Miss Havisham and Orlick have been portrayed in many different adaptations of Great Expectations. Their lunacy that created an exciting and peculiar edge to the story can then become distorted when transposed upon the silver screen. The two films that will be discussed include the modernized 1998 version of Great Expectations, starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, and the 1988 BBC adaptation. These movies have different themes from each other that correspond to the way in which the characters are represented. In respect to Miss Havisham and Orlick, these changes range from traditional to drastic when compared to the original text of the novel.
Miss Havisham is represented very differently in the 1998 than the BBC film. In the modern 1998 movie, Miss Havisham is transformed into the more eccentric than crazy, Nora Dinsmoore, played by Anne Bancroft. She is not the isolated, pained, figure of misery that is seen in the novel, but a woman who prefers to be alone so she can dance in her sun filled rooms of her overgrown southern plantation house. Miss Dinsmoore laughs and plays records while saunters around the house with a martini glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She also does not wear a tattered wedding dress, but adorns a different out fit in every scene while takes the time to plaster her face with gaudy makeup. She is not a woman on the verge of self-ruin, but portrayed as a peculiar, comic character who provokes Pip to love Estella. Because this movie focuses on the love aspect of the story, the insanity of the Miss Havisham of the novel is not appropriate. The removal of the dismal, spectral image of Miss Havisham and the insertion of Miss Dinsmoore as a light, amusing character is a dramatic change that gives a lighter tone to the movie. With this change, the love focus is free to keep the attention of the audience without distraction.
In the BBC version of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is portrayed similar to how she is seen in the novel. The house is left to spoil amongst cobwebs and dust, and her room is seen with a ruined wedding party that long ago ceased to commence; all signs of her madness. Miss Havisham is adorned in the expected tattered wedding dress and has a countenance of utter despair throughout the entire film. She is actively provoking Pip to fall in love with Estella and becomes consumed in flames when her manipulations turn upon her in the end. This Miss Havisham contains all of the sorrow, reclusive nature, and regret that a traditional representation of the character should possess in order to stay true to the story. Her madness is evident in every scene, which seasons the film with an element of morbid fascination at the ruin this woman has become, as well as a sense of shock at the spectral sight of the bride turned insane.
Orlick is a character that has been left out of the 1998 film adaptation. The fact that the filmmakers decide to remove Orlick from the list of characters is another sign that the focus is on the love between Pip, renamed Finn, and Estella. If Orlick were in the movie, his violent lunacy would create a hostile element to the story that would detract from the main focus of love gained and love lost.
The BBC adaptation portrays Orlick almost as accurately as in the novel. Because of his madness, Orlick holds a grudge against Pip from their first encounter at the forge in the beginning of the story, up to the point of his murderous intent upon Pip’s life towards the end. Orlick’s insanity brings violence into the story with his involvement in the murder of Mrs. Joe as well as the attempted murder of Pip. The main difference between the novel and this film version is that Orlick does not die in the original story. In the BBC movie, Orlick accidentally kills himself with his own gun in a drunken moment of miscalculation. This is a change that was made in order to conserve the time of the already four hour-long film, which does not greatly alter the character’s true demeanor of drunkenness, violence, and unquestionable madness.
The crazy depictions of both Miss Havisham and Orlick give the BBC movie an undertone of darkness that is void in the 1998 version. The madness of these two characters creates morbid fascination for the audience, which keeps a sense of suspense as to what Miss Havisham or Orlick will do next. With Miss Havisham’s reclusive manipulations and Orlick’s ominous presence, the BBC film contains a layer of mystery and interest that is missing in the modern film. This adaptation was made for an audience that either has read the novel, or wants to, and is watching the movie for an accurate representation of the book. The 1998 motion picture, on the other hand, was made for those who have not read the novel and want a satisfying love story that is light and devoid of the lurking lunacy of both the Dickens novel and the BBC film version.