Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter dominates the role of Miss Havisham in the 2012 film adaptation. In this interview on YouTube, Helena discusses her portrayal of the iconic role and shares the various concepts and ideas she had for the character prior to filming. It’s enlightening to hear how much input she had exactly and it’s great to see how involved she was in the initial research and design stage.   

Gillian Anderson

This image is from the BBC 1 three-part series adaptation of Great Expectations that aired in 2011. Miss Havisham is portrayed by American actress, Gillian Anderson. The many interpretations of Miss Havisham, in film and television, have varied in accordance to the actress. I find Anderson’s performance to the most diverse considering Miss Havisham is such an iconic role.   

When I read the book, my initial impression of Miss Havisham was a woman virtually immobile, who is cold and harsh and confident in speech. Anderson, however, presents different characteristics. Anderson’s version seemed to flit about quite actively and looked healthy and clean considering she has spent so long away from daylight.

In fact, I feel the film, as a whole, is wrong to include so much daylight in Satis House. A very crucial detail in the story of Great Expectations is Miss Havisham’s sun deprivation. Make up wise, Anderson has been realistically withered to present a character not only deprived of sunlight but deprived of love and emotion. However, from the offset, we first see Miss Havisham emerging from a staircase with sunlight cast over her from a break in the curtains. Sure this gives us an eerie silhouette but it entirely negates her physical appearance. 

I think there are particularly poor aging techniques used on Anderson in this series. Her curls look far too intact considering they would have been styled many years ago. They hang so tight and neat, they look almost childish. Also, her wedding gown looks more like a night dress, no veil or train, and is considerably white considering it has been worn for such a lengthy period.

Anderson hasn’t any bridal flowers in her hair or jewels around her neck. She walks around barefoot as opposed to the traditional detail of Miss Havisham having only one shoe on. She also speaks with a soft, high-pitched voice, which doesn’t come across as authoritative as the book describes Miss Havisham to be.

Finally, the contemporary trait of self-harm suggests a very insecure character which negates the bold, eccentric details of Miss Havisham in the book.

http://kooltvblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/pips-progress-dark-road-of-great.html#!/2011/12/pips-progress-dark-road-of-great.html

Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham is one of the main characters in Great Expectations. She is a wealthy and eccentric older woman, who lives with her adopted daughter, Estella, in the ruins of her mansion, Satis House.

As a young woman, Miss Havisham was jilted by the love of her life, Compeyson. He was only interested in marrying her for her money and abandons her, via letter, on their wedding day. Overcome with the abandonment of her fiancé, Miss Havisham never leaves her mansion and lets very few people see her. She remains in her wedding dress, with just one shoe on and her wedding feast uneaten and let to decay.

After time alone, Miss Havisham adopts a little girl to love and be loved by. This child is called Estella. When Miss Havisham adopts Estella, she develops the intensions to protect her from experiencing the same heartache as she had to endure. However, as Estella grew incredibly beautiful, Miss Havisham realised she could seek her revenge on men by having Estella break the hearts of boys.

When Miss Havisham meets Pip, she intends to break his heart by having him fall in love with Estella of whom she’s raised to be cold and heartless. In keeping with her spiteful plans, she does not deny that she is Pip’s benefactor. Pip is therefore under the impression that Miss Havisham is funding his newfound life to make him an ideal match for Estella.

When Estella grows up to marry Bentley Drummle, Pip is left heartbroken and Miss Havisham realises she isn’t merely as satisfied as she’s imagined she would be. She feels bad for hurting Pip and begs him for his forgiveness.

Miss Havisham soon reaches her untimely passing when a lit candle falls onto her dress and sets her dusty, yellowed wedding gown alight and burning her to death.  

Miss Havisham with Estella and Pip. Art by H. M. Brock.

Great Expectations

The topic of this second term is Great Expectations, a novel written by Charles Dickens published in 1861. The story, set early to mid-1800s, of a young ‘common’ boy becoming a gentleman is a story I’ve been familiar with for several years.

I was first introduced to Great Expectations at GCSE level when a piece of coursework involved analysing the first chapter of the book, Magwich and Pip’s encounter. At this stage, I was given an in depth overview of the book and watched the 1974 film adaptation.

When it was revealed the Great Expectations would be the focus of this work brief, I refreshed my memory by re-reading the descriptive passages on the lead characters as well as watching the 2011 BBC 1 three-part series and the 2012 film adaptation starring Helena Bonham Carter. As an additional refresher, I read spark notes, suggested by my course leader, which I found to be a very useful reminder of the story.

Great Expectations is a classic and I love the diversity of the characters and the plot twists. I also find it so insightful to read 150 years later and learn about the class system in the nineteenth century.

The characters I am focusing on for this brief are Miss Havisham and Estella. These are undoubtedly my top two favourite characters.  I like to think of them as the bitter duo of the story, their relationship within the story is quite riveting.

Following this post I plan on writing blog posts on these characters individually, detailing their traits, backgrounds and appearances. From this I intend to research extensively and use my findings to create period design plans, looks for both Miss Havisham and Estella.

This will lead me into the eventual creation of the look on a model which must then be recreated two weeks later to test my ability to adhere to continuity.