Director: Roman Polanski
Novel: Charles Dickens
Script: Ronald Harwood
Photography: Pawel Edelman
Editor: Hervé De Luze
Production Design: Allan Starski, Casting: Celestia Fox
Music: Rachel Portman
Sound Editor: Jean Goudier
Principal Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barney Clark, Jeremy Swift, Leanne Rowe, Jamie Foreman, Harry Eden, Ian McNeice, Mark Strong
Producers: Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
Executive Producers: Timothy Burrill, Petr Moravec
Distribution:
TOBIS Film GmbH & Co. KG
Tel: +49 (0)30 839 007 0
Fax: +49 (0)30 839 007 65
www.tobis.de
Charles Dickens‘ story of an orphan was made into a film many times, but Polanski's version still fills a gap. Because many adaptations have not aged well: for instance, the anti-Semitic caricature of the moneygrubbing Fagin is carried over from the book into David Lean's 1948 black-and-white film. Polanski mitigates the anti-Semitism with the help of the marvelous Ben Kingsley, but otherwise sticks reasonably close to the original. His "Oliver Twist" is neither a dusty period drama nor a modernized reinterpretation. "This is the rare case of the film version of a great novel where watching is like reading," wrote one American critic.