The first adaptation of a classic Christmas story by Charles Dickens is impossible to look at today
The attraction of the lost media lies in the mystery of the unknown, as well as the pursuit of hunting. This curiosity intensifies when something is only partially lost, giving us an overview of what could have been. A famous example of this is “The Mountain Eagle” by Alfred Hitchcock, which is considered one of the most sought -after films (only six intriguing fixed images have managed to survive). While some experts believe that lost media like “The Mountain Eagle” can still be found and recovered, there are other works of art that seem to have been lost in time forever. The first American adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is an example, because no imprint of this silent film of 1908 is known to exist today.
Before deepening the story of this lost film, let’s take a look at the most famous news of Dickens. You may already know the heart of the story, in which the irritable scrooge Ebenezer Scrooge undergoes a change of heart after having encountered minds that push him towards redemption. In addition to the obvious themes of kindness and forgiveness integrated into the news, the use of Dickens of “Merry Christmas” popularized the expression among victorian readers (who found a way to persist through a century, and even more). He also favored the idea of Christmas as an event that gathered the neighbors in an urban landscape increasingly industrialized (and alienated), recommending it more as a social gathering marked with feasts and joyful.
Given these connotations, it would have been interesting to look at the first American adaptation in history, if only to assess how these ideas translate into the silent medium at the time. Unfortunately, its lost status can be attributed to the fact that 90% of the films made before 1929 are impossible to find, even with the dedicated efforts of the film foundation to preserve and restore as much as possible.
The adaptation of Christmas singing now the most bordess was much appreciated at the exit
Although we do not have surviving prints to leave, a criticism of the magazine Moving Picture World (fortunately) provides a written description of the stage by scene before the release of the 1908 film. These descriptions designate that the intrigue remained mainly the same as the news of Dickens, but combined the ghosts of the Christmas past, the present, and again to enter into one entity. This could have been done for creative or budgetary reasons, but we know that Scrooge was played by Thomas Ricketts, who is best known for his acting character and to direct one of the first films in Hollywood. If it is difficult to assess the quality of Ricketts performance, the description of the text supervises the character as someone who is avoided by the local district because of his acarinated behavior.
The rest sticks to what we know, ending with Scrooge organizing a solid banquet for everyone, while promising to be nicer in his perception of those around him. We also have an approximate idea of the execution (15 minutes!), Which corresponds to the classification of the short film compared to today’s standards but can have been perceived as the standard at the time. Critics of criticisms for the film also found a way to survive, the world in movement having the following (via the lost media wiki):
“It is impossible to rent this film too strongly. It reproduces the story as closely as possible in a film, and the technical excellence of the work cannot be questioned. Photography, staging and game are all the best, and the story told is always impressive. … Such films cannot be too recommended.”
Although these descriptors are a little vague (which is understandable, because there were not too many titles to compare), they give us a fairly good idea of its artistic merit. The film may be destroyed / thrown away to make room for new ones; In any case, no immense or sequence exists in any form at the moment. It is a shame, because the existence of this silent film of 1908 intrinsically opened the path of each adaptation which came after. Perhaps one of these Christmas, we will get someone’s gift who discovers a copy of the film somewhere in the world for a long time.
