Around the World in Eighty Days
16 January 2022 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeIt's a bit damning when Michael Palin's non-fiction "Around the World in Eighty Days" challenge is proving to be closer to the spirit of the original and more watchable than the BBC's fancy new drama :-(
And the dispiriting thing is that the latter *could* have worked, even with all the revisionism and re-casting; there are moments in every episode when you can see the ghost of what might have been, despite the fact that it has practically nothing to do with the original plot. Generally the ones where they stop playing Phileas Fogg as a dithering weakling and let him actually take command of his own journey and order Passepartout around for a change -- the Verne dynamic works much better with decisive master and unreliable servant than with a protagonist who wants to turn back in every episode and lets his companions run rings round him.
Unfortunately the theme of the series, at least so far, seems to be that love is the solution to everything; just appeal to your antagonists' relationships with their nearest and dearest, and problems will be miraculously sorted out. (The scene where Fogg attempts to do this in the middle of a military court-martial was particularly excruciating.) And that really, really doesn't fit the setting or the ideals of the era, which are more along the lines of "personal isn't the same thing as important".
Verne's theme (presenting his characters to a Francophone audience, but drawing on England's own stereotypes) that a bet is sacred to an Englishman and that as a race they are prepared to go to preposterous lengths in pursuit of that idea,is, of course, completely unacceptable to the BBC as a plot motor. Oddly enough, I could, perhaps, credit the idea that this version of the character is suffering from an undisclosed love affair with a woman who left him in order (so far only implied) to go travelling, and is motivated by lifelong regret at having set his stay-at-home tendencies above the opportunity for romance -- he is private and reserved enough about his personal feelings (regarded as a fault, naturally, by modern audiences) for this to be believable, even if, like everything else, it has absolutely nothing to do with Jules Verne's version. It is at any rate preferable to the otherwise inevitable contrived romance with the chirpy Miss Fix, let alone a love triangle between master, man, and lady companion -- although I suspect gloomily that it will not preclude either of those tropes :-(
The annoying thing is that so much of this *could* have worked, with a slight tweak or two. I can perfectly well see Verne's Fogg opting with dignity to take a dozen judicial lashes in place of a prison sentence when accused of a crime that Passepartout has committed, for example, in order to avoid missing their onward connection out of Hong Kong -- and taking it out on a remorseful Passepartout with the silent treatment thereafter. (After all, he pretty much does this in canon when Passepartout is accused of defiling a Hindu temple, only in financial terms rather than those of physical humiliation.) Playing it as a last-minute-rescue/hurt-comfort scene instead is just, yet again, diminishing the character... presumably with the intent of making him more plausible/identifiable to a modern audience, and/or providing him with a 'hero's journey' or 'character arc' rather than just being an actively reserved enigma...
It's not as if the original book is a great classic of literature; rereading it this week, I was surprised by how much of it is simply a travelogue of the party's various destinations and modes of travel, and how many of the episodes I thought I remembered (the American train leaping the viaduct, for example, or Aouda's rescue from suttee) turn out not to be achieved by Phileas Fogg himself after all. The only one he can actually be credited with is the burning of the ship down to water-level in order to cross the Atlantic when low on fuel, at which point it is conveniently revealed that he is somehow a master mariner and is capable of captaining his own vessel ;-p
I suspect that a lot of the intended appeal of the book lay precisely in those guide-book portrayals of the exotic bits of 'abroad' (apparently Verne himself had never travelled and was relying on his reading), plus, of course, the central twist of the calendar dates, which was probably the spark for the whole thing. (My reaction, as always, was to reflect that it was just as well Fogg didn't happen to choose to start off in the opposite direction!)
And were there *really* tigers in the outskirts of Hong Kong in the 1870s? I had the impression that it was a small island less than the size of London, rather than a nature reserve supporting large animals.
But the Palin programme, where they're actually attempting to use the same route (and encountering obstacles that the Victorians never had to cope with, to the extent that modern transport is, as of the second episode, leaving the expedition woefully behind schedule!) -- and where the details are focused on overcoming practical problems rather than manufacturing angst, and on snatched scraps of sight-seeing in each destination -- turns out to be a good deal more reminiscent of what Verne wrote, both in tone and in content.
And the dispiriting thing is that the latter *could* have worked, even with all the revisionism and re-casting; there are moments in every episode when you can see the ghost of what might have been, despite the fact that it has practically nothing to do with the original plot. Generally the ones where they stop playing Phileas Fogg as a dithering weakling and let him actually take command of his own journey and order Passepartout around for a change -- the Verne dynamic works much better with decisive master and unreliable servant than with a protagonist who wants to turn back in every episode and lets his companions run rings round him.
Unfortunately the theme of the series, at least so far, seems to be that love is the solution to everything; just appeal to your antagonists' relationships with their nearest and dearest, and problems will be miraculously sorted out. (The scene where Fogg attempts to do this in the middle of a military court-martial was particularly excruciating.) And that really, really doesn't fit the setting or the ideals of the era, which are more along the lines of "personal isn't the same thing as important".
Verne's theme (presenting his characters to a Francophone audience, but drawing on England's own stereotypes) that a bet is sacred to an Englishman and that as a race they are prepared to go to preposterous lengths in pursuit of that idea,is, of course, completely unacceptable to the BBC as a plot motor. Oddly enough, I could, perhaps, credit the idea that this version of the character is suffering from an undisclosed love affair with a woman who left him in order (so far only implied) to go travelling, and is motivated by lifelong regret at having set his stay-at-home tendencies above the opportunity for romance -- he is private and reserved enough about his personal feelings (regarded as a fault, naturally, by modern audiences) for this to be believable, even if, like everything else, it has absolutely nothing to do with Jules Verne's version. It is at any rate preferable to the otherwise inevitable contrived romance with the chirpy Miss Fix, let alone a love triangle between master, man, and lady companion -- although I suspect gloomily that it will not preclude either of those tropes :-(
The annoying thing is that so much of this *could* have worked, with a slight tweak or two. I can perfectly well see Verne's Fogg opting with dignity to take a dozen judicial lashes in place of a prison sentence when accused of a crime that Passepartout has committed, for example, in order to avoid missing their onward connection out of Hong Kong -- and taking it out on a remorseful Passepartout with the silent treatment thereafter. (After all, he pretty much does this in canon when Passepartout is accused of defiling a Hindu temple, only in financial terms rather than those of physical humiliation.) Playing it as a last-minute-rescue/hurt-comfort scene instead is just, yet again, diminishing the character... presumably with the intent of making him more plausible/identifiable to a modern audience, and/or providing him with a 'hero's journey' or 'character arc' rather than just being an actively reserved enigma...
It's not as if the original book is a great classic of literature; rereading it this week, I was surprised by how much of it is simply a travelogue of the party's various destinations and modes of travel, and how many of the episodes I thought I remembered (the American train leaping the viaduct, for example, or Aouda's rescue from suttee) turn out not to be achieved by Phileas Fogg himself after all. The only one he can actually be credited with is the burning of the ship down to water-level in order to cross the Atlantic when low on fuel, at which point it is conveniently revealed that he is somehow a master mariner and is capable of captaining his own vessel ;-p
I suspect that a lot of the intended appeal of the book lay precisely in those guide-book portrayals of the exotic bits of 'abroad' (apparently Verne himself had never travelled and was relying on his reading), plus, of course, the central twist of the calendar dates, which was probably the spark for the whole thing. (My reaction, as always, was to reflect that it was just as well Fogg didn't happen to choose to start off in the opposite direction!)
And were there *really* tigers in the outskirts of Hong Kong in the 1870s? I had the impression that it was a small island less than the size of London, rather than a nature reserve supporting large animals.
But the Palin programme, where they're actually attempting to use the same route (and encountering obstacles that the Victorians never had to cope with, to the extent that modern transport is, as of the second episode, leaving the expedition woefully behind schedule!) -- and where the details are focused on overcoming practical problems rather than manufacturing angst, and on snatched scraps of sight-seeing in each destination -- turns out to be a good deal more reminiscent of what Verne wrote, both in tone and in content.
