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Classic Movies The Story Of S05E01
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00:11My father's family name being Philip and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could
00:19make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself Pip
00:26and came to be called Pip.
00:39There has never been a more perfect marriage of director and material than David Lean's 1946
00:45adaptation of Great Expectations. Indeed he was often called a visual novelist. Published in 1861
00:53Charles Dickens' novel tells the story of Pip whose humble expectations are transformed by his
01:00encounter with escaped convict Magwitch and the bitter jilted Miss Havisham.
01:06Would you agree that Great Expectations is the perfect marriage of director and source material?
01:12I think so and I think it's critical that it comes at this point in David Lean's career. Both
01:18Dickens and David Lean are exploring I guess aspects of the British story. I mean they throughout their
01:25careers both have looked at class, they've looked at money and they've looked at the interior of the
01:31human experience. So it's what do people think, feel and what are the blockages that are both social
01:37and internal? And Dickens is able to do that as a novelist through the interior monologue. What Lean is
01:44doing increasingly across the course of his career but at this point with Great Expectations probably
01:50for the first time really fusing it is he's able to tell the interior monologue of a character through
01:58the way he shoots them with visuals, with representations, with symbols and with leitmotifs to
02:04where he finally hits that point where he's discovering and uncovering character.
02:26Keep still you little devil or I'll cut your throat!
02:29No sir, no. Tell us your name. Quick. Pip. Pip, sir.
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, Lean brings something
03:12truly special to this adaptation and a lot of it is around the fact that Lean was a visual storyteller
03:19and he brings such atmosphere and such thoughtfulness to the historical accuracy that it brings Dickens to
03:27life I think for an entirely new generation. David Lean's film version of Dickens' Great Expectations
03:35that he made in 1946 is a very good example of two perfect storytellers collaborating. Lean hadn't read
03:45any Dickens before he was introduced to Great Expectations by a stage adaptation and when he saw that he
03:54realized that there was something about him that he fully engaged with. Being a storyteller himself,
04:01albeit a visual one, a cinematic one, I 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? It's I think one of the things about Great Expectations is
04:21the story is
04:23beautifully timeless. It's about well so many things but you could boil it down as David Lean did to
04:32two big themes. There's sort of futility of it and eternity of love. You make the incorrect decision in love
04:40and you can't pull out of it and that's one doom. And the other futility is trying to change your
04:45class
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 are
05:10the strongest parts of the story. Although many people love Dickens' Tale of Two Cities which preceded
05:16Great Expectations or they might love A Christmas Carol, the thing that's really special about Great
05:21Expectations is it combines and influences so many other genres of novel to come. It's a morality tale,
05:29it's a story of a man's coming of age from boy to man. It's a story of rags to riches
05:36to 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 the reason for
05:51its 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 and the aspirations thereof. There is a thriller element to it and there is
06:22also a comic element too. It's a book that's designed to be read aloud. So Dickens would do
06:28readings of his work for money. I mean, he was almost totally broke, it was an important income
06:32source for him. But other people would do this later in pubs and bars because literacy was not
06:37universal. And when you look at the book from that perspective, it is this almost comedic role of
06:46jokes, of comments, of side swipes. It is almost like a stand-up routine when spoken. And when put
06:54on the page, it has a lightness to it. When it explores these very dark and very complex themes,
06:59it does so with such a joyous lightness of touch. Great Expectations, like most of Dickens' work,
07:04was also released and published as a serial piece of work, which means that it has this episodic
07:10quality throughout its main character, Pip's life. That means that it kind of lends itself to many
07:15subplots, to various ensemble characters who have complex relationships with our protagonist.
07:23And often that lends itself to melodrama as well. And the Victorians loved and lapped up melodrama.
07:29They loved the story of a child missing and reunited with a mother. They loved the story
07:34of someone who discovers that their secret benefactor was really an escaped convict that they knew all
07:39along. Dickens had an interest in childhood and particularly in orphans. And he showed that
07:44previously with David Copperfield. And with this story, he does have imperiled children and children
07:52who form quite meaningful relationships early in life, like Pip and Estella. And then you watch as
07:57those relationships develop over a number of years, really up until their old age. But you always know that
08:03in spite of the twists and turns and sort of theatrical things within these stories and the surprise twists,
08:10that you will see a narrative resolution to the stories of these characters, even if it's not necessarily a happy
08:18one.
08:18Lien's version is a triumph of casting. John Mills as the spirited Pip. Alec Guinness as loyal friend,
08:25Herbert Pocket. Finlay Curry as Magwitch. Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham. And Valerie Hobson as that uncaring
08:34object of Pip's affections, the cruel Estella. And it is a triumph of imagery. Watching great expectations,
08:42it is as if the Dickensian world is being invented before our eyes. The breathtaking exteriors, the almost
08:49fairy tale sets, that indelible sense of place and time and mystery. The supreme example of filmmaking craft,
08:58great expectations is a true wonder of British cinema.
09:34Great 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.
09:58It is Lean who added the possibly happy ending. Great Expectations is a very complex plot,
10:04and it involves relationships between the main characters which are hidden until the very end.
10:10It's a story of young orphan Pip, who is brought up by a kindly blacksmith, or Joe Gargery,
10:18who is married to Pip's sister, who is a bit of a harridan. And it's the search for
10:25his 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
10:51this strange woman who lives in a large old house full of cobwebs, who has been sitting there in her
10:58bridal gown for years since the day she was jilted at the altar. She has invited Pip to come in
11:07and
11:07basically just be a company and be a sort of companion. But first, he's completely terrified.
11:13But in the process of returning, he falls in love with the young ward, Estella. Estella treats him
11:22really like sort of dirt. She says, you are a common boy. She always calls him boy. And it makes
11:30him more aware of his poor background. And it's that that triggers his quest for great expectations,
11:38for some sort of social elevation, and possibly wealth. And they move around each other a little
11:46bit. He's still as in love with her as ever he was. But her job now, her mission is to
11:52entrap the hearts
11:53of all the young men of London. And they, she does so very successfully. She goes with Pip to a
11:58lot
11:58of parties where she breaks his heart, she breaks everyone's heart. It's quite interesting though, isn't
12:02it? Certainly in the film version, Estella always warns Pip. Yes. If she doesn't do to the others, she goes,
12:08don't love me, because I will break your heart. Yes. Don't, you know what's going to happen. Almost as
12:13she's sort of warning him off. Yeah. That's almost the very first thing she says to him. When she
12:20sees him, he says, I remember kissing you. And she says, well, do not fall in love with me. Because
12:26this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm the assassin. Do not fall victim to me. But he can't help
12:31himself.
12:31He can't help himself. So she chooses a man to destroy and marry. And of course, that breaks Pip.
12:38And this all happens around the same time. The escape, the Magwitch escape and the Estella
12:44marriage all happen at the same point. Surprisingly, Lean had not been an avid reader of Dickens.
12:49He was taken to see a stage adaptation of Great Expectations in 1939, starring Alec Guinness. It was
12:56as if he was struck by lightning. What a film this would make. He threw himself into the author's entire
13:03works. But it had to be Great Expectations. So in 1939, David Lean goes to see a stage adaptation
13:10of Great Expectations. And this particular version had been considerably sculpted and cut down from
13:16the novel. And he found it brilliant. It had been written and cut down by a young actor called Alec
13:22Guinness. And so there was the seed really for the 1946 film. It would take a little while to come
13:29to
13:29fruition. But 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 he
13:42went 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 this
13:54play, this version of Great Expectations. He went very reluctantly. But he was absolutely swept up
14:01in 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 had gone 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...
14:29This is 1939, isn't it?
14:31Obviously seven years before he met the novel.
14:32But he just knew that this was what he wanted to do. This was a project that he believed passionately
14:37in.
14:37Of course, there have been numerous Dickens adaptations.
14:41Lean thought George Cucor's David Copperfield decent enough.
14:44But Ealing's Nicholas Nickleby suffered too common a problem when it came to Dickens.
14:49Trying to cram it all in. Lean simply listed all the episodes he hungered to shoot
14:55and found a way to connect them. Passing over great swathes of the novel, less is more.
15:02You have to savour Dickens, he said, filling his chosen scenes with the majestic possibilities of cinema.
15:09So Dickens adaptations have existed since the beginning of cinema, really.
15:13And one of the pioneers of movie making itself, D.W. Griffiths in Hollywood,
15:18had done a Dickens adaptation in the 1910s and claimed that Dickens' style of storytelling,
15:25which jumped between various threads and through time, inspired the invention of cross-cutting.
15:31His works gave filmmakers a kind of blueprint for a film because of the characters and because of the nature
15:40of them.
15:40And because he was a natural storyteller, you didn't have to invent a story to actually,
15:45you know, get that onto the screen.
15:48So 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.
16:00And Lean knew from the start that, for instance,
16:03Pit meeting with Magwitch or Miss Havisham's fate were these very big dramatic scenes that he could
16:09get a lot of visual excitement out of, that he could place the camera in interesting places.
16:13By the time Lean had got round 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.
16:28And then by the time 1945 arrived, he and his fellow filmmakers, Ronald Neame,
16:36Anthony Havelock Allen, who had formed this company, Cine Guild, wanted to do something different.
16:45They wanted to take a new, do a new film that was not connected or in any way associated with
16:52the war years.
16:54And they thought, well, perhaps we should go back to the Victorian era.
16:58Perhaps we should do something that's a little bit historic, but within a kind of memory.
17:04And Lean obviously thought straight away, Great Expectations.
17:08Studio head J. Arthur Rank needed little convincing.
17:12When producer Ronald Neame pitched it to him, he replied,
17:15Go away and make it.
17:17Rank rightly saw a chance to crack the American market.
17:20Lean gave a creative freedom he had never experienced.
17:24Here was the chance to define his career away from his early partnership with Noel Coward.
17:30But 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.
17:45He stands on the threshold of greatness.
17:49He's had some of the films that are legendary.
17:53He's made Brief Encounter. He's made Blind Spirit.
17:55He's made In Which We Serve.
17:57He's building up this great reputation.
17:59He's beginning to become noticed in America and his skill is evident.
18:05It's this film that shoots him into a stellar level of direction.
18:09This is the film that makes him into or allows him to reveal his David Lean-ness, if you like.
18:17This is the film that paves the way for Lawrence of Arabia.
18:21When he's given the chance to work with big locations, outdoor scenes and use landscape to
18:27tell people's stories as well as just interiors.
18:29So this is a critical moment in his career, but people will still go to his films in droves.
18:36So Lean also saw an opportunity with great expectations to move away from the influence of
18:41playwright and very powerful figure, Noel Coward, who had been famous before Lean was ever famous or
18:47known and who was heavily involved in basically the entirety of Lean's career up to that point,
18:52even with Brief Encounter because it was based on one of Coward's plays.
18:56So he wanted to move away from that collaboration and be given a little bit more freedom to explore
19:01the themes and visual style, et cetera, that he wanted to pursue.
19:06Lean had such a strong sense of the visual and the aesthetic and he believed that no matter
19:11what the source material was or what kind of literary adaptation that he was taking on,
19:15that it shouldn't be stodgy or stage bound, that in fact it should have its own vernacular.
19:21And he kind of had his own experience as well in this because he'd been a film editor for so
19:27long
19:27in his youth and he'd edited up to 25 films, including some classics like The 49th Parallel by Michael Powell.
19:35So he had a very firm sense of visual storytelling and how to sculpt a narrative and shift between scenes
19:41effectively.
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?
19:51Yes. 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 scriptwriter, Ronald Neame, and they bashed it
20:16around. And what they did in the end is they went through the story, they read the book, read the
20:20book,
20:20read the 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 Pitt. And you see the lines on the page,
20:46then the wind picks up the book and breezes along all the pages. And that's what Lean is telling us.
20:51He's going, you're not going to get it all.
20:52I hadn't thought of that. That's really, yeah, that's very good. Yes, that's really good. I love
20:58that. He's, yeah, exposing his art straight away. Pip's central journey encompasses both a pivotal
21:05Kent Estuary childhood and a London coming of age. As the young yokel Pip, Anthony Wager has a wide-eyed
21:13innocence, this slight figure silhouetted against the vast guy, that lean speciality. John Mills' mature Pip
21:22still has growing to do. From spendthrift dandy to the realisation that his story has been shaped
21:29by the 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. Pommelchuk'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 brought up to be loved,
22:23but not to love. The extraordinary 17-year-old Jean Simmons seems so much older than Wage's
22:30bewildered Pip, who she scorns as boy. As her older counterpart, Valerie Hobson, recalled none
22:37happy shoot. But lean wanted her unhappiness and just a flicker of resentment at her fate.
22:44There 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 and
22:54groomed to be a star. But she also had a whole other career during the war where she'd been a
23:00singer and she'd recited poetry. So she had quite an interesting background for such a young woman.
23:05And what she brings to the role of sort of Ice Queen Estella is this sense of almost wisdom beyond
23:13her years or an awareness beyond her years because she has to live with Miss Havisham, this adoptive
23:18mother figure who's so morbid and and oppressive. And so Simmons brings something kind of haunted to
23:26the role in spite of her aloofness.
23:28The entire film really is driven by Estella and she's just an extraordinary character.
23:34But more than that, in the way Deline casts it, both Jean Simmons is the incredible younger version
23:41and then Valerie 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
23:55off because Jean Simmons is astonishing as the young Estella. She is, this is an incredible actress
24:03at the beginning of her career and this is the role that makes her career. You know, she's she's
24:08played this, you know, the rank school of charm. She's about to enter that world and but this is a
24:13absolute scorcher. And she, in a way, interprets and delivers Estella in a critical way. You know,
24:22it's slightly more convincingly. I mean, poor old Valerie Hobson is not given as much material for
24:28Estella as Jean Simmons is. So she's set up perfectly by this young actress who was 17
24:35years old at the time and is able to pull together all of these, this taunting arrogance, this then
24:42suddenly changing her mind and allowing Pip to kiss her, this child who's on the verge of becoming the
24:49cold dead woman she's supposed to be. The young versions of Pip and Estella, Pip played by Anthony
24:55Wager and Estella played by Jean Simmons, are absolutely perfect. They seem to occupy their own
25:04reality. Wager has all the right qualities of being a sort of a young boy, a young rural boy. He's,
25:10you know, he's got sort of common elements to him but he's a big heart. He's got a sort of
25:17suitability to be terrified and yet there's a spirit within him that makes him do what he's supposed to do.
25:25I love his performance. Of course, once you see
25:28Jean Simmons, then she comes on as the, frankly, young diva, Estella, who is a real snob. Not only
25:37do you see that she is beautiful, she is insulting. She is really a sort of adjunct to Miss Habersham,
25:48who is using her as a cat's paw. For Dickens' flamboyant characters,
25:52Lee knew you must cast outsized characters to play them. Bernard Miles as kindly, uneducated
25:59blacksmith Joe, for instance. Or a boyish Alec Guinness as the dotty but faithful Herbert Pocket.
26:06D-mobbed that very morning. He was still in uniform when he did the screen test.
26:11Voluminous in every way, Francis L. Sullivan is perfect as Mr. Jaggers, the lawyer who speaks
26:18only in baffling legalese. And what's so crucial once you understand that is that casting is vital
26:26when it comes to Dickens. And I think Lean really grasps this, that if you cast correctly, almost
26:32half 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, as the
26:48young
26:49man. Well, 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 a
27:05smithy perfectly. Then as an adult, John Mills brings a quality to Pip, which is interesting in
27:11that some people say he's too old for the role. But I think what John Mills brings is, if you
27:17like,
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 buffeted
27:45by fate, back and forth, back and forth. And there's something about John Mills which conveys that. He's
27:51looks sometimes half lost at the experience of life. And he is technically, measurably a little older
27:59than the character. But I don't think that matters, because that's the lived experience of Pip in his
28:03face. And there's always that sense, isn't there, that he's another one of those characters that
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. He was buffeted by fortune. That I think Pip is another version of
28:19the author. Yes, and then sort of arrives at money, as Dickens did, and then loses all the money, as
28:24Dickens did.
28:24I mean, he really is very much the, Dickens as, you know, he's very much the character who
28:30represents a real version of Dickens in a book. Full justice is done to two of Dickens' most
28:35formidable eccentrics. Vinnie Currie as Magwitch, the escaped convict hiding in the graveyard,
28:41manages to be both deeply sinister and yet sympathetic. Lean recalled leaving Martita Hunt to her own devices
28:50as cunning, heartbroken Miss Havisham, a mystery to both director and the audience. Both are Dickensian
28:58ghosts in a sense, haunting the expectations of Pip and Estella. The wonderful opening scene of Great
29:06Expectations, arguably one of the best openings of any film, sees a young Pip visiting his parents'
29:14grave 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 such a
29:41huge start back in 1946 and is still startling now. Martita Hunt, of course, when you think of
29:47Miss Havisham, even amongst all the subsequent versions, the first person that comes to mind is
29:53Miss Havisham in her rotting bridal gown. And that wonderfully sort of slightly drawn out voice,
30:01Miss Havisham, which is a sort of like a kind of slightly madder, more eccentric Edith Evans,
30:07you know, says, 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 the sense he 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. And 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
30:55lives of 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.
31:16So 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
31:28which will have the knock-on effect on the rest of her life, the reason that she is the way
31:31she is,
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
31:45a 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.
31:59Now we should mention Alec Guinness because he was in the play that had stirred David Lean
32:03and he becomes the wonderful Herbert Pocket, the kind of dotty best friend, a very loyal friend.
32:09I 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 worked
32:19in one film and found it a very unpleasant experience. It had been quite a small part,
32:23but he really didn't like it. He really just wanted to work in theatre. So he took the role
32:29and he, at the beginning, he really struggled with what cinema, with what film acting involved.
32:35And again, that was another trick that David Lean played that produced a performance. So
32:41there had to be a close-up on Alec Guinness when he was laughing.
32:44And that's a critical part of Herbert Pocket is that he's so cheerful and happy.
32:49Almost comic relief.
32:49Yeah, he is. He's really, he enjoys, he laughs. This is absolutely wonderful to me.
32:54Oh, Pip, this is a wonderful thing. This is all, what an adventure we're going on. You know,
32:57he's really, really genuinely pleased at life. And Alec Guinness found it very hard to laugh,
33:03naturally, when the camera was pointing at him. As you can imagine, well, yeah, go on, laugh now.
33:07So what David Lean did was he sat, said, switch the camera off. Don't switch the camera off.
33:13And he sat and chatted to Alec Guinness and Alec Guinness laughed in close-up.
33:17And then David Lean said, right, got it. Walked off. And Alec Guinness realised that
33:21he'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
33:31actor whilst making the film. And as we can see from the career that Alec Guinness then developed,
33:37it was a phenomenal education.
33:39And he always had a special relationship with Lean, didn't he?
33:41Yes.
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.
33:54But what an angle. And what detail. From the framed noose on Jagger's office wall,
34:01drew the twitch of candlelight as Estella leads Pip to meet Miss Havisham.
34:06They used smoke canisters from World War II to create the fog on the marshes.
34:11This is a vision as opulent as Cruikshank'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
34:28extravagant sets for some elements, some of the historical things, and then also bringing in real
34:34locations like the Kentish marshes, which are so eerie and bring so much atmosphere to the beginning of
34:39the film, for instance.
34:41Design, camera work and editing amplify theme and character.
34:45Who can forget the jump cut from Pip colliding with Magwitch to the close-up of the terrified boy?
34:52The scream beginning four frames before his face appears.
34:56Or the setting of Miss Havisham's desiccated tomb for wedding day, frozen in time to the very
35:03minute of the betrayal, in which she sits enacting her vengeance on all men.
35:10When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham,
35:14I suppose I really did come here as any other chance boy might have come, as a kind of servant,
35:19to gratify a want or a whim and to be paid for it.
35:21I, Pip, you did.
35:23And that Mr. Jaggers was...
35:24Mr. Jaggers had nothing to do with it.
35:27His being my lawyer and the lawyer of your patron was a coincidence.
35:31He holds the same relation towards numbers of people.
35:34But when I fell into the mistake that I've so long remained in, at least you led me on.
35:39Yes.
35:40I let you go on.
35:41Was that kind?
35:43Who am I?
35:44For heaven's sake, that I should be kind.
35:47Good.
36:01Good day.
36:05Good day.
36:13Good day.
36:26It is a tale of so many things, 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
36:39and Assella 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?
36:53And of course when Pip has grown up and Magwitch returns out of nowhere really, he's a very
36:59different character to the one we saw before. Yes, I mean one thing critically is that he's
37:05diminished both figuratively and literally by David Lean by the way he's shot. So he's
37:12way before 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 much
37:32less terrifying. He becomes much more pathetic. But by that I don't mean pathetic in a scornful way,
37:37I mean he has pathos and he's a sadder character. He's desperate to see the boy whose life he's
37:45changed and to see if he's done something good with his money. It's a father seeking his son, isn't he?
37:49Yeah, absolutely. But by doing so, by taking that one glimpse, he destroys both of them. I mean,
38:01Pip has and completely destroys his expectations. So this one thing, I must see what good I've done,
38:07then ends up wrecking everything.
38:28Who do you want?
38:30Mr. Pip.
38:32So the famous Dickens illustrator Cookshank was known for using these quite
38:36moody, really, images in India ink of the various characters and stories that he illustrated for
38:42Dickens. In fact, he didn't actually illustrate Great Expectations originally, but he was kind of
38:48the illustrator associated to that writer. And so Lean and his sort of crew were interested in
38:55aping that look. 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, these seedy
39:07or 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 than it
39:57being in some little crime film, as with most of those sort of things that were aping that style, this
40:03was a
40:03Victorian period drama of Dickens. And he takes that style and transposes it onto this unlikely material.
40:10Released in 1946, mid-post-war austerity, audiences lapped up the chance to escape into such all-encompassing
40:18storytelling. It earned millions in America, where it won Oscars for its sets and art direction. David Lean was
40:26nominated for Best Director, but the performances went cruelly snugged. It is now held up as an emblem of all
40:34that film can
40:34achieve. Great Expectations was an enormous success. When it came out, it was a success with audiences and the
40:42critics, many of whom said, you know, claimed to be one of the best British films ever made. It did
40:48very, very well. It
40:49actually, you know, it brought honour and glory to everyone concerned, Lean, especially, of course, who was then, you know,
40:59suddenly regarded, not just as a great British filmmaker, but as a man of international standing as a director.
41:07Lean's reputation was built on his epics, but this is the purest expression of his talent. It still has that
41:15epic feel, but
41:16combined with Dickens' intensity and vigour. The director is marvellously contained by the author. If a fan told him that
41:25they thought
41:25Lawrence of Arabia was his finest film, he would simply say, thank you. If they said Great Expectations, he would
41:33say, quite right.
41:34So Dickens wrote two different versions of the end of Great Expectations and apparently was himself unsure
41:40about it. He originally wrote a version where many years later, Pip and Estella have a chance encounter,
41:47but it was a little bit too ambiguous for the publishers, and they insisted he write something a
41:52little 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 in life.
42:07It'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 imagine
42:39the world of Dickens to be. If we read the books, we think of an imagery that Lean gave us.
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
42:57Leanensian, 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 to the point,
43:08not just when you're watching it, but they actually live in the memory years and years and years after
43:15you've seen these films, because he understood the impact that you could have if you created the right
43:23kind of vision of it. It's stylized, but not to the point of inhumanity. He's kept the flesh and blood
43:31of the characters. He's been faithful to Dickens in terms of the narrative and also the moral complexity
43:39of it. And yet he sort of managed to edit them down into the sort of, you know, two-hour
43:45movies,
43:46you 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.
44:18This is the best ever Dickens adaptation. I would, I can't think of a better. I genuinely can't think
44:24of a better because it's because of the harmony between the writer and the director. I think,
44:31you know, we will never know what Dickens thinks of this film, but it feels to me like it'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 funny and alive and vibrant and people get defeated by Dickens and they churn
44:54out stuff. It's Lean who understands him and who brings him to the screen. It's a moving work of
45:00art and makes him live. Then they, it's almost like living together. They really are. They are,
45:06this 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.
45:33this is the regular adaptation of the film.
46:05Transcription by CastingWords
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