By Meredith Dundas
Alfonso Cuaron’s film Great Expectations probably won’t help students pass their English exams but it may inspire them to enjoy classic literature.
The producers and directors of Great Expectations have taken the liberty of changing the books to suit today’s setting — and that can be a tricky thing to do without losing the appeal of the original story.
Great Expectations has been criticized for doing just that. Even though most of Charles Dickens’ novels were originally written as bases for stage plays, the movie version of Great Expectations has both new character names and settings.
But amid the criticisms, the World Exchange audience numbers are good, says World Exchange Theatre manager, Aaron Collins. Great Expectations is in a close race with As Good as it Gets, and Wag the Dog, and is the number two movie in Canada.
These ratings are not surprising. Note some other recent movie titles: Great Expectations, Romeo and Juliet, Emma, and Clueless. These four movies, starring such teen-icons as Leonardo DiCaprio, and Alicia Silverstone, are adapted from classic novels and plays, that target the large ‘Whatever Generation’.
This ‘Whatever Generation’ is made up of pre-teens and teens. 1996 Canadian census reports show there are four million Canadians aged 10 – 19. That’s a bigger group than in the past two decades and a bigger market for movies targeting this audience.
Carleton University film studies professor Charles O’Brien says targeting the ‘Whatever Generation’ with movie adaptations of the classics is something different, but not surprising. Since the turn of the century, movie-makers have been re-creating classic literature.
“In the history of culture it’s always happening in one form or another,” O’Brien says. “Now there’s more movies and TV than books, and our understanding is mediated by television and popular culture.”
Revising books into movies began as an attempt for cultural legitimacy. Movie-makers would target the upper-class audience with classic literature, to show that movies were a class above Vaudeville.
Now they’re trying to appeal to the teenage generation — a new generation whose members may never have read the original book but who now have a chance to see the Dickens’ classic.
And the audience at the theatres do fall in that generation, says Collins.
Grade 12 Glebe Collegiate student Simon Bell says he likes the up-dated movie versions of the classics.
“I find the books are hard to understand, especially the language,” says Bell. He says when he watched the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet, it was easy to understand even though it remained in original Shakespearian text.
But, Bell says, there are some problems with the new releases. “They’re not always quite true to form, they sway a bit from the original to fit the time. I think to do a movie it should be more like the original to catch the effect of the book,” he says.
“Sometimes [the re-makes] are too trendy, you can always tell when older people are trying to be hip — it’s too commercial.”
Commercial?
The novelization of Great Expectations (the movie) is expected to hit the book stores soon.
“Some people think there is something wrong and offensive about it, like they’re dumbing it down,” O’Brien says. “I don’t think that.”
But buyers beware: if there’s a great expectation that recent remakes of the classics will grant great knowledge, viewers may be disappointed. But if beautiful scenery and famous actors and actress are what’s in mind, this is the film that can help to provide.