A Tale of Two Cities (1989)

Of the six adaptations of A Tale of Two Cities seen, in personal ranking this one is number 3, number 1 is the 1935 film and number 2 is the 1958 film. The Paul Shelley adaptation is very good on the most part, Chris Sarandon's is decent while the Burbank Films Australia animated adaptation is the only one below average. This mini-series is not perfect, the biggest flaw is the execution of the mob scenes which are under-populated, unexciting and tension-less, almost too polite. Some of the hair-styles are on the wacky and anachronistic side(too 80s-looking). The costumes and sets are accurate and are rendered lovingly, and helped by the fluid photography. The music is haunting, beautiful and emotional, especially in the poignant final scene. There is also a very literate and thoughtfully adapted script and the direction is mostly competent apart from the mob scenes. The adaptation is faithful to Dickens' very concise if initially complicated book while not forgetting to give the storytelling life. The tragedy is very affecting(the ending is a tear-jerker as it should be) and the suspenseful moments quite intense, Cruncher's funny moments are judged well. The acting is good on the most part. James Wilby, Xavier DeLuc and John Mills stood out. Wilby's Sydney Carton is handsome and movingly characterised, DeLuc is dashing and succeeds in not making a far less interesting character dull and Mills is wonderfully sympathetic that you are touched by his presence. Serena Gordon's Lucie is very tender, Kathy Kriegel is a very bat-out-of-hell Madame DuFarge, Anna Massey is perfect as Miss Pross, the Cruncher of Alfred Lynch is sly and hilarious, Jean-Pierre Aumont evokes sympathy too and Jean-Marc Bory is a creepy Evremonde. The idea to mix English and French actors was a great one and it paid off, something that it does better than the other adaptations. In conclusion, not perfect but a very good adaptation on the whole. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I may be a lone voice, but I think this Tale of Two Cities is easily the worst of the four versions I have seen and is about as bad as Dickens gets. There is almost nothing in it I can recommend.The production design is poor. Everything and everybody is too clean and pristine. The sets of the Bastille, the wine shop and the room where Dr Manette is secreted are all too spacious. Every scene is over lit and under populated. It is the least atmospheric Dickens drama I can recall.The writing is worse. Arthur Hopcraft jumps straight into the book as Mr Lorrie and Lucie are nearing Paris, omitting the early scenes that set up the story and some of its key characters. As a result, Miss Pross doesn't appear for over an hour. He also omits the scene on the boat where Lucie and Darnay first meet, which plays a significant role in the plot. Then he labours over the murder of the Marquis d'Evremont and other scenes set in France. The two movie versions get through the plot in about two hours, without too much simplification. Hopcraft struggles to tell the story in a more generous three hours plus.Key aspects of the characters are underplayed or absent altogether. Miss Pross's fierce protectiveness towards Lucie only emerges slowly, as a result of her actions, rather than as their motive. We see nothing of the businesslike reserve under which Mr Lorrie hides his feelings and only get a weak sense of Dickens's deliberate contrast between Stryver's bustling self-promotion and Carton's resigned, careless self-neglect.Philippe Monnier's direction is wretched. The staging is uniformly poor, without pace, excitement or inventiveness. For example, the bursting of the wine barrel, the storming of the Bastille and the grave-robbing scenes are all listlessly thrown away. The first trial scene is a muddled dud and the two trials in Paris are polite and uninvolved, giving little sense of how justice is being perverted by a howling mob. Mostly, Monnier just points the camera at the actors as they wander aimlessly around the sets.Some of his decisions defy belief. When Carton coerces Barsad's aid he uses the analogy of a card game, contrasting the strength of his own cards with the weakness of Barsad's hand. This scene demands to be set in an Inn, with an actual deck of cards on hand, but we just get the two protagonists strolling in a public square.The actors are just left to fend for themselves. For example, when Carton is approached by the seamstress in the Bastille, there is no single point at which we suddenly see her recognise his heroic deception. Where was Monnier when this scene was being botched?The performances are universally lacklustre. Serena Gordon and Xavier Deluc are OK as Lucie and Darnay, but James Wilby's Carton is a gloomy, lovelorn moper, rather than the dissipated, self-destructive wastrel of the book. Jean-Pierre Aumont's Dr Mannette never even hints at the underlying anxiety that causes his temporary lapses into insanity, so his behaviour is even more unconvincingly schizophrenic than Dickens depicts it. It is as if Aumont never believed in the business of the cobbler's tools and said: "I'll do it if I have to, but that's what it is - 'cobblers'." John Mills just phones in his part. However, the acting depths are only finally plumbed by Karl Johnson's ineffectual, bemused-looking Barsad.It is rare for any movie to be so bad in so many different areas simply by accident or incompetence. Usually, it is because the movie makers have consciously adopted an approach to the material which is wildly mistaken and this follows through into every aspect of the production. I suspect that is what has happened here.Dickens wrote in very broad strokes. His characters are vivid and striking but are often one-dimensional, exemplifying a single human trait. Psychological complexity is not found in individuals so much as in the interplay between them. His plots are full of unlikely situations and improbable coincidences. More importantly, they are peppered with scenes of high emotion, in which Dickens loved to wallow - feelings he wants his readers to share. When he depicts injustice or petty malice, he wants us to be as apoplectic with rage and disgust as he is. When he depicts tragedy, he wants us to weep along with him. When he depicts good, he wants us to applaud with joy.A Dickens novel takes us into a world of heightened reality where we are invited to laugh and cry and thrill with suspense as we wind our way through the tortuous story towards to the eventual release of a happy ending. But they are not just escapist fantasy. We pay for our simple pleasures by having to confront the urgent social and moral issues that preoccupied Dickens throughout his career.It is this unique mix of the populist and the profound which makes Dickens different from most other great Nineteenth Century novelists.I believe that this production is so lame because the film-makers perversely decided that they wanted the profound without the populist. They didn't want it to look or sound like any other Dickens movie, so at every point they smoothed out the eccentricities of the characters and deliberately backed away from all the emotional highlights of the story. In their hands, an exuberant melodrama becomes a sober, tepid, low-key history lesson. But in trying to keep the high-brow and discard the low-brow they end up being resolutely middle-brow.This Tale of Two Cities is Dickens with the Dickens taken out. It dies of 'good taste'.

I thought this movie was horrible! The acting and directing was something that a four year old could do. I DID NOT like the way the movie was cast and the things they changed from the original book. First of all, Carton and Darnay looked NOTHING alike. Lucie was NOTHING how they described her in the book. Not to mention how horrible the actress was who played Madame Defarge. Not only was the acting terrible, but the directing and blocking was horrible too. But, I'd have to say the worst part was when Carton and the seamstress started making out randomly while they were at the Guillitine. I mean, come ON! You have got to be kidding me! This movie is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I would not refer anyone to this movie.

This is by far the best version of Dickens' Tale. The cast was outstanding.James Wilby really conveys Carton's feelings of hopelessness,alienation,and self-sacrifice.The musical score is moving,the costumes and settings accurate,the story very true to the original.Dickens would be proud!