00:11:59 you instantly recall the first image you saw at the time
00:14:40 Am I allowed to touch them?
00:17:31 Literature was serious, and for the funny stuff
00:19:45 "without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits."
00:21:57 I'm half expecting you now to go "Am I bovvered?"
00:24:25 And then he can pull himself together
00:26:55 "It's OK, yeah, fine, come and have another drink! It's fine."
00:30:11 Here's a scene with David and his aunt Betsey Trotwood
00:32:44 SEAGULLS CAW
00:35:19 Um...
00:38:17 'appalling treatment of its dispossessed.'
00:41:03 'I met Judge John Lafferty
00:43:10 Not me, obviously.
00:45:41 'And he fed his enormous appetite for the detail of life
00:48:12 'All sorts of human pathologies intrigued Dickens
00:50:27 The truth is, we're not really looking at some grotesque eccentric
00:53:22 We're in the home stretch of this bludgeoning.
00:56:18 that's much, much more interesting.
15:09:08 brand-new characters