Jonathan White’s review published on Letterboxd:
I’m trying to rationalize Great Expectations in my childhood timeline. It was grade 7, so I think I would have been about twelve years old. We had to read it that year, and I hated it. I It was old, it was boring. As a ‘treat’ the old 16mm projector was wheeled in and a film version of this novel I despised was shown one afternoon. I hated it too. It was old, it was musty, it was full of cobwebs and funny accents and everything else that didn’t interest a twelve year old space nut. I had seen 2001:A Space Odyssey four years before, and that was my tiny minds idea of thought provoking cinema, not some silly story of a boy falling in love and somehow given a step and all that.
Then, the following year, I saw Dr. Zhivago in all its 70mm glory. I was in love again. It was grand; it was compelling. It was also historic, it had funny accents ( not necessarily the correct funny accents ), and was basically a story of a boy falling in love with a girl. I didn’t even connect the dots that this was the same director as the film I found a chore but a year ago.
My wife and I have watched most of the early Noel Coward Lean’s now. Great Expectations is gateway into his middle period where Lean dabbles with Dickens. Suddenly gone is the Technicolor splendor of his Coward pictures. Here is a vibrant and textured monochromatic world that evokes the days past. It’s almost like colour would be an injustice to the period of Dickens.
I don’t think I can really make this review objective, as it somehow brought back nostalgia that I didn’t know I had for this film. Pip on the moors, his heart and intentions pure, being accosted by a criminal. His sympathy, rather than fear, that leads him to help. It brought back a flood of memories, but for some strange reason they were all positive. On this viewing I found myself not only completely captivated, but also puzzling why.
Something I had never remembered was a very young Alec Guinness. I’ve read that Lean gave him the role after seeing him portray it on the stage. Maybe I was a bit distracted, but all I could think of was what he would do with Lean in not so distant the future. What took me particularly this time was Joe. Joe is goodness, and I think that’s what Dickens really wanted us to see. Bernard Miles is so sweet in his portrayal that my eyes welled up. The goodness of the common man.
Aside from having an unexpected joy and nostalgia on this watch, it also hit me that this is where Lean transitioned to his Epic phase. The sets, the distorted angles, the scenes of decay, the scenes of wonder, these are all the things he would later use to even greater effect. Everything was larger than life. More passionate and important than what we would experience in the everyday world.
I’m so excited about what lies ahead!