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[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

Posted By: patropitufo
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15
English | DVDrip | Xvid | 720x416 | 25fps | ~1085 kbps | MP3 | ~132 kbps VBR estéreo | 4GB + 3% recovery record
Genre : Drama | History
Subtitles: French, Spanish .srt
iMDB Rating: 8.9/10
Directed By: Justin Chadwick & Susanna White
Starring : Gillian Anderson, Denis Lawson, Anna Maxwell Martin, Patrick Kennedy, Carey Mulligan

Andrew Davies isn't much of household name in the U.S., but he's the king of the BBC mini-series. His skillfully adapted scripts for Pride & Prejudice (the beloved Colin Firth version) and many, many more are peerless examples of classic novels done right–cunningly edited and shaped to let all the rich emotion and sharp intelligence spill over with zip and vigor. Bleak House is no exception; it's one of the best Dickens adaptations to date. The mini-series form allows Dickens' panoramic view, brimming with eccentric characters and complex turns of plot, to sprawl out without losing an iota of suspense or momentum. Two innocent young orphans (Patrick Kennedy and Carey Mulligan) are the potential heirs to a fortune, but their fates are snarled in a monumental legal battle known as Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But the heart of the story is another orphan, Esther Summerson (Anna Maxwell Martin), whose mysterious parentage proves to be intertwined with the fate of the Jarndyce wards and the aloof Lady Dedlock (Gillian Anderson, The X-Files). Dickens' story twines through an excoriating vision of the legal system to heartbreaking domestic drama to a murder investigation to near-Gothic horror, all broken into utterly delicious half-hour segments (after the hour-long opening episode). Martin is utterly beguiling, homely at one moment and luminous the next; Anderson's grippingly eerie and brittle performance will delight her fans. But to single out anyone seems absurd, because every character–from the vicious lawyer Tulkinghorn (Charles Dance, White Mischief) to the foppish parasite Skimpole (Nathaniel Parker, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries) to the simpering clerk Guppy (Burn Gorman)–is intricately drawn, all hitting a mesmerizing balance between caricature and stark emotional honesty. Bleak House demonstrates that humor, pathos, and social criticism can all be contained in one wonderfully entertaining package.


Bleak House is a fifteen-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House, which was originally published in 1852–53. Produced with an all-star cast, the serial was shown on BBC One from October to December 2005, and drew much critical and popular praise. It has been reported that the total cost of the production was in the region of £8 million. It should not be confused with the 1985 TV adaptation.
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

The adaptation is quite lengthy at eight hours, and it covers most of the characters and storylines in the novel. Characters from the book who are not present include the wife of Mr Snagsby the law stationer; the wife and grandson of the moneylender Smallweed; the law clerk Tony Jobling; the bankrupt Mr Jellyby; the Sir Leicester Dedlock's several cousins; and the Bagnet family, friends of the ex-soldier Mr George. The character of Clamb, clerk to the lawyer Tulkinghorn, was created by the screenwriter as a device for showing Tulkinghorn's motives and deeds without recourse to a narrator.
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

Most of the storylines are portrayed substantially as they are in the novel, but somewhat abbreviated. The exceptions to this are in large part consequent to the aforementioned cull of minor characters. The plot mechanics around the possession of Lady Dedlock's letters, which involve Tony Jobling and Smallweed Junior in the novel, are considerably altered, as are the mechanics of the reconciliation between Mr George and his mother, which is brought about by Mrs Bagnet in the book. The storyline concerning Mrs Snagsby's paranoid jealousy of her husband is omitted altogether.
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

The serial was produced in-house by the BBC with some co-production funding from United States PBS broadcaster WGBH. It was shown on BBC One, on Thursdays at 8.00 p.m. and Fridays at 8.30 p.m., following the BBC's most popular programme — EastEnders — in an attempt to attract more viewers, particularly those of a young age. An hour-long episode started the series on Thursday 27 October 2005. Afterwards, episodes were shown twice weekly — aside from there being no episode broadcast on Friday November 18 due to the annual Children in Need charity telethon — and were thirty minutes in length. The serial was designed to air in the format of a soap opera; this was somewhat experimental for the television drama genre, where conventionally they would be an hour long. BBC One showed omnibus editions of each week's episodes on the Sunday following first broadcast.
Though some critics have argued against the series being shown in this format, programme makers and commentators defended their decision by saying that Dickens's writings were long, complex, very popular stories told over a series of small installments, just like a soap-opera and claiming that if he had been alive in 2005 he would have been writing for big signature dramas. Bleak House was indeed originally published in monthly installments, with cliffhangers used to maintain the continuing interest of the readership.
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

In the United States, the eight hours were broadcast on PBS on Masterpiece Theatre, where they were compressed and slightly edited into six installments. The opening and closing episodes were two hours in length, and the middle four episodes were each a single hour. Most PBS stations showed the first-run for the new week's installment at 9:00 p.m. on Sundays from January 22 to February 26, 2006. Bleak House was rebroadcast on Masterpiece Theatre in 2007. Four installments, two hours each, were shown on most PBS stations from April 22 to May 13.
Some other overseas broadcasters, such as Australia's ABC, purchased the series in an eight-part, one-hour episode format.
The programme is also notable for being one of the first British drama series to be shot and produced in the High Definition Television format, which required the make-up and set design to be much more detailed than previous productions.
It was filmed on location in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Kent from February 2005 through to July 2005. The exterior of the Dedlock's country house Chesney Wold, was represented by Cobham Hall in Kent, which is a girls' boarding school, and is occasionally open to the public. The exterior of Bleak House was represented by Ingatestone Hall in Essex. Other houses used for interior shots and garden locations include Balls Park in Hertfordshire, Bromham Hall in Bromham, Bedfordshire, and Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire.
[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15

[Charles Dickens Mini-serie] BBC Bleak House (2005) 4/15