I learned to read by following along as my grandmother read me James and the Giant Peach over and over and over again. There’s a bit in the book where the peach is falling, and Roald Dahl had the typesetter do a whole page that just goes “DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN SPLASH!” with one DOWN per line, all down the page. I remember the moment it became clear that my grandmother saying “Down” was the same as those squiggles on the page. Soon after, I read the book myself. I must have read James and the Giant Peach, Watership Down and The Neverending Story a million times before I was ten.
Since then, my novel reading has fallen off. I’m not one of those habitual novel readers who always has some new book beneath their arm. I read a lot of non-fiction, and see a lot of movies and plays, but that’s about it. Aside from last December when I actually read A Christmas Carol, I’ve never read anything by Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol was so much more entertaining and human and strange than I imagined it might be. Beyond that, however, I’ve never read any other novels by Charles Dickens. And I still haven’t.
So it’s probably absurd of me to have watched this week’s case in point: 1946’s Great Expectations.
But I couldn’t help it. I mean, I started it, and the story was just so compelling, the characters so vivid, and the photography so effortlessly epic, that I just couldn’t stop watching. The story and characters, clearly, spring from the mind of Charles Dickens – but ability to move from the panoramic to the personal is all director, David Lean.
There’s an early shot with Pip running along near a cemetery, and David Lean pulls the shot way, way back, putting Pip in a big wide shot of the countryside. It doesn’t have the scale that Lean would use in his later films, but we know right away that this is a big story that’s grounded in real emotions – and a few minutes later we learn that it’s a big story motivated by a childhood crush.
My first crush was on a girl named Monet, at Crestmont School in Richmond, California. She was French. Or at least I remember her as being French. The name Monet helps with that possible flight of fancy. After that there was Leilani at the Lawrence Hall of Science Summer Science Camp (yeah, I know), Sabrina from Valhalla Elementary, and Rachel from Arrowsmith Academy — every single one of them totally perfect to my crushed-out eyes.
The way Dickens uses a tender youthful crush as the engine for such a broad story brings the whole thing down to an intimate level shows a tender creative mind at work. Only later, as Pip’s road to maturity is marked through his slow understanding of Estella’s true character, does Dickens show his true steel as a storyteller. In the grand romantic fashion, he manages to make Pip’s crush both endearing and pathetic, both earned and absurd, just as all crushes are.
Dickens famously published two different published endings for Great Expectations, one conclusive about whether or not Pip and Estella end up together, and one, the finally and approved one, far more ambiguous. David Lean brings his own take to the end of the story, but I’ll let you discover that on your own.
Another great feature of David Lean’s Great Expectations is the presence of Alec Guinness himself, doing a rather dandyish turn as Herbert Pocket. Trust me, you’ve never seen Obi Wan like this. He steals every scene he’s in with a seemingly effortless display of wit, charm, and presence.
If you’ve read Great Expectations, this version will be a treat, and if you haven’t, don’t worry. If you ever had a crush when you were a kid, or if you’ve got a crush right now, you’ll be able to identify.
Next week: “By the time you read this, I’ll be dead…”
