The Spirits of the Season

11.06.09 - Disney's A Christmas Carol, a multi-sensory thrill ride re-envisioned by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, captures the fantastical essence of the classic Dickens tale in a groundbreaking 3D motion picture event.

"His face is so incredibly expressive, and he's so great at creating characters, giving him the ability to completely change his physicality," director Zemeckis says of star Jim Carrey. "All of his talents as a performer and as a comedian are included in his performance." Click here for more photos from Disney's A Christmas Carol.

In the film, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) begins the Christmas holiday with his usual miserly contempt, barking at his faithful clerk (Gary Oldman) and his cheery nephew (Colin Firth). Scrooge makes it clear that he has no intention of enjoying the holiday and, as always, goes home — alone — where he encounters the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley. Marley, who's paying the price in the afterlife for his own callousness, hopes to help Scrooge avoid a similar fate and tells him that he will be visited by three spirits. But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come take Old Scrooge on an eye-opening journey revealing truths he's reluctant to face, he must open his heart to undo years of ill will before it's too late.

Thought to be one of the greatest Christmas stories ever told and enjoyed by millions each year at the holidays, "A Christmas Carol" was originally published by Charles Dickens himself in 1843. The novella was an immediate and enduring success and would become a holiday tradition for generations — the world's first time-travel story and perhaps the most beloved of ghost stories. At its core, however, is a story of redemption. "Everybody loves a good transformational story," says Jim Carrey. "You know, somebody who sees the light, who finally finds out what's important in life. And, this is one of the greatest ones ever written."

The filmmakers felt that no film version had truly captured the story in a way that Dickens truly intended. "It's as if Charles Dickens wrote this story to be a movie — it's so visual and cinematic," says Zemeckis. "It's the greatest time-travel story ever written and I wanted to do the movie the way I believe it was originally envisioned by the author."

Disney's A Christmas Carol is a classic tale with stunning performances and powerful visuals," adds producer Steve Starkey. "It has it all." The film uses performance capture — a process that digitally captures the performances of the actors with computerized cameras in a full 360 degrees — and Disney Digital 3D™ to present a true Dickensian world with no artistic restrictions, transporting the audience to a time and place previously unavailable.

"The technology is liberating for me as a filmmaker," Zemeckis says. "It allows me to separate the cinema aspect of making a movie, which is something all filmmakers try to control, and realize the magic of the performances from my cast. It's the perfect blend of welcoming those wonderful accidents that happen when an actor is performing, and then being able to put the cinema language into the film."

Even as Zemeckis was writing the script, he had only one actor in mind to play the role of Scrooge — Jim Carrey. "When I did my first performance-capture movie and I realized the potential of what could be done, I couldn't help but think that the greatest performance-capture actor that exists is Jim Carrey," the director says. "His face is so incredibly expressive, and he's so great at creating characters, giving him the ability to completely change his physicality. All of his talents as a performer and as a comedian are included in his performance."

For his part, Carrey says, "Scrooge is not a person who really loves his life. He wants to live it alone. He's not a spiritual guy on a mountain. He's a guy who wants to make his cage as comfortable as possible because if he steps outside it, he risks being seen by people. He risks people finding out that he's broken and bitter." But he believes there's more to Scrooge than the miser. "Nobody is just one thing, you know? There's much more to all of us. Generally at the bottom of it all, there's goodness."

Not only does Carrey play the old and miserly Scrooge, but because of the advantages afforded by the film's technology, Carrey is able to portray Scrooge at every age — from a young 7-year-old, alone and friendless, sitting quietly at school, to an old man, bent over and feeble. The technology captures Carrey's unique acting performances as the actor expertly crafts the evolution of one character's lifetime. "He's a guy in pain," says Carrey. "He's a guy who didn't have anybody to love him."

Carrey also portrays the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. "Since the ghosts are all an extension of Scrooge, it's only fitting that they all have a bit of Scrooge in them," says Zemeckis. "So it was a perfect fit to have Jim play all the parts."

Zemeckis called on several other cast members to fulfill more than one role. Gary Oldman plays the meek, but optimistic Bob Cratchit, as well as Cratchit's young ailing son Tiny Tim, and Marley's ghost. "We hired a great actor who himself is a master of disguise," Zemeckis says. "Gary Oldman is one of the most brilliant actors working today and to have him come and do these characters that require different aspects of personality and experience, it's amazing to watch," adds Producer Jack Rapke.

Classically trained British theater actor Colin Firth is one of the few actors playing only one role, but he plays a central figure in the film. Firth portrays the forever optimistic Fred, whose cheery disposition and opposing outlook on life is a stark contrast to that of his grumpy uncle Scrooge. "Fred is quite simply the opposite of Scrooge," explains Firth. "He's the foil. If Scrooge is the ultimate pessimist, Fred is the ultimate optimist. I think Fred sees life very simply. 'Why can't we be friends? It's not complicated. I'm inviting you to dinner. Why don't you just come for dinner?' I think he embodies the Christmas spirit. He wishes no ill to anybody."

With films like Forrest Gump, the Back to the Future trilogy, Cast Away and The Polar Express under his belt, Zemeckis has established himself as an expert filmmaker. It's all about telling a good story. "I think what makes him extraordinary is that his films are not just blockbusters," Colin Firth says, "they're films that people cherish year after year."

Production designer Doug Chiang, who worked with Zemeckis on The Polar Express, Monster House and Beowulf, adds: "Bob is a fantastic director to work for, primarily because he always pushes the boundaries of design. And what I love about it is that even in the initial meetings, what he describes and what I envision in my mind during those first meetings is almost always just a fraction of where he's going. And that's the part that I love as a designer, because I know that whatever we start on day one in the first few weeks, the end result is going to be ten times that. And, as a designer, it's really the surprise and the challenge of the unexpected that I get from Bob."

"Bob Zemeckis provides a challenge for everybody working with him," Starkey observes. "He's a wonderful collaborator. He actually looks for collaboration with those around him and actually feeds on the artistic input of everybody that works with him. He's very smart and knows many crafts as well as the people themselves do, and he challenges them in their craft. And he's always exploring new technologies and at the same time new stories. So you get the best of both worlds. You get to take cinema into the future and at the same time, tell stories that haven't been seen before."