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 -
00:02:30 'The readers he stops in their tracks.'
00:05:19 "some glutinous lumps of gristle and grease called pork pie."
00:07:22 By the time he was 30
00:09:43 Here's the start of Chapter Two, I Observe.
00:11:41 The young Copperfield is the camera in this picture
00:13:54 'gaining vast fortunes, being lost and found.'
00:16:24 You know, having been a lifelong Dickens fan, to have this...
00:19:00 I think we're put off by this notion we have of Charles Dickens
00:21:11 That's Peston on about 17 espressos.
00:23:41 even though he has no money, is always talking about his expectation
00:25:58 "and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail
00:28:25 'At first Peggotty leaves empty-handed
00:31:14 It's a daring, sophisticated, brutal analysis
00:33:58 Only that he was married with seven children.
00:36:25 It's almost like he forced himself to sit down and write.
00:39:25 "and in the smallest public tart.
00:41:45 And in just one little phrase, he absolutely encapsulates that.
00:43:54 'Today, we may have the likes of Mr Murdoch, but in Little Dorrit
00:46:27 And he goes there because he has a particular fancy in his head.
00:48:45 'not just in a Dickens novel, but in any novel.
00:50:56 Now, whatever the truth of that is, you can't help but feel
00:53:43 "Action!" "Mystery!" "Terror to the end." "Dashed out his brains!!"
00:56:42 A lot of the humour is entirely modern.