Death by Adaptation - Great Expectations (1998)
20th Century FoxWhat Charles Dickens, David Lean and Alfonso Cuarón have in common with one another stretches beyond their dedication to Great Expectations. They are great artists. Born to separate generations, yet taking on the same story. More or less, anyway. Cuarón is a stickler for details, as though Great Expectations is a true bore for him to experience. It was a true bore in its written form, but that is the challenge readers must face when knocking back the classics. It is up to the great visualisers of each generation to experience the work, adapt it into some new form, and run from there. Run free of the garish, stuffy Victorian era and into the open embrace of one man who championed the epic-scale genre and utilises the visuals of such a style to cover-up the pratfalls of the story, and another who detests the text so much that he slides a “loosely based” line into his blurb. Lean and Cuarón are no strangers to change.
It is a necessity when adapting Great Expectations. The story of Pip the orphan is an interesting one, just written rather ineffectively. Dickens fails to realise the real shining moments of this character. As the reader finds themselves shuffled away down side plots with Miss Havisham and the figure of The Convict, Dickens loses sight of his story. The growth of a boy independent of steady role models. It is one of the few pieces of literature and work that would benefit from a streamlined process. Information comes and goes in these adaptations from Lean and Cuarón. Changes to the ending for Lean; changes to everything for Cuarón. That “loosely based” tab is the aggravated damage done to the Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow-led adaptation of Great Expectations.
Although they are versatile performers, they are not good enough to strike at the heart of this problematic piece. Great Expectations is a wildly horrid beast in this newest iteration. Cuarón does not attend to the usual tones of Dickens because his modernisation of the book is an integral change. The poetic justifications of helping thieves and shunning could-be heroes are, unsurprisingly, ruined by the shift to modernity. The life and death of The Convict (Robert De Niro) is not adapted clearly or with much punch. It is perhaps the utilisation of his role that is most integral, though. De Niro is paralysed by commitment to the role. He is never quite sure of what to add to the scene. A man whose character is dependent on the performances around him, but the direction given never strikes up much of a fuss. Should his role be violent or virulent? His knack for both is good, but the blur is poor.
But at least he has presence. Lean does not provide Great Expectations with much of a force for The Convict character. It is his changing message and the intentions of it that present such a change, though. While it may be perfectly necessary to do so, those looking for a faithful adaptation could stick their nose up at the Lean work, and rightly so. Despite it being stronger than the Cuarón piece that would slump out 50-years later, its story changes and justifications of narrative pieces are tactful and make sense, but to the hardened fan of Dickens’ original, it will leave them low and underwhelmed.
Dickens was in the business of underwhelming audiences. It shows in the adaptations of his work on Great Expectations. Lean and Cuarón are lost. But so too is Pip. He is the lost and isolated soul at the heart of Great Expectations. The trio of craftsmen share that feeling. One of the few unchanged tones of this text to feature translation is the desperation of an individual. Whether it is Lean with his cemetery-clad, grave surroundings or Cuarón and his confused, cared-for adaptation of a young boy with passion to pursue. Neither work wholly well, because Pip as a character feels relatively indefinable. His gradual progression from stifled orphan to member of the higher classes is a classic rags to riches case that glides along the romanticisms of the period.
Cuarón especially. In the director's chair, his process of Great Expectations as a modern, moving piece are fumbled dreadfully. It is an earnest approach to the text. Latching onto the core themes and vague character dynamics that provided entertaining literature and thrusting them into the modern world is an interesting back and forth, but not something that is employed with much perfection. What limits him, truly, is his lack of clarity. His abilities behind the camera do not need to be checked, although some of his framing and styles are questionable. Ultimately, the cause is lost not because of its differences to the text Dickens offered, but the forced distance between Cuarón and the Victorian-era writer.
Distance between narrative and adaptation is the room in which artistic originality grows. But Cuarón takes Great Expectations at face value as a hard-fought love story, where a rising member of the working class dares to brush shoulders with an egalitarian interest. Timing that story with the release of Titanic is mismanaged scheduling, and a poor idea on reflection. There was no way Dickens’ loosely adapted text was ever going to compete with the love, loss, and death upon that doomed vessel. But at least Cuarón tried. He packed his film full of big names, and failed to utilise them properly. Lean does too, to a lesser extent though. He may have Alec Guinness in one of his earliest works, but the adaption he makes to the big screen is an unremarkable one.
As unnotable and unknowable as this piece of literature and the adaptations that followed may be, they are necessary ones. Great Expectations is a definitive classic and, whether it is loved or loathed, it has precedence over a great deal of the books and art that followed. Dickens’ influence spreads far and wide, but it is not as though he guides the hand of these two directors all that well. For all the hoops to be jumped through, all the ensembles to pull together, neither film feels like a fantastic or deserving adaptation of the text. Not because these directors are not worthy of adapting this piece of literature, but because Great Expectations is not worthy of their time and dedication, however flimsy it may appear for those in the “loosely based” camp.