ALEC GUINNESS, FROM SHAKESPEARE TO STAR WARS

Alex Guinness

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to watch some films interpreted by one of her favourite actors, Alec Guinness, who died on a day like today in 2000.

She thinks that the best way to pat tribute to Alec Guinness is talking about him and his incredible roles along his amazing career.

Alec Guinness (2 April 1914-5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he played nine different characters, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and The Ladykillers (1955).

He collaborated six times with director David Lean in Great Expectations (1946), Oliver Twist (1948), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984).

He also portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy; for the original 1977 film, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 50th Academy Awards.

More information: The Guardian

Guinness began his stage career in 1934. Two years later, at the age of 22, he played the role of Osric in Hamlet in the West End and joined the Old Vic. He continued to play Shakespearean roles throughout his career. He was one of three British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who made the transition from theatre to films after the Second World War.

Guinness served in the Royal Naval Reserve during the war and commanded a landing craft during the invasion of Sicily and Elba. During the war he was granted leave to appear in the stage play Flare Path about RAF Bomber Command.

Guinness won an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a Tony Award.

In 1959 he was knighted by Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980 and the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award in 1989.

Guinness appeared in nine films that featured in the BFI's 100 greatest British films of the 20th century, which included five of Lean's films.

Guinness was born Alec Guinness de Cuffe at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale in London. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff, born on 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Benfield.

Alec Guinness

On Guinness's birth certificate, his mother's name is given as Agnes de Cuffe; the infant's name, where first names only are placed, is given as Alec Guinness, and there are no details for the father.

Guinness first worked writing advertising copy. His first job in the theatre was on his 20th birthday (April 1934), while he was still a drama student, in the play Libel, which opened at the old King's Theatre, Hammersmith, and then transferred to the West End's Playhouse, where his status was raised from a walk-on to understudying two lines, and his salary increased to £1 a week.

He appeared at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielgud's successful production of Hamlet. Also in 1936, Guinness signed on with the Old Vic, where he was cast in a series of classic roles.

In 1939, he took over for Michael Redgrave as Charleston in a road-show production of Robert Ardrey's Thunder Rock. At the Old Vic, Guinness worked with many actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins. An early influence was film star Stan Laurel, whom Guinness admired.

Guinness continued playing Shakespearean roles throughout his career. 

In 1937, he played Aumerle in Richard II and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice under the direction of John Gielgud. He starred in a 1938 production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He also appeared as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (1939), Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and as Exeter in Henry V in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and Ferdinand in The Tempest, opposite Gielgud as Prospero.

In 1939, he adapted Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations for the stage, playing Herbert Pocket. The play was a success. One of its viewers was a young British film editor, David Lean, who would later have Guinness reprise his role in Lean's 1946 film adaptation of the play.

More information: Houston Chronicle

Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the Second World War, initially as a seaman in 1941, before receiving a commission as a temporary Sub-lieutenant on 30 April 1942 and a promotion to Temporary Lieutenant the following year.

Guinness then commanded a landing craft at the Allied invasion of Sicily, and later ferried supplies and agents to the Yugoslav partisans in the eastern Mediterranean theatre.

R2D2, C3PO, Obi Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker

Guinness returned to the Old Vic in 1946 and stayed until 1948, playing in The Alchemist, King Lear, Cyrano de Bergerac and Shakespeare's Richard II.

In films, Guinness was initially associated mainly with the Ealing Comedies, and particularly for playing nine characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Other films from this period included The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), with all three ranked among the Best British films.

In 1950 he portrayed 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli in The Mudlark, which included delivering an uninterrupted seven minute speech in Parliament.

In 1952, director Ronald Neame cast Guinness in his first romantic lead role, opposite Petula Clark in The Card. In 1951, exhibitors voted him the most popular British star. Guinness was idolised by Peter Sellers -who himself would become famous for inhabiting a variety of characters in a film- with Sellers's first major film role starring alongside his idol in The Ladykillers.

Guinness's other notable film roles of this period included The Swan (1956) with Grace Kelly, in her penultimate film role; The Horse's Mouth (1958), in which Guinness played the part of drunken painter Gulley Jimson, and for which he also wrote the screenplay, which was nominated for an Academy Award; the lead in Carol Reed's Our Man in Havana (1959); Marcus Aurelius in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964); The Quiller Memorandum (1966); Marley's Ghost in Scrooge (1970); Charles I in Cromwell (1970); Pope Innocent III in Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972); and the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), which he considered his best film performance, though critics disagreed.

Another role which is sometimes referred to as one which he considered his best, and is so considered by many critics, is that of Colonel Jock Sinclair in Tunes of Glory (1960). Guinness also played the role of Jamessir Bensonmum, the blind butler, in the 1976 Neil Simon film Murder by Death.

More information: Cinema Blend

Guinness won particular acclaim for his work with director David Lean, which today is his most critically acclaimed work. After appearing in Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he was given a starring role opposite William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai. For his performance as Colonel Nicholson, the unyielding British POW commanding officer, Guinness won an Academy Award for Best Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor.

Guinness appeared in five Lean films that were ranked in the British Film Institute's top 50 greatest British films of the 20th century: 3rd (Lawrence of Arabia), 5th (Great Expectations), 11th (The Bridge on the River Kwai), 27th (Doctor Zhivago) and 46th (Oliver Twist).

Guinness's role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, beginning in 1977, brought him worldwide recognition to a new generation, as well as Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. In letters to his friends, Guinness described the film as fairy tale rubbish but the film's sense of moral good -and the studio's doubling of his initial salary offer- appealed to him and he agreed to take the part of Kenobi on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film.

In 2003, Obi-Wan Kenobi as portrayed by Guinness was selected as the 37th-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute. 

Digitally altered archival audio of Guinness's voice was used in the films Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

Guinness died on the night of 5 August 2000 at Midhurst in West Sussex. He was interred at Petersfield Cemetery, Hampshire.

More information: The New York Times

An actor is totally vulnerable.

His total personality is exposed to critical judgment 

-his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance.

In short, his ego.

Alec Guinness

CHARLES DICKENS' GREAT EXPECTATIONS: ENDLESS HOPE

Great Expectations, a weekly serial

The Grandma has started to read a new Charles Dickens' novel, Great Expectations. She has also continued with her English grammar manual Intermediate Language Practice. Today, she has revised Chapter 18.

More information: Modals I, II, III & IV

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel: a bildungsroman that depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person.

The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch.

More information: BBC

Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death, and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. 

Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.

Joe and Pip in Great Expectations

As Dickens began writing Great Expectations, he undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours. 

His domestic life had, however, disintegrated in the late 1850s and he had separated from his wife, Catherine Dickens, and was having a secret affair with the much younger Ellen Ternan. 

The introduction of the 1984 Penguin English Library edition suggests that the reluctance with which Ellen Ternan became his mistress is reflected in the icy teasing of Estella in Great Expectations.

Dickens and Wills co-owned All the Year Round, one 75%, the other 25%. Since Dickens was his own publisher, he did not require a contract for his own works. Although intended for weekly publication, Great Expectations was divided into nine monthly sections, with new pagination for each.  

Harper's Weekly published the novel from 24 November 1860 to 5 August 1861 in the US and All the Year Round published it from 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861 in the UK. Harper's paid £1,000 for publication rights. Dickens welcomed a contract with Tauchnitz 4 January 1861 for publication in English for the European continent.

Pip & Biddy and Orlick in Great Expectations

Publications in Harper's Weekly were accompanied by forty illustrations by John McLenan; however, this is the only Dickens work published in All the Year Round without illustrations.

Great Expectations's single most obvious literary predecessor is Dickens's earlier first-person narrator protagonist David Copperfield. 

The two novels trace the psychological and moral development of a young boy to maturity, his transition from a rural environment to the London metropolis, the vicissitudes of his emotional development, and the exhibition of his hopes and youthful dreams and their metamorphosis, through a rich and complex first person narrative. Dickens was conscious of this similarity and, before undertaking his new manuscript, reread David Copperfield to avoid repetition.

More information: The Guardian

The narrative structure of Great Expectations is influenced by the fact that it was first published as weekly episodes in a periodical. This required short chapters, centred on a single subject, and an almost mathematical structure.

Although the novel is written in first person, the reader knows, as an essential prerequisite, that Great Expectations is not an autobiography but a novel, a work of fiction with plot and characters, featuring a narrator-protagonist. 

Joe learning to read in Great Expectations

In addition, Sylvère Monod notes that the treatment of the autobiography differs from David Copperfield, as Great Expectations does not draw from events in Dickens's life; at most some traces of a broad psychological and moral introspection can be found.

Amongst the narrative devices that Dickens uses, are caricature, comic speech mannerisms, intrigue, Gothic atmosphere, and a central character who gradually changes. 

It's important the close network of the structure and balance of contrasts, and praises the first-person narration for providing a simplicity that is appropriate for the story while avoiding melodrama. There is the symbolism attached to great expectations as reinforcing the novel's impact.

Great Expectations contains the elements of a variety of different literary genres, including the bildungsroman, gothic novel, crime novel, as well as comedy, melodrama and satire; and it belongs, like Wuthering Heights and the novels of Walter Scott, to the romance rather than realist tradition of the novel.

More information: The Telegraph

The title's Expectations refers to a legacy to come, and thus immediately announces that money, or more specifically wealth plays an important part in the novel. Some other major themes are crime, social class, including both gentility, and social alienation, imperialism and ambition. 

The novel is also concerned with questions relating to conscience and moral regeneration, as well as redemption through love. 

Download Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

There are dark shadows on the earth, 

but its lights are stronger in the contrast. 

Charles Dickens

VENICE, AN ITALIAN DREAM FOR CHARLES DICKENS

Is Corto Maltese real or a dream of the past?

Venice is drying up due to low tides caused by the super blue blood moon and lack of rain. 

The canals are empty of water and The Beans have decide to go for walks across the city and search a palazzo to buy it and live there during its visits to the city. 

The family is deciding between two options. Both of them are beautiful and wonderful places and it's difficult to choose only one but it's an investment and paying attention to the last news from Wall Street, they must be clever in their selection.

Protecting the environment is a must and we must take concience of this terrible problem to protect our planet, its resources, its flora, its wildlife, its landscapes and, definetly, its people. Venice is one of the most affected zones by the climate change. If we don't protect these special zones since now, they will disappear.

Finally, the search of Corto Maltese continues without success and The Grandma is a little sad. 

More information: Recycling Vocabulary

Today, it's the 206th anniversary of the birth Charles Dickens, one of the best writers of the Universal Literature. The Beans, who are still enjoying the Carnivale, have decided to homage the English writer and they have decided to read Pictures from Italy during these days. 

The cover of Pictures of Italy

Pictures from Italy is a travelogue by Charles Dickens, written in 1846. The book reveals the concerns of its author as he presents the country like a chaotic magic-lantern show, fascinated both by the spectacle it offers, and by himself as spectator.

In 1844, Dickens took a respite from writing novels and for several months traveled through France and Italy with his family. They visited the most famous sights: Genoa, Rome, Naples (with Vesuvius still smouldering), Florence and Venice. In his travelogue the author portrays a nation of great contrasts: grandiose buildings and urban desolation, and everyday life beside ancient monuments. But it is his encounters with Italy's colorful street life that capture the imagination.

Dickens is particularly drawn to the costumes, cross-dressing, and sheer exuberance of the Roman carnival. From the book we learn that Dickens was an early riser and walker, and that he enjoyed touring the major attractions on foot.

Download Pictures of Italy by Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812-9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. He edited a journal, novels, short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.

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Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. 

His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

Download David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
 

The Grandma in a Victorian picture

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre.  

Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. 

Dickens has been praised by fellow writers (from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G.K.Chesterton) for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.

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I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. 

Charles Dickens