Reinterpreting Fagin

  Streamlining the Plot | Maintaining Character Relationships | Reinterpreting Fagin | Cinematography

Within an adaptation that is following the fidelity model, it is possible for the director or producer to apply their personal views to the story and still maintain the source’s original ideas.  Because the original text is so full of character connectivity, there is a very limited amount of emotional connection among the characters.  Dickens, through his original text, created the well-known relationship between Oliver and Fagin that captivated readers at the time.  For the contemporary audience, however, it was necessary for Polanski to form a stronger, more evident emotional bond between these core characters.  This is crucial because contemporary audiences often find connections between themselves and the characters they are watching on screen.  Because of the time setting that Oliver Twist takes place in, there is very little for the audience to, at the outset of the film, connect with. Therefore, Polanski uses an adaptation method of reinterpretation to rework the character of Fagin and his relationship with Oliver.

When Oliver first meets Fagin, in Dickens’s text, as readers, we are given the description of a very frail old man.  His initial portrayal in the novel, prior to meeting Oliver, makes him seem uninviting.  “And standing over them…was a very old shriveled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured but a quantity of matted red hair” (64).  There were also sketches that were included in the original publications, and the first image of Fagin visually confirms Dickens’s description of Fagin.  Fagin is hunched over in the drawings, and he is holding a pitchfork, which will serve as evidence to the idea that Dickens continually references Fagin in comparison with the devil.  Regardless of the reader’s first impression of Fagin, as the scene in the novel progresses, we learn that Fagin is in fact delighted to have Oliver in his company, and he makes certain that there is a place for Oliver among the other boys.

In the Polanski movie, the character of Fagin is not introduced to the viewers until he is introduced to Oliver, therefore, we do not have the preconceived notion of unpleasantness towards Fagin that we initially did in the novel.  Instead, the first time we see Fagin, he makes a genuine gesture of kindness towards Oliver. He bows towards Oliver and make a space for him at the table.  This instant kindheartedness towards Oliver makes it easier for viewers to take a liking to Fagin’s character earlier on in the story than it did in the novel.

An aspect of Fagin that Dickens emphasized was how he was inhuman and very mechanical.  There were very few scenes that made Fagin seem like a human.  In fact, there is one passage that uses the word beast to describe him: “More like that of a snared beast than that of a man” (448).  Yet, through the negative sides of Fagin that Dickens shows the readers, one of the most memorable scenes from the novel is when Fagin shows a softer side.  This was during the pickpocket game.  Fagin dresses up, and he dances around while playing with the other boys.  This is one of the very few times, until the end of the novel that readers get to see a good-natured side of Fagin.  It was at this point that Oliver also began to see Fagin as a father-figure, and even a mother-figure in some regards.  He felt nurtured, safe, and that he belonged when he was at the den with Fagin.

Polanski’s reinterpretation of the characters focused less on the inhuman aspects of Fagin, and rather expanded on the idea of Fagin as a father-figure for Oliver in the film.  In today’s society it is not uncommon for children to be raised by parents that are not their biological parents.  Including more scenes that depicted the bond between Fagin and Oliver was a wise decision that Polanski made, because it added an element of contemporary society to the story.  At the film’s end, when Fagin is in the condemned cell, the development of Fagin and Oliver’s relationship comes full circle, and as viewers, we see the two embrace.  Because of the positive relationship development that Polanski created between the two characters throughout the film, viewers feel a great amount of empathy towards not only Oliver, but also Fagin.  When Oliver first sees Fagin in his jail cell he tells Fagin he was kind to him, and Fagin’s response to him was “I’ll be kind again.”

The stronger developed relationship between Oliver and Fagin that Polanski created was also used to show aspects of social class, one of the central themes of the source text.  Oliver was an orphan boy who had a very passive identity.  He was raised by many people, most of which who truly did love him.  His living environment was always very restricted, and it seemed as if everything was working against him.  Similarly, Fagin was a lower class citizen.  He, like Oliver, had to work for what he had.  His undesirable lifestyle is very confidential and unwelcome by much of the society around him.