Starting on November 12, Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will receive a new adaptation, Scrooge and the Spirits of Christmas starring Johnny Depp and directed by Ti West. There is a risk the film will draw more attention for Depp’s Hollywood return, mediated by Paramount, just emerging from a recent period of ostracism. The source material remains one of the pillars of world literature, and Entertainment Weekly rightly asked the director what kind of cut we should expect for this story that everyone already knows. And perhaps what we should expect from Depp in those roles as well…
Johnny Depp, a “musical performance” in Scrooge and the Spirits of Christmas
Reprising Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge and the Spirits of Christmas: is it enough that Johnny Depp is in the lead? The director Ti West offers a nuanced answer, without denying the obvious: “The film is him, Dickensian dialogue has its own musicality, and I think Johnny possesses that cadence and musicality in the way he speaks.” I wasn’t sure he would ever want to do it; I sent it to him and found out that, as it happens, he had been obsessed with it his whole life as well. […] He has his own way of centering every classic moment of Scrooge, making him seem like a despicable character, yet he maintains a certain sense of humor, a certain charm.” West adds “even he“, because the director has been obsessed with the text since childhood, when the appearance of Marley’s Ghost in the 1984 television special “A Christmas Carol” terrified him to death, becoming his first encounter with horror.
Regarding the overall tone of the film, West explains that it is precisely the nuances of Depp that drive a less definitive interpretation of the tale: “In other adaptations, Scrooge is a kind of jerk, while the other characters are good and perfect. Our aim was actually to rebalance things, suggesting there is a gray area. […] When his Scrooge silences someone, underscores financial concerns, or refuses himself, you understand why he does it. You agree with him even if you shouldn’t; that’s what makes him special.”
The teaser also evokes other famous Depp characters: should we expect to see them in Scrooge? “The tricky thing, when you’re handling Johnny and a teaser, is that you naturally evoke a lot of other iconic things. I don’t think many of his other iconic performances have a link to this one, just as they don’t link to each other.”
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