When 18th-century Methodists began to turn to the popular music of the day to accompany their hymns, there was a minor furore in the church. The seductive charm of pretty songs was seen by many as Satan at work, undermining moral seriousness. The case for the defence, usually attributed to the London pastor Rowland Hill, has echoed down the years: “Why should the devil have all the best tunes?”
Devilry has always made for better box office than doing the right thing. Rebellion, especially against divine goodness, requires an unusual and compelling level of intellectual vigour and vim. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Lucifer exudes charisma, insight and defiance, shrugging off his exile from paradise with the words: “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.” For those who relish this kind of bravado, the Christmas television schedules have provided lavish entertainment. Bram Stoker’s Dracula has traditionally been a star among the glamorous transgressors of world literature. Judging by clips of the Dracula miniseries to be shown on the BBC over New Year, the Danish actor Claes Bang will lend the Transylvanian count the requisite air of rakish panache. The much-trailed line, “I’m undead, not unreasonable,” is wit of Luciferian quality.
More surprising is the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge into a charismatic, good-looking nihilist, with a wicked taste for irony. In the three-part adaptation of A Christmas Carol, overseen by, among others, Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott, the skeletal Victorian skinflint and loner created by Charles Dickens has become an articulate and unsettlingly persuasive debunker of all matters spiritual. He delights in confounding his nephew with a dry deconstruction of the supposedly snowy journey of the three wise men to Bethlehem, observing: “There’s no record of there ever having been snow in Palestine. Indeed riding camels in the snow is the embodiment of the absurdity and the lies passed … down the centuries”.
Some critics have objected to a production which is darker and more graphic than the original work, and an expletive-friendly script (by the writer of Peaky Blinders) which gives itself liberal licence to reinvent. Others have complained that Guy Pearce is too handsome to play a character we imagine as hunched, wizened and white-haired. But this is Scrooge reimagined for the age of global capital, running something more akin to a hedge fund than a counting house. Portraying him as a robust cynic helps highlight Dickens’ core message: a focus on what can be calculated and measured in human affairs might achieve spectacular results and enormous profits, but still miss the deeper truths of the human heart.
The unexpected addition of Scrooge to the roster of intellectual antiheroes is welcome and a compliment to Mr Pearce’s abilities. Watching Scrooge in action, it’s no surprise he made a fortune. But, in fairness to his creator, it should never be forgotten how near he came to losing his soul in the process.
