Bleak House

"Bleak House" (1985) is a wonderful BBC adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens. The movie was made for TV, so it does well on the small screen. It's long (8 episodes in 6 1/2 hours), but even that much screen time isn't enough for this novel, which is filled with plots and sub-plots, and many, many characters.

As would be expected from the BBC, the acting is outstanding, right down to the smallest cameo roles. Denholm Elliott is excellent as John Jahndyce, and Suzanne Burden is superb as Esther Summerson.

Even though Esther is the real protagonist of the novel, for me the most interesting character is Lady Honoria Dedlock. Lady Dedlock is played by Diana Rigg. Of course, Rigg was renowned for her beauty, but at age 47, I thought she was somewhat old for the part. (Lady Honoria was married to an older man, but she probably was 34 or 35 in the context of the novel.) Gillian Anderson, at age 35, played the role in the 2005 Bleak House. Anderson was impossibly beautiful and elegant as Lady Honoria. So, in my mind, that's what Lady Honoria looks like, and Riggs just can't reach that level. However, she's a fine actor, and does an excellent job.

All directors love to show us 19th Century urban England's mud, filth, smoke, and gloom. However, I've never seen these things portrayed so effectively as in this movie. You don't get the feel that you're watching a film set. You feel as if you're watching real life, which was certainly abysmal for the poor in that era. I never had the sense that the extras were waiting for their turn to play their part at just the right moment. Those scenes all looked organic and unrehearsed. (Of course, we know that the extras were, indeed, waiting for their turn. However, my point is that you don't feel this when you're watching the film.)

David Copperfield has a basically simple plot, and is readily adapted to the screen. Bleak House has an extraordinarily complex plot, and adapting it must be an extraordinarily difficult challenge. However, we have the good fortune to have two great versions to view. If I had to choose one over the other, I think I'd go with this 1985 version. The beauty is that you don't have to choose. See them both!

This is quite difficult to come by because it is not on streaming anywhere in the UK so I had to buy the DVD (old school). I had already seen the 2005 Bleak House but despite its length and thoroughness I didn't find it as clear and as engaging as I would like so wanted to watch this version which is the only other currently available. This one is a little shorter than the more recent version but I found this one extremely impressive. I watch a lot of novel adaptations and TV period stuff from 1970 onwards, and this is one of the best adaptations of the 1980s for sure. Dickens' plot, which is multifaceted and complicated to follow, is presented in this version with really impressive clarity. I found this one made much more sense from a plot perspective than the more modern version, all the characters motivations were clearer and the scenes logically followed on from each other. The pacing is excellent for a production of this time which can tend to be rather slow but this was genuinely engaging all throughout. Casting was pretty decent all round, pretty similar to the 2005 version which definitely took inspiration from this. But Dame Diana Rigg as Lady Deadlock was superb. She exudes so much charisma and talent. I found it strange when watching the 2005 version that the novel is called Bleak House because the a lot of that version takes in place in Chesney Wold which is also presented as being the more literally bleak house. But in this version it made more sense to me why the novel is called Bleak House, because Esther Summerson is the main character and the her life at Bleak House is the centre of the novel and the current that runs through right till the end. This wasn't so clear in the 2005 version there was too much jumping around and they made too much use of Charles Dance as Tulkington to make it dramatic and suspenseful, where I think the ratio and proportionality of each of the plot lines was better in this version and made the overall story feel more cohesive and complete because of it.

This production was made in the middle 1980s, and appears to be the first serious attempt to put BLEAK HOUSE on celluloid. No film version of the novel was ever attempted (it is remarkably rich in subplots that actually serve as counterpoints to each other, so that it would have been very hard to prune it down). The novel was the only attempt by Dickens to make a central narrator (one of two in the work) a woman, Esther Summerson. Esther is raised by her aunt and uncle, who (in typical Dickens style) mistreat her. She is illegitimate, but they won't tell her anything about her parentage. Later we get involved with the gentry, Sir Leicester Dedlock, and his wife. Lady Honoria Deadlock (Dame Diana Rigg) is having an increasingly difficult time regarding her private life and the meddling involvement of the family solicitor Tulkinghorn (Peter Vaughn). We also are involved with the actions of Richard Carstone (Esther's boyfriend) in trying to win a long drawn out estate chancery case, Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, which everyone (even Richard's cousin John Jarndyce - played by Desmond Elliot) warns is not worth the effort.

Dickens had been a law reporter and then a parliamentary reporter before he wrote fiction. Starting with the breach of promise case in PICKWICK PAPERS, Dickens looked closely at the law. Mr. Bumble said it was "a ass" in OLIVER TWIST and Dickens would consistently support that view. He looks at the slums as breeding grounds for crime in TWIST, that the law barely tries to cure. He attacks the Chancery and outdated estate laws, as well as too powerful solicitors and greedy lawyers (Tulkinghorn, Vholes) in BLEAK HOUSE. In LITTLE DORRIT he attacks the debtors' prisons (he had hit it also in David COPPERFIELD). In OUR MUTUAL FRIEND he looks at testators and wills. In THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD he apparently was going to go to a murder trial. Dickens was far more critical of legal institutions than most of his contemporaries, including Thackeray.

But the novel also looks at other problems (like charity and religious hypocrisy, the budding Scotland Yard detective force, social snobbery in the industrial revolution). He also uses the novel to satirize various people: Leigh Hunt the writer, Inspector Fields of Scotland Yard, and even the notorious Maria Manning. Most of these points were kept in this fine mini-series version. If it is shown again on a cable station, catch it.

Watching this series reminded me of how strongly Dickens has influenced us. Bleak House doesn't have the fame of Great Expectations, Oliver Twist or David Copperfield, but some of the characters and scenes have entered our consciousness forever. Miss Flite and her birds, Mr. Chadband and his wearisome speechifying ("It is the ray of rays, the sun of suns... It is the light of Terewth."), Mr. Skimpole, who would be a fascist if ever he could work up the energy: they are some of our mental furniture. The camera-work is up to the challenge of bringing the verbose story to life, just see the scene of Tulkinghorn's murder with the Roman soldier painted on the ceiling pointing down at the proceedings.

The BBC assembles its casts carefully. Denholm Elliott as Jarndyce and Diana Rigg as Lady Dedlock are excellent, Peter Vaughan is a fine Tulkinghorn, Charlie Drake repulsive as Smallweed, and T. P. McKenna does Skimpole superbly. Suzanne Burden is appropriately self-effacing as Esther.

Atmospheric, evocative, any superlative you'd like to mention applies to this excellent adaptation.

The cinematography is such you can believe you're eavesdropping in on the London of the period, everything is perfect, with scenes often looking like paintings .

The acting is a true masterclass, this is far better than the later BBC adaptation, with performances more nuanced, and Diana Rigg and Denholm Elliott giving the definitive Lady Dedlock and John Jarndyce respectively.

Do seek this out on dvd if you've not seen it, you'll thank me for it.