I have read many posts concerning how passive the Oliver Twist character is in the movie. He is meant to be passive. He is the star of the film so people expect a lot from him but unlike other stars he is not much more than a catalyst for the other characters in the story, especially Fagin. I really liked this film. I think, through Oliver Twist's eyes, Polanski does a good job of getting us inside the hearts and minds of all of the story's characters.
shareIn the book he's completely passive -- almost like a plot device to forward the story and serve as a foil for the more interesting characterw.
shareA passive Oliver is one of beaties of the movies, in my opinion. I laugh reading that people expect Oliver to be active. Not everybody in this world is active, why expect every leading movie character to be active? I just like to expect to meet model type stewardess every time you take a airplane.
As the movie shows, not being active does not mean unattractive personality.
I agree. How dominant do people expect a young boy to be? Its Dickens not a Disney movie. Oliver's a basically good but scared kid who is surronded by a lot of stronger personalities. Of course, those dominant people are going to win over him. People can fault Polanski for choices he made or scenes he left out whatever... But he really did capture the spirit of the book and the people in it.
And Dicken's heroes were often "passive" with the more dominant characters surronding them. He even says it in David Copperfield when he asks if every man is truly the hero of his own story. Its not a mistake, he does it because he is trying to reveal truths about society and human nature. And he uses the protagonist as the reader's proxy to navigate through various situations and experience the variety, good and bad, that life has to offer. The hero is the one having things done to him and that changes his (and our) outlook. Oliver, Esther Summerson, Pip, David Copperfield etc. were all examples of rather passive heroes (to varying degrees of course).
he was also charming, yet so quiet and "grief." The qualities are very ironic for alpha males who are very loud or talkative, as Fagin was.
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