Great Expectations (Mike Newell, 2012)

"Do you wish to see Miss Havishman?"

Introduction

As the closing-night film of the London Film Festival, I believed Mike Newell’s Great Expectations was clearly re-imagining a classic story for modern audiences. Rather than following in the footsteps of Alfonso Cuaron, whereby his 1998 Great Expectations was set in modern-day New York starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke and Robert De Niro, this interpretation harks back further to David Lean’s original rather than any contemporary piece. Written by David Nicholl’s (Writer and Director of One Day), this film clearly attempts to gain the interest of a younger audience, despite its period-setting. The trailer tells us “from the Director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and ensures Helena Bonham Carter recalls her Tim-Burton-esque roles as the unsettling Miss Havisham. Lead-role ‘Pip’ is played by Jeremy Irvine, coming off his War Horse, and his rugged “old-fashioned-but-not-really” look seems to clearly target the Robert Pattinson fans. I fear that this Great Expectations will surely guarantee many school-trips and repeatable-viewings in English lessons – and may even con a few teenagers into paying for a ticket on a Friday night.

A Classic Story

The story presents us with Pip, a young-boy (Toby Irvine) who, upon visiting the grave of his Mother, is approached by an escaped-convict Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes). Pip manages to smuggle food to Magwitch, alongside stealing an axe to remove the chains. Soon after, Pip is sent for to ‘play’ in the house of Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter) – a wide-eyed recluse – who has an adopted daughter in Estella (Helena Barlow). The class-divide is clear as Pip is the son of a blacksmith (Jason Flemyng) whilst Estella, living in the mansion with Miss Havisham, clearly has a high-opinion of herself - apparently raised to break the hearts of men. Through an unfortunate event, Pip stops visiting the mansion and continues to support his family as a blacksmith – until a lawyer, Jaggers (Robbie Coltrane), reveals that an anonymous bidder has ‘Great Expectations’ for Pip (now played by Jeremy Irvine) and will pay for him to live in London to become a ‘Gentleman’…

The story is renowned for its depiction of the social-divide and the attitudes people have to wealth and success. The definition of success in the family of Pip - happiness, marriage and love - opposed to the isolation and loneliness of Miss Havisham are all facets which, from the first act, you clearly appreciate. The type of criminal Magwitch is – opposed to the sins of other characters, are revealed through the story and again highlight an injustice between those of affluence, and those without. The setting between the country and landscape of Kent, opposed to the dirty hustle and bustle of London, again, portray the two differing attitudes to life – and the huge divide and difference between living an urban lifestyle rather than living in the rural outsider counties. These are timeless details which relate directly to the original literature by Charles Dickens.

Kent in all it’s Glory

Considering how important location is in Great Expectations, it is a god-send that the highlight of the film is in the depiction of Kent. The wide-shots portraying the vast landscapes manage to capture something mythic about the area - such beauty in the land is something that is core to the film. How would an alternate-version of the story look? Whereby the city-life was praised opposed to the muddy and dull country? At any rate, the stunning locale is highlighted by sunlight reflecting on the water whilst horses and carriages gently roll across the Isle of Sheppey.

But ironically, outside of Kent, the setting seems to feel quite small-in-scale. For a different website, I wrote an analysis of David Lean’s Great Expectations, discussing how it managed to capture the fascination with old-traditions represented by the decaying-house – in 1946, Lean's version followed Xanadu in Citizen Kane and Manderlay in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. In the current climate, it seems that this new-version follows on from The Woman in Black, and the gothic house which ‘the woman’ resided within. The Georgian context, though the accurate time period, is also difficult to truly grasp with regards to London itself. The streets of London often feel false whilst many rooms and locations are imitations of the sets within Lean’s film - for example the stuffy and disorganised offices of Jaggers. The sheer scale of the film is only effective when we are within the countryside – whereas within London, it feels smaller and tight.

Success within Schools

Last year, when The Woman in Black was released, students in schools were all whisked away to the cinema at different points. Many were directed to attend a screening over the half-term as Susan Black’s short-book was used as a text in the English GCSE. Everything about Mike Newell’s Great Expectations seems to reek of the same thing. Harry-Potter cast members in Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Robbie Coltrane – alongside the direction of Mike Newell target the teenagers of today. The Robert-Pattinson look of Jeremy Irvine with a love-triangle between Pip, Estella (Holliday Grainger channelling the femininity of Christina Hendricks in Mad Men) and “Bentley Drummle” (Ben Lloyd Hughes) seems to echo the Twilight series. Even Holliday Grainger has starred alongside Robert Pattinson in Bel-Ami and The Bad Mother’s Handbook – is she the ‘go-to’ girl for R-Patz’s love-interest?

It is 200 years since the birth of ‘Charles Dickens’, creating buzz and purpose to produce a version of the story before the year is out. Indeed, the BBC had a version recently starring Gillian Anderson, David Suchet and Ray Winstone. The production has ticked all the relevant boxes to ensure that the film garners success – free advertising through the Dickens relevance; a film which Grandparents and Parents alike will want to take their families – as teachers and schools will flock to maximise the use of a current trend in classic literature… and, who knows, some Twilight and Harry Potter fans may see the poster and go in on the actors credentials alone! But as a film, Jeremy Irvine is weak and wooden as Pip; Helena Bonham Carter – though effective – feels like she is simply phoning-in a character she has played before whilst Ralph Fiennes is criminally under-used. Everyone else, director included, seems to look to David Lean for some type of credible reference point. So why not simply watch the original? I doubt this will go in the history books – but I’m sure it will be in English exercise books for the next five years. At least until The Great Gatsby comes out...

Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946)

"I have come back to let in the sunlight!"

Introduction

The trailer for Great Expectations displays the text "What forbidding mystery lay behind the shutters of Satis House?". By 1946, Citizen Kane and Xanadu had already screened across the world whilst, prior to that, the Oscar-winning Rebecca portrayed the mystical Manderlay too. It seems that cinema had a huge interest in large, decaying buildings - a relic of the past and an old tradition that, within its walls, secures madness in the mind of its tenants. Great Expectations is much less obsessed with the 'mystery' of Satis House - despite what the trailer says - and is much more obsessed with the world outside of the house and the fascinating characters that inhabit that world - we all know Pip, Estella, Magwich, Mrs Havisham and Mr Jaggers - and, more importantly, we find out about the different strands of society these characters come from.

A Historic Text

The story was originally written in 1860 by Charles Dickens and, since then, it has been portrayed many, many times - with a 2012 release directed by Mike Newell (Ironically, another Harry Potter director in Alfonso Cuaron helmed the 1998 adaptation) and to star Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine as 'Pip' (The screenplay adaptation is by David Nicholl's - the writer of One Day, Starter for Ten and The Understudy). The fascination resides in the multiple themes Dicken's raises that are still relevant today - issues about class and society, the idea about your heritage and where you are from - the insight into identity and how your upbringing affects your outlook on life and how you treat others. Our lead role in Pip (John Mills) is a role whereby from the very start we see how, through no fault of his own, he is forced to commit a crime - stealing bread and food for an escaped-convict (Finlay Currie). Though this guilt is carried throughout the film, it is nevertheless an attitude which is condoned in the morals of his good friend Joe (Bernard Miles) who states that he "wouldn't let someone starve to death". This kind gesture of Pip, though criminal in its theft, is an act which contributes to the rest of his life as an unknown beneficiary funds Pip to move to London and become a 'Gentleman of Great Expectations'.

Small-Scale to Grand-Epic

David Lean is either known for the sprawling epics he created in the 50's such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai or the small-scale theatre-adaptations of Noel Coward including Brief Encounter and Blithe Spirit. Great Expectations is the film which shows how Lean is moving away from the small-scale drama's and towards bigger and grander stories. We have the small-scale story involving Pip and Joe or Pip and Hubert becoming close friends whilst Pip and Estella cross paths at multiple points. We also have the much more ambitious scale as we see the opening-shot of Pip running across the marshes towards his parents grave - almost hinting at the deserts of Lawrence of Arabia and potentially the single-child running across the frame akin to Empire of the Sun. The silhouettes backed onto the stunning vista's lose no sense of scale in black and white. Even the themes become much more prevalent as we see the judge sentence a group of convicts to death - the slow pan across each criminal reveals the area of society they hail from. These are the underclass and poverty-stricken people who are forced to turn to crime merely to stay alive. This theme shows a bigger story to tell - and a scale that is not small at all, but in fact a global issue regarding the divide between the upper and lower class. Even the isolated, controlling and heartless character of Mrs Havisham (Martita Hunt) is clearly representing the upper-class and their lack of love and kindness - the very idea that the upper-class are blissfully unaware of the havoc they cause to other sects of society.

It is worth noting how Joe Wright looked upon David Lean's Great Expectations as an influence for Atonement. I can see how John Mills and James McAvoy both have an air of innocence and yet a rugged working-class look that fits well in David Lean's British films. Joe Wright specifically noted how:

"There are moments like Pip running through the graveyard with the trees wiping the frame from right to left as he runs. Then Pip slams into a great trunk of a tree which turns out to be Magwich. It's another moment of genius ... There are technical lessons to be learned from Lean - but emotional ones as well".

That sequence is heightened by the great sound effects of wind and tree's bending and twisting - as if to say that at any moment something will break...

The Future Looks Bright ... 

It truly is a great film - and I think the only thing which may turn people off is the Georgian context: You either like period drama's or you don't. David Lean's use of shadow and scale is something to be marvelled at throughout the film, but it is by no means exclusively static shooting. In fact, an expressionistic sequence as Pip is ill and staggers home to bed rivals those regular New York scenes as Pip walks directly to camera as passers-by knock past him and we see light flashing as the camera takes us to his bedroom before he passes out. 

One of the closing lines are "I have come back to let in the sunlight!" and indeed, David Lean is working on a bigger canvas and larger scale - Lean is opening the windows and showing all the detail to these characters and situations. We see Jean Simmons and Alec Guinness in early roles whilst a short sequence as Pip and Wemmick (Ivor Barnard) have to nod at different points to entertain Wemmick's "Aged P" sprinkle a little humour into the mix. It was still a few years off before Lean set off for Hollywood, but clearly they knew he was coming. As the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing at the Oscars ... it was only a matter of time before he would arrive.