Bleak is right - Bleak House (2006) Discussion

[–] randommovies2002 12 years ago

Well, it's Dickens, lol. You can't have Dickens without bleakness.

reply

i agree but i also wasnt particularly crazy about this either. firstly you have the "modern" filmmaking technique (shaky cam, irritating quick cutting, color filters) that just takes away the classic feel of other better made dickens based films. while it was nice to see wedge from star wars in a BBC role (never saw much of him outside star wars but i instantly recognized him), the movie was damn confusing. i thought the book was too and i never got what the heck was going on, i thought the movie would be easier to understand but i was wrong. i just wasnt very into this mainly because of the modern style.

reply

[–] beti1948 11 years ago

I agree about the cinematography. I felt like it was at odds with the setting and period story, too. I really hate the shaky cam thing. Makes my eyes tired. And the music that accompanied the segues seemed really out of place, too. It reminded me of that trademark Law & Order short riff - duhm duhm. (Not a music major here. :-) Way to modern, I agree.

I like the story line. I don't know much about Dickens but it certainly feels like his writing. But I did feel like I needed to watch a great comedy afterwards just to get a break.

reply

[–] ApricotLimerickDove 11 years ago

All four of you are correct because they can't get much bleaker than that.

I just elaborated on that with some highly enlightening remarks, but IMDb ate them up and gave me an error message and then went off, and when I tried to restore the eaten post, it gave me a blank post, so I'm going to have to leave the rest of it blank because I need to run now.

Therefore, let's just say that they did such a dismal job of things here that anything we do to cheer up the production gets vetoed by the powers that be anyway.

^°^^°^^°^

reply

[–] Jingleling 11 years ago

Seriously? I felt really happy afterwards.

SPOILERS: It ends with a wedding! How is that bleak?
I'm not very much for glitzy hollywood Sex and the City like "romance". It has to be dark and painful until it all gets resolved in the end, before it's romantic in my opinion.
Think thats why I love Austen and Dickens adaptions so much.
I just loved Allan Woodcourt from the beginning and so wanted Esther to marry him
so I was thrilled about the ending! Only thing I was sad about is that it ended..

All the people that I liked the most had a happy ending. In that way Dickens is very black and white.. appart from the poor children and lady Dedlock's end.. that was sad but well, would be too unrealistic if everybody came out alive and happy.. it is 19th century England after all.
And I mean; the bleak "theme" is what gives the series so much atmosphere!
Again this is something I REALLY miss in "modern" romantic movies/series.

Dont you feel bored by romantic movies where people dont really struggle and suffer to achieve their goals or love?

reply

[–] angelofvic 11 years ago

I have to agree. The film was charming, the sets were wonderful, and the characters were interesting and wellrounded and you rooted for them. There were at least SEVEN romances, many of which ended well or with good/deeper understandings all around. This isn't CRANFORD or Jane Austen -- its Dickens, and Dickens is all about social commentary, not comedy-of-manners.
.

reply

[–] smcbee27 11 years ago

I completely agree! Dickens ability to wrap interesting, struggling characters around his very pointed social commentary is brilliant. Not only does he make use of his major characters to drawl us into Bleaks world his amazing use of minor characters makes the story brilliant- and worth the effort to understand. Their world was not full of bright lighting, clear days & colorful homes- especially in London. This series uses color filters and lighting to help us "feel" the story. However I did find the use of hand cameras and at times oddly chosen music to detract from the story being told. It's an unfortunate mistake but doesn't ruin the overall story or feel of the movie. I enjoy a quick romp through a Austen book or movie anytime but there is no comparison with Dickens.

reply

[–] ed-pilling 10 years ago

You have to view it in the context in which it was written. England at that time was not such a nice place and Dickens wrote about what he saw. You can look at it as we have come a long way. I watched it on a Sunday and wow there was so many stories going on at once.

I was so intrigued with the story lines that I am watching it a second time. On the second time I am picking up things I missed the first time. It is not a simple story but a classic writing. It was great it wasn’t laid out simple the way Hollywood does its stories. They really did Dickens up very well. It does have a happy ending.

reply

[–] X-FrostyFox-X 10 years ago

Boy I didn't like this movie. I felt like I needed an anti-depressant immediately afterward.

That doesn't say anything about Bleak House 2005, but rather, it says a hell of a lot about you.

reply

[–] chris-hughes-1 9 years ago

A couple of car-chases, and some shootings might have cheered you up?

Bleak House is first and foremost an indictment of the legal system of the time, under which the Court of Chancery ensnared people into never-ending suits over matters of inheritance, hearings being prolonged until the principal was all eaten up in legal fees, the property derelict (and bringing down the value of other property surrounding it) and the people crushed by the burden of it all. John Jarndyce was clever enough to ignore the case his name was involved in, knowing that he could never profit from it. Others were less fortunate...

The orginal working title was to have been Tom All Alone's - centering the novel on the dire state of poor wretches like Jo, the crossing sweeper.

reply

[–] greenbudgie 8 years ago

It could be bleak viewing. But some of the characters liven it up. And some of the gloomy down-at-heal scenes are actually eye-catching

reply