The December, bone-piercing wind swirls in vortices, as if in tops, serpentine obedient to the will of its snowflakes. Ohapkami throws them into the frozen silhouettes of trees, into rosy, weathered faces and under the feet of passers-by, into smoked smoking stoves. Mixes them with the ringing of Christmas bells and the crunch of snow, gives delicious smells of festive tables, the joyful bustle of preparations, the cries of unpretentious street performances and laughter. Black and white, as if from the lithography of the city, sprouts upcoming holidays - long-awaited Christmas and Christmas!
Throughout the story, there is a search for a motive for doing good. To the miser Ebeniza Scrooge, thanks to the intercession of his deceased friend (now a ghost), is Providence in the form of three teachers-spirits: Past, Present and Future. And the hero, like Odysseus, goes on a journey in search of an answer. (This, by the way, based on the circular composition of the story, was proposed by his nephew at the beginning.) )
Scrooge’s gradual metamorphosis comes from the “roots” of childhood, when remembered. In the book, the awakening of his soul, humanity, is associated with certain experiences (catharsis), step by step occurring with him. In the film adaptation, the aforementioned dependence is blurred, one has to guess about it.
“Looking at himself as a child, he suddenly became filled with pity” and wanted to give something to the boy, who the day before sang a Christmas song at his door. Having relived the holiday arranged many years ago by Fizziuig, to whom he had been given training, Ebenize felt the need to "say two or three words" to his clerk. Dryness in relation to his nephew, the hero reconsiders after an episode from childhood with a caring sister (in the film adaptation is absent).
The transformation of Ebenize into a miser in both sources is depicted by common broad strokes: he began to “too tremble before the opinion of the world”, the former hopes and dreams “changed for one – to become invulnerable to pinpricks” of society, “a new all-conquering passion, passion for profit, gradually took possession” of them.
As the spirit of the Present has told us, all people are connected by a Christmas song, which sounds both in a cabin and in apartments, on land, on a ship at sea and in the air - on a lighthouse. Songs about hope, mutual help, birth, life and death. These are the only days in the entire calendar when people, as if by tacit consent, freely open their hearts to each other and see in their neighbors ... people like themselves, walking with them the road to the grave. Scrooge’s nephew’s remark is reminiscent of the scene in the tent of Achilles, when he, the murderer, and King Priam, the father of the deceased Hector, weep together: they are united by the fact that all people sooner or later descend into the realm of shadows.
It turns out that “caring for one’s neighbor”, the ability to do good, to lead a meaningful life (in Victor Frankl’s book “Man in the Face of Meaning”) is a gift, not a heavy duty; something that a person will leave behind.
In the film adaptation, the dynamics and absence of some overly pathetic and protracted scenes (in the speeches of the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s former companion), as well as moralistic remarks about hoarding (when parting with the bride) and sentimentality, maintains interest in the plot.
Even an inexperienced viewer will pay attention to the thoughtfulness, inspired thoroughness and ingenuity with which the art canvas is created. It includes a variety of gestures and facial expressions that convey the thoughts and feelings of the characters. For example, during the story, the sharp features of Scrooge’s face are softened, contemptuous boredom is replaced by the spiritual movements of long-forgotten aspirations.
And camera work. “Three more spirits will visit you,” Marley said. The figure of him and the hero are located in the center of the frame, as if the viewer is standing a few steps away from them. The next shot is Scrooge’s wide-open eyes, raised eyebrows, and then an unbiased “look” from somewhere under the ceiling at the tiny figures.
Or else, the Spirit of the past shows Scrooge breaking up with the bride, in the next frame the camera moves slowly in a spiral, as if the hero is dizzy.
In the same way, the spirit of the Present looks into the future, into the fate of little Tim: his face with a beard and a wreath occupies the whole frame, his eyes are wide open and turned inward, as in thoughtfulness. The camera is approaching - the features become transparent, the fuzzy outlines of an empty room with a forgotten crutch appear through them. It shifts focus, dispassionate face gradually melts. Then the room quickly dissolves into Scrooge's stricken face.
Or Ebenize grievously prays in the cemetery the spirit of the Future to give him a chance to change his life, in despair embraces the edge of his dark clothes with his eyes closed. Silence. White and black flashes in the background, as if lightning or when you wake up your eyes blink, the figure of the hero moves away and ...- in the background there are clear contours of the objects of his room, hear distant sounds from the street.
The language of colors is also skillful: contrasting the colorless, as if sculpting Scrooge and a full-blooded nephew, their clothes. “Living” colorful memories and gray drenched reality in the perception of Scrooge, whose grayish eyes acquire color from event to event, a light is lit in them.
And the technique of the image, in which the setting and the characters are made: transparent, like a sketch from the flowing changing lines of the Christmas spirit of past years, with a branch of the holly leaf - the Christmas emblem of winter in one hand and a hanger in the form of a cap, light, beating from its top up, in the other. Huge, blood with milk, on the whole frame of the giant - the spirit of the Present with a burning torch - the horn of abundance and the twilight faceless with a bony hand spirit of the coming Christmas.
Excellent conclusion of the story.
In the film adaptation: a light-filled joyfully laughing Scrooge in the office.
Some people laughed at this transformation, but Scrooge did not pay attention to them - laugh at your health! He was intelligent enough to know that this was the way the world was; there would always be people willing to ridicule a good deed. He knew that those who laughed were blind, and thought, “Let them laugh, lest they weep!” His heart was cheerful and easy, and for him it was quite enough.
Hello, Fyodor Mikhailovich with his "ridiculous" man (of course, a more optimistic version without psychologisms and dialectics of the soul)!