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Program Title
Credits Executive Producer: Rebecca Eaton, Michael Wearing Producer: David Snodin Director: Julian Jarrold Intro GREAT EXPECTATIONS/Episode 1/Intro by Russell Baker Tonight we present what many people consider Charles Dickens' finest novel -- "Great Expectations." In many ways it is a very modern novel. In many ways it is also very different from what most people think of as a "Dickens novel." It's a story of guilt, self-loathing and a woman whose hatred borders on madness. What could be more modern? Also, in contrast to Dickens other big novels, it focuses tightly on one central character: A poor orphan boy named Pip with very little to look forward to in life until, suddenly, he is lifted out of poverty and told that he has great expectations. Of course Dickens could never confine himself entirely to a single character. During the course of the story you'll also meet some escaped convicts, a murderer, an embittered bride-to-be who was jilted on her way to the altar -- and the girl she is turning into a cruel weapon to avenge herself on all men. Dickens was forty-eight years old when he started "Great Expectations," and at the peak of his powers. He had already published a half-dozen tremendously successful novels. But with age, his view of the world had become considerably darker than you'll find in, say, "Nicholas Nickleby" or "David Copperfield." The very opening of "Great Expectations" makes it clear that we are not in for a light-hearted lark. The setting is a cemetery. Daylight is fading. Pip has come to visit the graves of his parents. This is marshy country -- flat, gray, bleak. Ancient hulks of ships are anchored offshore. They are used as prisons. While studying the tombstones, Pip has a terrifying experience. "Great Expectations." Extro GREAT EXPECTATIONS/Episode 1/Extro by Russell Baker In "Great Expectations," Dickens was revisiting his own youth. He had done it much earlier in "David Copperfield," and produced a much different book. David was a bright, cheerful tale about a poor boy who overcomes adversity and becomes very successful ... as Dickens himself did -- though Dickens' success far outstripped David's. By the time Dickens was thirty-five, he had already published a half-dozen novels that made him a household name throughout the English speaking world. He was in his late thirties when he wrote "David Copperfield," and it is very much a young man's book about getting on happily in the world. Twelve years later, almost fifty years old, Dickens was thinking about his youth again, and was not quite so proud of himself. "Great Expectations" was the result. It's not autobiographical, except in the sense that Dickens seemed to want to confront a bad conscience about his youthful behavior. In Pip, he was dealing with weaknesses and vices he recognized in himself when he was young, successful, and full of himself -- just as Pip is now that all his expectations are great. For Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, I'm Russell Baker. Goodnight.  Episode number: 1 2
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