- 20 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:11My father's family name being Philip and my Christian name Philip, my infant
00:18tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I
00:25called myself Pip and came to be called Pip.
00:39There has never been a more perfect marriage of director and material than
00:44David Lean's 1946 adaptation of Great Expectations. Indeed he was often called a
00:50visual novelist. Published in 1861 Charles Dickens novel tells the story of Pip whose
00:57humble expectations are transformed by his encounter with escaped convict Magwitch and
01:03the bitter jilted Miss Havisham. Would you agree that Great Expectations is the
01:09perfect marriage of director and source material? I think so and I think it's
01:13critical that it comes at this point in David Lean's career. Both Dickens and David Lean are
01:20exploring I guess aspects of the British story. I mean they throughout their careers both have
01:26looked at class, they've looked at money and they've looked at the interior of the human
01:32experience. So it's what do people think feel and what are the blockages that are both social and
01:37internal. And Dickens is able to do that as a novelist through the interior monologue. And what
01:44Lean is doing increasingly across the course of his career, but at this point with Great Expectations
01:50probably for the first time really fusing it, is he's able to tell the interior monologue of a
01:57character through the way he shoots them with visuals, with representations, with symbols and with
02:03leitmotifs sit to where he finally hits that point where he's discovering an uncovering character.
02:26Keep still you little devil or I'll cut your throat. No sir, no. Tell us your name, quick. Pip, Pip
02:35sir.
02:59Great Expectations directed by David Lean marks the first time that Lean would adapt source material
03:07from Dickens. And while Dickens novels had been adapted for the screen before,
03:11Lean brings something truly special to this adaptation. And a lot of it is around the fact
03:17that Lean was a visual storyteller and he brings such atmosphere and such thoughtfulness to the
03:23historical accuracy that it brings Dickens to life I think for an entirely new generation.
03:30David Lean's film version of Dickens' Great Expectations that he made in 1946 is a very good
03:38example of two perfect storytellers collaborating. Lean hadn't read any Dickens before he was introduced
03:48to Great Expectations by a stage adaptation. And when he saw that, he realised that there was something
03:56about him that he fully engaged with. Being a storyteller himself, albeit a visual one, a cinematic one,
04:03I think that he felt a kind of relationship with Dickens.
04:09Let's talk a little bit about the original novel, because even among Dickens' great array of novels,
04:15it's considered one of his best. Why is that?
04:19I think one of the things about Great Expectations is the story is beautifully timeless. It's about,
04:26well, so many things, but you could boil it down, as David Lean did, to two big themes.
04:33There's the sort of futility and eternity of love. You make the incorrect decision in love and you
04:40can't pull out of it, and that's one doom. And the other futility is trying to change your class.
04:46In British society, you're not really allowed to move up a class. That doesn't really happen.
04:52You know, it's the entire motif of British sitcoms is you cannot move up in a class. So these two
04:58are the
04:59strongest themes of the novel. There are lots of other things he explores, things like poverty,
05:05things like the trap of poverty, betrayal, all sorts of other elements. But those, I think,
05:10are the strongest parts of the story. Although many people love Dickens' Tale of Two Cities,
05:15which preceded Great Expectations, or they might love A Christmas Carol, the thing that's really
05:20special about Great Expectations is it combines and influences so many other genres of novel to come.
05:27It's a morality tale. It's a story of a man's coming of age from boy to man. It's a story
05:34of rags to
05:35riches to rags again.
05:37Great Expectations is relatively late in Dickens' canon, but it is clearly one of the most popular
05:43books that he ever wrote, perhaps only slightly less popular than A Christmas Carol. I think no reason
05:50for its popularity and it has been adapted for stage, screen and television countless times is because
05:59it does so many different things in one. On the one hand, it is a melodrama about a young man
06:07seeking
06:07his identity, an orphan who wants to find his true self. At the same time, it is a critique of
06:15Victorian society
06:16and the aspirations thereof. There is a thriller element to it and there is also a comic element too.
06:24It's a book that's designed to be read aloud, so Dickens would do readings of his work for money.
06:29I mean, he was typically broke. It was an important income source for him. But other people would do
06:34this later in pubs and bars because literacy was not universal. And when you look at the book from
06:41that perspective, it is this almost comedic role of jokes, of comments, of sideswipes. It is almost like
06:50a stand-up routine when spoken. And when put on the page, it has a lightness to it. When it
06:56explores
06:57these very dark and very complex themes, it does so with such a joyous lightness of touch.
07:02Great Expectations, like most of Dickens' work, was also released and published as a serial piece
07:07of work, which means that it has this episodic quality throughout its main character, Pip's life.
07:13That means that it kind of lends itself to many subplots, to various ensemble characters who have
07:20complex relationships with our protagonist. And often that lends itself to melodrama as well. And
07:26the Victorians loved and lacked up melodrama. They loved the story of a child missing and reunited with
07:33a mother. They loved the story of someone who discovers that their secret benefactor was really an
07:37escaped convict that they knew all along. Dickens had an interest in childhood and particularly
07:42in Orphans. And he showed that previously with David Copperfield. And with this story, he does have
07:50imperiled children and children who form quite meaningful relationships early in life, like Pip and
07:55Estella. And then you watch as those relationships develop over a number of years, really up until their
08:01old age. But you always know that in spite of the twists and turns and sort of theatrical things within
08:08these stories and the surprise twists, that you will see a narrative resolution to the stories of these
08:15characters, even if it's not necessarily a happy one.
08:18Lien's version is a triumph of casting. John Mills as the spirited Pip. Alec Guinness as loyal friend, Herbert Pocket.
08:26Finlay Currie as Magwitch. Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham. And Valerie Hobson as that uncaring object of Pip's
08:35affections, the cruel Estella. And it is a triumph of imagery. Watching Great Expectations,
08:42it's as if the Dickensian world is being invented before our eyes. The breathtaking exteriors. The
08:48almost fairytale sets. That indelible sense of place and time and mystery. A supreme example of
08:56filmmaking craft, Great Expectations is a true wonder of British cinema.
09:05British cinema.
09:19Come along, boy.
09:23Take your hat off.
09:35Great Expectations finds two of our leading storytellers at the height of their powers, David Lean and Charles Dickens.
09:42The author's 13th novel is one of his greatest achievements. Adapted 28 times for stage and screen,
09:50with all its secrets and devious schemes, this is both Dickens' richest and arguably darkest work.
09:57It is Lean who added the possibly happy ending.
10:01Great Expectations is a very complex plot. And it involves relationships between the main characters,
10:08which are hidden until the very end. It's the story of young orphan Pip, who is brought up by
10:15kindly blacksmith, or Joe Gargery, who is married to Pip's sister, who is a bit of a harridan. And it's
10:23the
10:23search for his own identity and Pip's own aspirations to become a gentleman. These are the sort of secret
10:33aspirations he has, because he is in fact, you know, living under fairly common circumstances. And he
10:41finds himself being a kind of playmate to a young lady who is the ward of Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham
10:51is this
10:52strange woman who lives in a large old house full of cobwebs, who's been sitting there in her bridal gown
10:59for years since the day she was jilted at the altar. She has invited Pip to come in and basically
11:08just be a company and be a sort of companion. But first, he's completely terrified. But in the process of
11:15returning, he falls in love with the young ward, Estella. Estella treats him really like sort of
11:24dirt. She says, you're a common boy. She always calls her boy. And he makes him more aware of his
11:32poor
11:32background. And it's that that triggers his his quest for great expectations for some sort of
11:40social elevation, and possibly wealth.
11:44And they move around each other a little bit. He's still as in love with her as ever he was.
11:50But her job now, her mission is to entrap the hearts of all the young men of London. And they,
11:55she does so very successfully. She goes with Pip to a lot of parties where she breaks his heart,
11:59she breaks everyone's heart. It's quite interesting though, isn't it?
12:03Certainly in the film version, Estella always warns Pip. Yes.
12:07If she doesn't do to the other, she goes, don't love me because I will break your heart. Yes.
12:11Don't. You know what's going to happen. Almost as if she's sort of warning him off.
12:15Yeah. That's almost the very first thing she says to him when she sees him. He says, I remember
12:23kissing you. And she said, well, do not fall in love with me because this is what I'm supposed to
12:27do.
12:27I'm the assassin. Do not fall victim to me. But he can't help himself. He can't help himself.
12:33So she chooses a man to destroy and marry. And of course that breaks Pip. And this all happens
12:39around the same time. The escape, the Magritch escape and Estella marriage all happen at the
12:45same point. Surprisingly, Lean had not been an avid reader of Dickens. He was taken to see a stage
12:51adaptation of Great Expectations in 1939, starring Alec Guinness. It was as if he was struck by
12:57lightning. What a film this would make. He threw himself into the author's entire works. But it had
13:04to be Great Expectations. So in 1939, David Lean goes to see a stage adaptation of Great Expectations.
13:12And this particular version had been considerably sculpted and cut down from the novel,
13:17and he found it brilliant. It had been written and cut down by a young actor called Alec Guinness.
13:23And so there was the seed really for the 1946 film. It would take a little while to come to
13:29fruition.
13:29But Lean was persuaded that a Dickens adaptation for the screen could be his next project.
13:35What I find always surprising is that he wasn't really a Dickens fan beforehand. And I believe
13:42he went to a stage production that sort of completely changed his mind.
13:46Yes. I mean, when you say he wasn't really a Dickens fan, he didn't like reading. I mean,
13:49he didn't want to encounter anything that was on the written page. So he was invited to attend
13:54this play, this version of Great Expectations. He went very reluctantly. But he was absolutely swept
14:01up in this, this, it was not quite a one person play, but it was put together by Alec Guinness,
14:06who played Herbert Pocket in the play, and also does in the film.
14:09And it had Martita Hunt in it as well, who would go on to play Miss Havisham.
14:12And he was just caught up by this. He thought it was just amazing. And he waited around afterwards
14:18and decided, right, I'm going to make this. And so he hadn't really reached the stage yet,
14:23where he could quite say, this is what I'm going to do next, give me the money.
14:27And so it took a while for him to- This is 1939. Yes.
14:31Obviously seven years before he made the job. But he just knew that this was what he wanted
14:34to do. This was a project that he believed passionately in.
14:37Of course, there have been numerous Dickens adaptations.
14:41Lean thought George Cucor's David Copperfield decent enough. But Ealing's Nicholas Nickleby
14:46suffered too common a problem when it came to Dickens, trying to cram it all in. Lean simply listed
14:53all the episodes he hungered to shoot and found a way to connect them. Passing over great swathes of
14:59the novel, less is more. You have to savour Dickens, he said, filling his chosen scenes with the
15:07majestic possibilities of cinema.
15:09So Dickens adaptations have existed since the beginning of cinema, really. And one of the pioneers
15:15of moviemaking itself, D.W. Griffiths in Hollywood, had done a Dickens adaptation in the 1910s and claimed that
15:23Dickens' style of storytelling, which jumped between various threads and through time,
15:28inspired the invention of cross-cutting.
15:31His works gave filmmakers a kind of blueprint for a film because of the characters and because of
15:39the nature of them, and because he was a natural storyteller. You didn't have to invent a story to
15:44actually, you know, get that onto the screen.
15:47So it was very important for Lean, when adapting this novel to a screenplay with his co-screenwriter
15:54Ronald Neame, that they focus on some of the key moments that would be visual. And Lean knew from
16:01the start that, for instance, Pip meeting with Magwitch or Miss Havisham's fate were these very big
16:07dramatic scenes that he could get a lot of visual excitement out of, that he could place the camera
16:12in interesting places.
16:13By the time Lean had got around to thinking about Great Expectations, of course there had been a war.
16:22He'd seen the play in 1939, thought about it as a possible film, and then by the time 1945 arrived,
16:32he and his fellow filmmakers, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock Allen, who had formed this company,
16:40Cinegold, wanted to do something different. They wanted to do a new film that was not connected or in
16:51any way associated with the war years. And they thought, well, perhaps we should go back to the Victorian era.
16:58Perhaps we should do something that a little bit historic, but within a kind of memory. And
17:05Lean obviously thought straight away Great Expectations.
17:08Studio head J. Arthur Rank needed little convincing. When producer Ronald Neame pitched it to him,
17:14he replied, go away and make it. Rank rightly saw a chance to crack the American market.
17:21Lean gave a creative freedom he had never experienced. Here was the chance to define his career,
17:27away from his early partnership with Noel Coward. But let's talk a little bit about David Lean first of all.
17:33It's 1946. How big a director was he at that stage?
17:39Well, at that point, David Lean is a big director, but not as big as he's going to be. He
17:45stands on the threshold
17:47of greatness. He's had some of the films that are legendary. He's made Brief Encounter. He's made
17:54Blithe Spirit. He's made In Which We Serve. He's building up this great reputation. He's beginning to become
18:00noticed in America. And his skill is evident. It's this film that shoots him into a stellar level of
18:09direction. This is the film that makes him into or allows him to reveal his David Lean-ness, if you
18:16like. This is the film that paves the way for Lawrence of Arabia. It's when he's given the chance to
18:23work
18:23with big locations, outdoor scenes and use landscape to tell people's stories as well as just interiors.
18:29So this is a critical moment in his career. But he's already, you know, people will still go to his
18:34films in droves. So Lean also saw an opportunity with great expectations to move away from the
18:40influence of playwright and very powerful figure Noel Coward, who had been famous before Lean was
18:46ever famous or known, and who was heavily involved in basically the entirety of Lean's career up to
18:52that point, even with Brief Encounter, because it was based on one of Coward's plays. So he wanted to
18:57move away from that collaboration and be given a little bit more freedom to explore the themes
19:02and visual style, et cetera, that he wanted to pursue. Lean had such a strong sense of the visual
19:09and the aesthetic. And he believed that no matter what the source material was or what kind of literary
19:14adaptation that he was taking on, that it shouldn't be stodgy or stage bound, that in fact, it should
19:20have its own vernacular. And he kind of had his own experience as well in this because he'd been a
19:26film
19:26editor for so long in his youth. And he'd edited up to 25 films, including some classics like The 49th
19:33Parallel by Michael Powell. So he had a very firm sense of visual storytelling and how to sculpt a
19:39narrative and shift between scenes effectively.
19:42For my mind, Lean did something extraordinary in that he solved the problem of Dickens,
19:47this kind of maximal fiction. He figured out how to do it, didn't he?
19:50Yes. And firstly, he commissioned a script from a Dickens expert who tried to essentially condense
19:57the whole of Great Expectations into a screenplay, which Lean said he found it embarrassing to read.
20:03It was just, you couldn't do it. It was not possible. So he, as he had previously done on a
20:08couple of
20:08films, went off to an inn in Cornwall with his script writer, Ronald Neen, and they bashed it around.
20:16And what they did in the end is they went through the story. They read the book, read the book,
20:20read
20:20the script, thought about it. And then he almost closed his eyes and thought, what is it that I
20:26remember that I think makes great scenes from this book? And he wrote the key scenes down,
20:32just scribble down. These are the scenes that we, I can see how we would shoot these scenes.
20:37What I love is that he almost confesses his trick. At the beginning, the very opening shot,
20:41in the voiceover from John Mills is, my name is Pip. And you see the lines on the page,
20:46then the wind picks up the book and he breezes along all the pages. And that's what Lean is telling
20:51us. He's going, you're not going to get it all. I hadn't thought of that. That's really, yeah,
20:55that's very good. Yes. He, that's really good. I love that. He's, he's, yeah, exposing his art
21:01straight away. Pip's central journey encompasses both a pivotal cantestory childhood and a London
21:08coming of age. As the young yokel Pip, Anthony Wager has wide-eyed innocence. This slight figure
21:15silhouetted against the vast guy, that lean speciality. John Mills' mature Pip still has
21:22growing to do. From spendthrift dandy to the realisation that his story has been shaped by
21:29the past in both good and bad ways. After you, miss. Don't be silly. I'm not going in.
21:46Come in.
21:57Who is it? Pip, ma'am. Pip? Mr. Pommelchook's boy. Come to play. Come nearer. Let me look at you.
22:15The first vision of Estella had to be unforgettable. This beautiful young girl
22:21brought up to be loved, but not to love. The extraordinary 17-year-old Jean Simmons
22:27seems so much older than Wage's bewildered Pip, who she scorns as boy. As her older counterpart,
22:35Valerie Hobson recalled none happy shoot. But lean wanted her unhappiness and just a flicker
22:41of resentment at her fate. There was just a hint, a crack in the veneer, revealing the heart beneath.
22:49So Jean Simmons came from J. Arthur Rank's sort of school of starlets and was very well trained
22:54and groomed to be a star. But she also had a whole other career during the war where she'd
22:59been a singer and she'd recited poetry. So she had quite an interesting background for such a young
23:04woman. And what she brings to the role of sort of Ice Queen Estella is this sense of almost wisdom
23:13beyond her years or an awareness beyond her years because she has to live with Miss Havisham,
23:17this adoptive mother figure who's so morbid and oppressive. And so Simmons brings something kind
23:25of haunted to the role in spite of her aloofness.
23:28The entire film really is driven by Estella and she's just an extraordinary character. But more
23:35than that, in the way Deline casts it, both Jean Simmons is the incredible younger version and then
23:41Valerie Hobson, he really brings and they really bring the whole concept of Estella to life.
23:48I mean, I do slightly pity Valerie Hobson in that she has to pick up from where Jean Simmons left
23:54off,
23:55because Jean Simmons is astonishing as the young Estella. She is, this is an incredible actress at
24:03the beginning of her career. And this is the role that makes her career. You know, she's, she's played
24:08this, you know, the rank school of charm. She's about to enter that world. And, but this is an absolute
24:15scorcher. And she, in a way, interprets and delivers Estella in a critical way, you know, slightly more
24:23convincingly. I mean, poor old Valerie Hobson is not given as much material for Estella as Jean
24:30Simmons is. So she's set up perfectly by this young actress who was 17 years old at the time,
24:37and is able to pull together all of these, this taunting arrogance, this then suddenly changing
24:43her mind and allowing Pip to kiss her. This child who's on the verge of becoming the cold,
24:49dead woman she's supposed to be. The young versions of Pip and Estella, Pip played by Anthony Wager,
24:56and Estella played by Jean Simmons, are absolutely perfect. They, they seem to occupy their own
25:04reality. Wager has all the right qualities of being a sort of a young boy, young rural boy. He's,
25:10you know, he's, he's, he's, he's got sort of common elements to him, but he's a big heart. He's got
25:17a
25:17sort of suitability to be terrified. And yet there's a sort of spirit within him that makes him do what
25:23he's supposed to do. I love his performance. Of course, once you see Gina Simmons, then she comes on
25:30as the, frankly, young diva, Estella, who is the real snob. Not only do you see that she is
25:39beautiful, she is insulting. She is really a sort of adjunct to Miss Habersham, who is using her as a
25:50cat's paw. For Dickens' flamboyant characters, Lee knew you must cast outsized characters to play them.
25:56Bernard Miles as kindly uneducated blacksmith Joe, for instance. Or a boyish Alec Guinness as the dotty
26:04but faithful Herbert Pocket. Demobbed that very morning. He was still in uniform when he did the
26:10screen test. Voluminous in every way, Francis L. Sullivan is perfect as Mr. Jaggers, the lawyer who
26:18speaks only in baffling legalese. And what's so crucial, once you understand that, is that casting is,
26:26is vital when it comes to Dickens. I think Lean really grasps this, that if you cast correctly,
26:31almost half your work is done, because they embody the kind of the greatness of these characters.
26:37But in the case of the two leads, there's the added issue of you have a young version and an
26:42older
26:42version. So with Pip, we have Anthony Wager as the boy, and we have John Mills, of course,
26:48as the young man.
26:50Well, I mean, it's beautiful casting. And in one way, quite unusual casting. I mean, Anthony
26:59Wager is a working class boy, son of a plumber, and therefore inhabits the idea of this kid from
27:04a smithy perfectly. Then, as an adult, John Mills brings a quality to Pip which is interesting in that
27:11some people say he's too old for the role. But I think what John Mills brings is, if you like,
27:18the pain of being Pip. He brings a certain haunted look to Pip, which I think is entirely appropriate
27:25for the experiences of Pip's life. Pip has had his parents die, he's had his sister die, he's had to
27:31live with his sister's husband, who's a blacksmith, and he's had to work in a forge for years. He's had
27:37his heart broken, and he comes to London suddenly with money. And this is a person who's been
27:44buffeted by fate, back and forth, back and forth. And there's something about John Mills which conveys
27:51that. He looks sometimes half lost at the experience of life. And he is technically,
27:58measurably, a little older than the character. But I don't think that matters, because that's
28:01the lived experience of Pip in his face.
28:04And there's always that sense, isn't there, that he's another one of those characters
28:07embodies Dickens' own experiences, that he was a child, you know, he was thrown out onto his own
28:12devices and had to figure life out, and was buffeted by fortune, that I think Pip is another
28:19version of the author.
28:20Yes, and then sort of arrives at money, as Dickens did, and then loses all the money,
28:24as Dickens did. I mean, he really is very much, Dickens as, you know, he's very much the character
28:30who represents a real version of Dickens in a book.
28:32Full justice is done to two of Dickens' most formidable eccentrics. Vinnie Currie as Magwitch,
28:38the escaped convict hiding in the graveyard, manages to be both deeply sinister and yet sympathetic.
28:47Lean recalled leaving Martita Hunt to her own devices as cunning, heartbroken Miss Havisham,
28:53a mystery to both director and the audience. Both are Dickensian ghosts in a sense,
28:59haunting the expectations of Pip and Estella.
29:03The wonderful opening scene of Great Expectations, arguably one of the best openings of any film,
29:11sees a young Pip visiting his parents' grave on Christmas Eve. It's a windy, wintry day.
29:33It is a masterclass in editing, in tension, in shock. And that unusual cut must have given audiences
29:41such a huge start back in 1946, and it's still startling now.
29:45Martita Hunt, of course, when you think of Miss Havisham, even amongst all the subsequent versions,
29:51the first person that comes to mind is Miss Havisham in her rotting bridal gown,
29:57and that wonderfully sort of slightly drawn-out voice, which is a sort of,
30:03sort of like a kind of slightly madder, more eccentric Edith Evans, you know,
30:07says, come here, boy. She sends shivers down your spine, and quite rightly,
30:14which is what she's supposed to do. So she's one of the great eccentrics as well.
30:19I think Lean said that he knew very little about what she was going to do. He just left her
30:24to it.
30:24Yeah. In a sense,
30:25he discovered Miss Havisham with everybody else.
30:28Well, because, I mean, she played Miss Havisham on stage night after night after night. She knew
30:32that character better than the director did. I mean, again, she was someone who thought that
30:36David Lean didn't direct her enough, but I think that one of the skills David Lean had was saying,
30:42well, she's got the, she got it. That's great. We don't need her to do anything other than what
30:46she's doing. I have no notes, you know, so keep going.
30:50Lean had the film in his head from the moment he read the book. Escaping the poised contemporary lives
30:56of his previous films. He saw something both highly stylized and savagely real. Expansive
31:03estuary skylines filmed in Rochester are mixed with German expressionist sets built at Denim Studios.
31:09Wide angles give way to a deep focus inspired by Casablanca and Citizen Kane.
31:15So one of the most memorable scenes and visuals in Great Expectations is that of this sort of frozen,
31:22deserted wedding banquet where Miss Havisham has been left by her bridegroom and the thing which
31:28will have the knock-on effect on the rest of her life, the reason that she is the way she
31:31is,
31:32and the reason that she kind of is vengeful and vindictive towards all men as a result.
31:38It's interesting that Dickens, whilst writing the novel, was going through sort of separating from
31:44a 23-year marriage and Lean had had his own marital strife as well. So there's something
31:51interesting in the depiction of this character and I guess really ultimately the comeuppance that
31:56she gets in the film. Now we should mention Alec Guinness because he was in the play that had
32:02stirred David Lean and he becomes the wonderful Herbert Pocket, the kind of dotty best friend,
32:08a very loyal friend. I mean, he'd just been demobbed, hadn't he, on the day he was cast?
32:12Yeah, he'd just been demobbed and he also really had no intention of becoming a cinema actor. He'd
32:18worked in one film and found it a very unpleasant experience. It'd been quite a small part but he
32:23really didn't like it. He really just wanted to work in theatre. So he took the role and he,
32:30at the beginning, he really struggled with what cinema, with what film acting involved. And again,
32:36that was another trick that David Lean played that produced a performance. So there had to be a close-up
32:42on Alec Guinness when he was laughing. And that's a critical part of Herbert Pocket is that he's so
32:47cheerful and happy. Almost comic relief. Yeah, he is. He's really, he enjoys, he loves,
32:52this is absolutely wonderful to me. Oh Pip, this is a wonderful thing. This is all,
32:55what an adventure we're going on. You know, he's really, really genuinely pleased at life.
33:00And Alec Guinness found it very hard to laugh, naturally, when the camera was pointing at him.
33:04As you can imagine, what, yeah, go on, laugh now. So what David Lean did was he sat,
33:09said, switch the camera off, switch the camera off. And he sat and chatted to Alec Guinness and Alec
33:15Guinness laughed in close-up. And then David Lean said, right, got it, walked off. And Alec Guinness
33:21realised that he'd been tricked and this was a scene where Herbert Pocket laughs. And it worked incredibly
33:26well. But he pulled the performance out of Guinness. He taught him how to become a film actor
33:32whilst making the film. And as we can see from the career that Alec Guinness then developed,
33:37it was a phenomenal education. And he always had a special relationship with Lean, didn't he? Yes.
33:43The film is intensely cinematic, a masterpiece of craft. John Bryan's low ceiling sets utilised
33:50forced perspective to the point where they could only be shot from one angle. But what an angle.
33:55And what detail. From the framed noose on Jagger's office wall to the twitch of candlelight as Estella
34:03leads Pip to meet Miss Havisham. They use smoke canisters from World War II to create the fog on
34:10the marshes. This is a vision as opulent as Crookshank's illustrations in the books.
34:16So Lean shot on location in Rochester and Kent, which was actually some of Dickens' real stomping
34:22grounds back in the 19th century. And he was really clever in his combination of using pretty extravagant
34:29sets for some elements, some of the historical things, and then also bringing in real locations
34:34like the Kentish marshes, which are so eerie and bring so much atmosphere to the beginning of the film,
34:39for instance. Design, camera work and editing amplify theme and character. Who can forget
34:46the jump cut from Pip colliding with Magwitch to the close-up of the terrified boy? The screen
34:53beginning four frames before his face appears. Or the setting of Miss Havisham's desiccated tomb
35:00for wedding day, frozen in time to the very minute of the betrayal, in which she sits enacting her
35:07vengeance on all men.
35:11When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, I suppose I really did come here as
35:16any other chance boy might have come, as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim and
35:20to be paid
35:21for it. Aye Pip, you did. And that Mr Jaggers was... Mr Jaggers had nothing to do with it.
35:27His being my lawyer and the lawyer of your patron was a coincidence. He holds the same relation towards
35:33numbers of people. But when I fell into the mistake that I've so long remained in, at least
35:37you led me on. Yes. I let you go on. Was that kind? Who am I? For heaven's sake that
35:46I should be kind.
36:25It is a tale of so many themes, class, ambition, money, friendship and love with all its attendant
36:33cruelties. It is an indictment of parenthood and how we are shaped by our upbringing. Both Pip and
36:40Acela effectively have their lives authored by the manipulations of the vampiric Miss Havisham
36:46and ghastly misunderstood Magwitch. Can they ever escape the chains of their own stories?
36:52And of course, when Pip has grown up and Magwitch returns out of nowhere really,
36:58he's a very different character to the one we saw before. Yes. I mean, one thing critically is that
37:05he's diminished both figuratively and literally by David Lean, by the way he's shot. So he's way...
37:13Before he was shot with a wide lens, quite low down. He's now shot with a very sort of...
37:19He's made to appear smaller by the use of lenses, by the use of angles. And Pip is made to
37:24appear to
37:25match his height. So suddenly, this terrifying figure becomes this much smaller man. And so he's
37:31much less terrifying. He becomes much more pathetic. But by that, I don't mean
37:36pathetic in a scornful way. I mean, he has pathos. And he's a sadder character. He's desperate to see
37:43the boy whose life he's changed and to see if he's done something good with his money.
37:48Yeah, absolutely. But by doing so, by taking that one glimpse, he destroys both of them.
37:56I mean, he destroys himself. And he also then removes the money that Pip has and
38:02completely destroys his expectations. So this one thing, I must see what good I've done,
38:07then ends up wrecking everything.
38:28What do you want?
38:30Mr. Pip.
38:32So the famous Dickens illustrator Cookshank was known for using these quite moody, really,
38:38images in India ink of the various characters and stories that he illustrated for Dickens.
38:43In fact, he didn't actually illustrate Great Expectations originally, but he was kind of the
38:48illustrator associated to that writer. And so Lean and his sort of crew were interested in aping that
38:56look. And that kind of lends itself to the noir thing as well, because these are quite
39:00shadowy images. And you get that a lot from the characters of Magwitch, Miss Havisham,
39:06these seedy, or shady at least, sinister figures that are in Pip's life.
39:12So David Lean was very influenced by a very moody period of silent German films from the 1920s
39:20called German Expressionism, films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And these films were known for
39:26very low angle lighting, which cast dramatic theatrical, sometimes jagged shadows across the
39:32sets, elements of the Gothic, a sort of darkness psychologically. And all of that was a huge
39:40influence in the post-war cinematic landscape, particularly with the rise of film noir.
39:45And so Lean is also responding to these things and responding to his period of time in right at the
39:52height of film noir. He too is looking at the German Expressionists. And how remarkable that rather
39:57than it being in some little crime film, as with most of those sort of things that were aping that
40:02style, this was a Victorian period drama of Dickens. And he takes that style and transposes it onto this
40:08unlikely material. Released in 1946, mid-post-war austerity, audiences lapped up the chance to escape
40:16into such all-encompassing storytelling. It earned millions in America, where it won Oscars for its
40:23sets and art direction. David Lean was nominated for Best Director, but the performances went cruelly
40:30snugged. It is now held up as an emblem of all that film can achieve. Great Expectations was an enormous
40:38success when it came out. It was a success with audiences and the critics, many of whom said, you
40:45know, claimed it to be one of the best British films ever made. It did very, very well. It actually,
40:50you know, it brought honour and glory to everyone concerned, Lean especially, of course, who was then,
40:58you know, suddenly regarded not just as a great British filmmaker, but as a man of international
41:04standing as a director. Lean's reputation was built on his epics, but this is the purest expression
41:12of his talent. It still has that epic feel, but combined with Dickens' intensity and vigour, the director
41:19is marvellously contained by the author. If a fan told him that they thought Lawrence of Arabia
41:26was his finest film, he would simply say, thank you. If they said Great Expectations,
41:32he would say, quite right.
41:34So Dickens wrote two different versions of the end of Great Expectations and apparently was himself
41:40unsure about it. He originally wrote a version where many years later Pip and Estella have a chance
41:46encounter, but it was a little bit too ambiguous for the publishers and they insisted he write something
41:52a little bit more resolute. And so he has them actually meet again at the old house of Miss Havisham,
41:59and there's still a coldness between them. These two are probably not headed in the same direction
42:07in life. It's definitely still quite a downbeat ending, I would say, but there is some finality to it.
42:13David Lean's ending is different again. It sees Pip and Estella reunite and meet up at Miss Havisham's
42:21house, but it's a far more sort of, you know, it seems to be leaning into a certain kind of
42:29friendship
42:29that rises up between them, a certain kind of putting the past behind them, finally.
42:34I think one of the most extraordinary things about Great Expectations is it is almost set how we
42:39imagine the world of Dickens to be. If we read the books, we think of an imagery that Lean gave
42:43us.
42:44Yes, he frames Victorian London, he frames the sort of the gothic element of Dickens in a way that
42:52defines him, really. You know, in a sense Dickensian now partly means
42:57Lenensian, I suppose, as we agree. They become linked in the way they depict each other.
43:01David Lean was really the first director to actually make Dickens live on the screen. Live
43:07to the point, not just when you're watching it, but to actually live in the memory. Years and years
43:14and years after you've seen these films, because he understood the impact that you could have if you
43:22created the right kind of vision of it. It's stylized, but not to the point of inhumanity. He's kept the
43:31flesh and blood of the characters. He's been faithful to Dickens in terms of the narrative and also the
43:37moral complexity of it. And yet he sort of managed to edit them down into the sort of, you know,
43:45two-hour movies. You know, these huge books. And so that's what I think gives them their impact.
43:52It's impossible to think of Dickens and specifically of Great Expectations as a story without thinking of
43:59Miss Havisham's wedding banquet, or without thinking of the character of Magwitch looking
44:05like Finlay Curry. To me, the two are completely inextricable. And I often wonder why any filmmaker
44:11would try to remake this adaptation or try to do it because Lean did it the best, I think.
44:18Is this the best ever Dickens adaptation? I would, I can't think of a better. I genuinely
44:23can't think of a better because it's, because of the harmony between the writer and the director.
44:29I think, you know, we will never know what Dickens thinks of this film, but it feels to me like
44:35it's
44:36got the spirit there in a way which is very, very hard to capture because Dickens is a joyous,
44:47comedic writer. He's, he's funny and alive and vibrant and people get defeated by Dickens and
44:53they churn out stuff. It's Lean who understands him and who brings him to the screen. It's a moving
45:00work of art and makes him live. Then they, it's almost like living together. They, they really are.
45:06They are, this is, this is Lean and Dickens as Lennon and McCartney. This is absolute harmony.
45:11For all the wonderful television and film adaptations of Dickens novels that have followed,
45:16including Lean's version of Oliver Twist, none can match the startling effect of Great Expectations.
45:23The dreamlike power of the film has shaped the way we imagine the author's world. In every sense,
45:30this is the definitive adaptation of Dickens.
45:39This is a poem.
45:39So
Comments