{"id":2233,"date":"2006-05-27T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-27T20:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/05\/steyn-on-guinness\/"},"modified":"2006-05-27T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-27T20:59:00","slug":"steyn-on-guinness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/05\/steyn-on-guinness.html","title":{"rendered":"Steyn on Guinness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Mark Steyn<\/a> has re-posted the obituary he wrote for Alec Guinness<\/a> six years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

He brings up that rather cute anecdote<\/a> regarding the letter Guinness wrote to the editor in response to Steyn\u2019s review of the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma<\/a><\/i> (1996), and he mentions Guinness\u2019s turns in various David Lean films \u2014 including Great Expectations<\/a><\/i> (1946), Oliver Twist<\/a><\/i> (1948), Bridge on the River Kwai<\/a><\/i> (1957), Lawrence of Arabia<\/a><\/i> (1962) and A Passage to India<\/a><\/i> (1984) \u2014 as well as his roles in Cromwell<\/a><\/i> (1970) and, of course, Star Wars<\/a><\/i> (1977-1983) and the Ealing comedies:<\/p>\n

His two great period roles, in their different ways, are Charles I in Cromwell<\/i> and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars<\/i>. The consensus is that, unlike most movie actors, Guinness never played \u2018himself\u2019. But who else is Obi-Wan? The quiet authority, the dignity, the spiritual strength of the character come from Guinness, not from George Lucas and what the actor called the \u2018second-hand, childish banalities\u2019 of the dialogue.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, for a classic Guinness performance, look up any old talk-show or interview where he\u2019s asked if it\u2019s true he gets 2\u00bc per cent of Star Wars<\/i> plus additional points from the videos, sequels etc. There\u2019s a beatific smile he nailed down early on, as he replies that, my word, yes, apparently, he does. Lots of British actors despise movie work, not least their own, but Guinness pulled off a deal that must have made him one of the wealthiest of English thespians: according to some accounts he made over \u00a3150 million from Star Wars<\/i>. That\u2019s a long way from his Ealing salaries, though even then he impressed his colleagues. Meeting Edith Evans at a swank restaurant, he told her not to worry, lunch was on him. He was making The Lavender Hill Mob<\/i>, and they were paying him \u00a36,000. Dame Edith went into full handbag mode. \u2018\u00a36,000!\u2019 she gasped. \u2018I must make another film. Or do you call them movies?\u2019 . . .<\/p>\n

But, Obi-Wan aside, most of Guinness\u2019s screen characters belong to the day before yesterday \u2014 Ealing England, Graham Greene\u2019s Havana, Forster\u2019s India, Lawrence\u2019s Arabia. He was a character actor in the sense that he acted characters, and some of them were strong enough to make him a star. According to J.C. Trewin, his was \u2018a player\u2019s countenance, designed for whatever might turn up\u2019, though not everything took. His glassy-eyed, monotone Prince Faisal in Lean\u2019s Lawrence<\/i> (1962) may qualify as his worst performance in a good film, and set the tone for a disappointing mid-career patch in which he seemed by far the most boring of Britain\u2019s theatrical knights. \u2018Alec!\u2019 sighed No\u00ebl Coward apropos Our Man in Havana<\/i>. \u2018It is a faultless performance but actually, I\u2019m afraid, a little dull.\u2019 It was around this time that Peter Sellers cooked up a character called Sir Eric Goodness, a theatrical grandee with a penchant for elliptical spiritual roles. Some years later, Guinness seems to have returned the compliment by playing Professor Godbole in A Passage to India<\/i> as Sellers in \u2018Goodness, Gracious Me\u2019 mode.<\/p>\n

But even in these weaker performances you see flickers of the great, defining characteristic of his best: his ability to project the sense of characters who have a life independent of the needs of the film. Colonel Nicholson in A Bridge on the River Kwai<\/i> (1957) is the finest example, with a stiff, resilient, very British devotion to a soldier\u2019s code that incubates into something insane. William Holden and the rest of the gang are perfectly fine as far as the stock types of war movies go, but the film stands or falls on Guinness: Nicholson could so easily be either risible or pathetic or implausible; instead, it\u2019s a beautifully balanced interpretation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, Steyn does not mention Tunes of Glory<\/a><\/i> (1960) \u2014 a film that boasts a dynamic Guinness performance and figured rather prominently in Steyn\u2019s obituary for John Mills<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn has re-posted the obituary he wrote for Alec Guinness six years ago. He brings up that rather cute anecdote regarding the letter Guinness wrote to the editor in response to Steyn\u2019s review of the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma (1996), and he mentions Guinness\u2019s turns in various David Lean films \u2014 including Great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSteyn on Guinness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mark Steyn has re-posted the obituary he wrote for Alec Guinness six years ago.He brings up that rather cute anecdote regarding the letter Guinness wrote\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/05\/steyn-on-guinness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Steyn on Guinness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Steyn has re-posted the obituary he wrote for Alec Guinness six years ago.He brings up that rather cute anecdote regarding the letter Guinness wrote\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/05\/steyn-on-guinness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-05-27T20:59:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/alecguinnessfeisal.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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