De la bouche du cheval

Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay. Already an actor of great repute, in doing so he was in a very dominating position. The film gives the impression of a much less collaborative affair - writer/director/star - than is usual, or successful. Very hard for director to question a portrayal when the star can truthfully say that he knows the character far better than does the director.

Guinness chose a deep croaky voice. He consequently lost all musicality - most obviously when he sings but throughout his voice is an inexpressive monotone. The dialogue lacks sparkle further dulled by his monotone. There is a problem in any case of portraying a talented but inarticulate artist - how do you indicate talent or even genius? Apparently based on the writer Dylan Thomas, whose drunkenness was companionable (Richard Burton once a companion?), there was no doubt wit in their conversation. Here the painter is mainly rascally, the paintings shown don't particularly impress either intrinsically or by the way they are treated. All that is left is the implication that for someone so badly behaved yet to still be sought after, must have a great deal of talent. The film fails to show people being won over by his pictures and forgive his trespasses - that's a failure of direction.

Given the great talents involved, it is less than it could have been. But given these talents, it should not in anyway be patronised. Even great artists get it wrong sometimes, it doesn't affect their greatness or my admiration.

This is probably my favorite movie. It may be overstatement to call a mere British comedy a timeless classic, but this outstanding movie, beneath its raucously madcap surface, has some very serious things to say about what it means to be an artist, to be driven by visions while living in a society that doesn't care. I think Guinness is the greatest actor of the century, and that his performance here as the maddening, irascible, impossible Gulley Jimson is the zenith of his movie roles. Kay Walsh, who partnered with Sir Alec in Tunes of Glory, is equally brilliant.

Having said that, I recently read Joyce Cary's novel, on which the movie is based, and I have to say that the book is much darker than the movie, which plays up the darkly comic scenes of the novel while diminishing - or even omitting - some of the darker moments. Still, the movie stands well on its own, even if it is a somewhat different entity than the book.

My late wife, an artist, loved this film, and it gave me such insights into the way her mind worked. Guiness is wonderful; for once we see many levels of the character he portrays. Kay Walsh is so touching as the woman in his life, while Mike Morgan makes the perfect art groupie. It's funny to see Dr. Pastorious in old age; he has barely changed since Bride of Frankenstein.

The humor is gentle and quiet except for the studio renovation scene, but it is when Gully stands in front of a canvas that the truth of this film comes out. His almost soliloquy on the human foot; the scene where he shrugs and says that was not what he was trying to say, after he has ruined the toff's wall, these are priceless and our entry into an artist's mind. When the houseboat sets sail down the Thames, to the comment about the sea by the looney who pipes Gully aboard is a bit of perfection set on celluloid. He stands there, framing a vision of another canvas on the hull of a freighter, while reciting this wonderful doggerel that I always get mixed up when I try to say it, and all the while Nosey and Sara spur him on. I've never read the book and wonder if this represents his death, but I take from it what I will.

One other thought: there are certain films shot on location that should be filed away as time/place documentaries. This one is a perfect example: London 1958.

Although most Americans have little knowledge of his work other than Star Wars, Alec Guinness produced an amazing body of work--particularly in the 1940s-1950s--ranging from dramas to quirky comedies. I particularly love his comedies, as they are so well-done and seem so natural and real on the screen--far different from the usual fare from Hollywood.

I first saw this movie when I was about 13 or so, and didn't appreciate it very much. Years later, when I became fascinated with Guinness' comedies, I decided to give it another chance. And boy am I glad I did!! The movie concerns the life of an extremely edgy and rather nasty artist. Guinness really plays this up and creates one of the quirkiest and funniest characters I have ever seen. In essence, the man is a rascal that is driven to create his art regardless of what it takes to get it done! What I missed the first time I saw the film were the extremely catchy music and the amazing art created for this movie. I am not the biggest fan of modern art, but the second time i saw the movie I really liked most of the works done for the movie--it just was a darn shame that much of it was destroyed in the course of the movie! In addition to music and art, the performances throughout of all the actors was nearly perfect.

Finally, the version of the movie I saw last was from the Criterion Collection. Get this version!!!! It had so much wonderful background information about the actual art, the making of the movie, and interesting background information--such as how they got the musical score WITHOUT having to pay royalties and the incredibly sad tale of a magnificent performance by a young supporting actor that did not live to see the finished product.

Alec Guinness not only stars in what amounts to a one-man show as aging, struggling London painter Gulley Jimson, he also wrote the script. Funny he got an Oscar nomination for the writing, and not for the acting.

As Jimson, Guinness is a memorably growly, seedy type, testament to the artistic impulse of man running afoul of polite society. Even his nasty Fagin from "Oliver Twist" was affable company; Jimson tells off his young admirer Nosey (Mike Morgan) with a convincingly hoarse "Go do something sensible, like shooting yourself." It's all for laughs, of course, except when "The Horse's Mouth" gets mildly serious, mostly when Jimson holds forth on his vision of art.

"Half a minute of revelation's worth a million years of know-nothing," he tells his companion Coker (Kay Walsh).

"Who lives a million years?" is her sharp reply.

"A million people every 12 months."

"A Horse's Mouth" isn't always so smart. Walsh plays her part too shrill, Morgan his too moony, and the artist who provided Jimson's paintings, John Bratby, uses too much red. After establishing Jimson, Guinness's script doesn't do much with him. He paints some walls, gets into some trouble, and sails away, leaving others to bear witness to his "genius".

What I like most about this film, other than Guinness's fine acting and occasional scenes here and there that feature his character to good effect, is the vivid picture you get of London circa the late 1950s, double-decker buses with hoardings for Gordon's Gin and Ty-Phoo Tea on their sides. Also, director Ronald Neame finds interesting angles to frame the film from in order to give the on-screen action (rarely painting itself, but frequently static conversation shots) a bit of vitality, and often outside with lively streetscape backdrops.

This is like a David Lean movie once removed. Neame was Lean's cinematographer in his early days, Guinness was Lean's favorite actor, and Walsh was Lean's ex-wife. Even Anne V. Coates, later the Oscar-winning editor of "Lawrence Of Arabia", snipped this as well.

She deserved her Oscar; not so Guinness his nomination here. As a comedy, "The Horse's Mouth" is a bit of a miss. A scene of Jimson ruining a rich couple's penthouse apartment is painfully unfunny, especially when a sculptor friend of Jimson (Michael Gough) arrives out of nowhere to add to the mess. Most of the other business in the movie, like a struggle between Jimson and his ex-wife for a portrait of her he needs for painting money, feels like chopped-down scenes from Cary's novel mined for easy laughs, at some expense to story.

I didn't care much about Jimson by story's end, but I did enjoy his company, or rather that of Guinness playing Jimson, staring at a charwoman and fixated by her feet, "...old women's feet...thin, flat, long...clinging to the ground like reptiles". Like much else in regard to the movie, I'm at a loss to what it means, but I value the experience. That counts for something with art.