Day 31: Great Expectations (1946)
David Lean’s retelling of the Charles Dicken’s classic “Great Expectations” has been lauded by both audiences and critics as one of the best novel adaptations of all time. With its sweeping story, taking place in many locations, and it’s biographical aspects, showing our main character Pip from boy to man, this is an epic story about both rising in maturity and in social class.
In this classic tale, our hero Pip, a poor simple boy, lives with his shrew of a sister and her meek, but loyal blacksmith husband Joe. Though life is adequate, Pip longs to be a real gentleman and, unbeknown to him, fate has that plan in mind. One day, Pip is informed that he has been called on by Miss. Havisham, a rich old spinster, to play with her daily companion Estella, a beautiful teenage girl. Though Estella mocks poor Pip and his social statues, Miss. Havisham takes a shine to the boy and enjoys his company until his fourteenth birthday, when he must leave and start his blacksmith apprenticeship.
Six years later, the now twenty-year-old Pip (John Mills) is visited by Mr. Jaggers, Miss Havisham’s lawyer, who tells him that a mysterious benefactor has offered to turn Pip into the gentleman he’s always wanted to be- one with “great expectations”. Naturally, Pip assumes Miss Havisham is his guardian angel, but Jaggers won’t say and instead makes arrangements for Pip to stay in London with Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness in his first credited film role), a young man instructed to teach the simple blacksmith how to behave in society.
From Herbert, Pip learns a great deal including the story behind Estella. Adopted by Miss. Havisham, the girl was used as an instrument of vengeance by the spinster and taught how to break men’s hearts. Pip refuses to believe the story and soon meets Estella once again while visiting Miss. Havisham. The two hit it off like never before and things seem bright for the now rich and happy Pip. But all good things come at a price and soon Pip encounters a dark figure from his youth, who reveals himself as the young gentleman’s true benefactor. With this, Pip will soon find himself on the fringes of both society and the law and it will be up to him to make things right if he ever hopes to hold onto his new life and love.
With “Great Expectations,” Lean shows off his expert skills of being an editor of both film and story. Considered one of the greatest openings of its time, Lean gives us Pip walking to his parent’s grave site amongst the dark misty English hillside. Flawlessly, the shots, filmed both on location and in a studio, are put together in such a way that we grasp a sense of the dark and macabre, which plays as an undertone throughout the story. Later, we see it rear its head once again as Pip first encounters Miss. Havisham, who sits in her spooky cobweb drizzled house in her wedding dress from a jilted love affair decades before. It is this darkness that Lean wisely plays with in certain scenes, giving us much of the same mood found in Dickens’ book.
Obviously, as with most novels to film, Lean and his writers had to cut down the story into a more accessible two-hour window and, though many pictures fail to capture the spirit of the source material, “Great Expectations” is able to omit a large amount of it’s characters and even slightly shift the events of the third act without ever losing its core purpose. Such a unique talent like this is hard to come by and Lean went on to find great success with book adaptations including “Oliver Twist” (our film for tomorrow), “Doctor Zhivago,” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” for which he won the Academy Award for best director.
“Great Expectations” has charmed audiences since its first publication in 1860 and David Lean continues to do so with his film adaptation- one of the best of its kind.
To learn more about “Great Expections,” check out Criterion’s page here.
If you would like updated on all things Nathan and “The Criterion Summer,” check out our Facebook page here.