Title Is From Dickens, the Look From Donna Karan
(by Jean Nathan)


It's dusk, so nightfall has advanced under the vaulted entrance to the
Chambers Street subway station. In the semi-darkness a gang of urchins,
sauntering through, is diverted by a table brimming with meats and
pastries, cheeses and fruits.

Just as the little Oliver Twists step up to the table, a man appears.

"Can we have some?"

"No."

"Please, sir?"

"No, it's for the movie crew."

Dickensian is the proper spirit, but the guard's jacket says "Great
Expectations" not "Oliver Twist."

The scene is being shot on the subway platform below, where Ethan Hawke
(playing Pip, now known as Finn) is hustling Robert De Niro (playing
Magwich, now known as Lustig) onto the train to the plane. Really.

The film's locations are emphatically not anywhere near Dickens's
England: "Great Expectations" has been shooting in Florida; Yonkers; on
West 43d Street, at the Carter Hotel, where Finn initially lives; on
Franklin Street in TriBeCa; at an Astor Place loft; in Central Park, and
at the Ukrainian Institue on Fifth Avenue and 79th Street.

And the differences extend beyond setting: Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow)
wears almost black nail polish and Donna Karan clothes. Her fiance,
Walter (Hank Azaria), is "afraid of commitment." Finn is having a debut
show at a SoHo gallery. They're eating at Kelly and Ping. Finn's sister
is smoking pot. Finn brings a convict called Lustig a Fluffernutter
sandwich, instead of Magwich's brandy, mincemeat and pork pie.

In fact, the title itself may be the only recognizable element of
"Great Expectations" when the director Alfonso Cuaron is through.

Many, in fact, feel it might be better to cut the cord completely.

"If it turns out to be a great movie," Mr. Hawke said, "they'll title it
'Great Expectations.' If it's not, maybe they'll call it 'Clueless.' "

Art Linson, the movie's producer, added: "This is not for purists. People
who expect 'Great Expectations' may be disappointed, but there would be
no audience for it if we just filmed the book. If we can make this love
story between this poor kid and this rich snob girl come to life in some
contemporary way with all the twists and turns that Dickens gives it,
hey, it could be fabulous."

The movie, which also stars Anne Bancroft as Miss Havisham (now called
Miss Dinsmoor), completed filming last week and will be released next
fall.

In the treacherous business of movie making, here is a rare instance of
what would seem to be perfect planetary alignment: a cast including
several of the hottest actors alive, a bankroll from 20th Century Fox, a
production team of rare compatibility and a screenplay based on a work by
a dead writer who can't complain and whose masterpiece is in the public
domain.

The rights may be free, but "Great Expectations" is not free of risks.

"When you take a beloved work of literature and make a movie out of it,
I think it's always kind of an audacious move," Ms. Paltrow said.

Mr. Linson added: "You can go the way of 'Clueless,' " the fiercely
contemporary update of Jane Austen's "Emma," "which is terrifically funny
and broad, or you can take it seriously, which is what we're doing. It's
one way or the other. And if we fall into the cracks between, I'll be
opening up a film clinic in Argentina."

Dickens is dead. There's even a chapter title by that name in Mr.
Linson's recent book, "A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce
Movies in Hollywood." But even dead, Dickens has this producer nervous.

It's day 60-something in the shoot, and Mr. Linson is countering his
jitters by launching into a comedy routine. "What is this? Art Linson's
job in life to take great literature and destroy it," he says.

"God. Warn people. I'm maybe thinking of Shakespeare next time." Back in
his trailer, answering his cellular phone, he muses to Bryan McNally, the
New York restaurateur, about what other authors he could trounce: "Maybe
Thomas Mann. He wrote some good books. Maybe Camus. Did he have anything
good?" Off the phone: "How I ever got myself into this mess, I really
don't know."

Actually, he knows very well. In 1860, Charles Dickens wrote "Great
Expectations," the story of a poor orphan who became a gentleman thanks
to a mysterious benefactor and whose heart is broken by the orphaned girl
Estella. Considered to have the most modern sensibility of any of Dickens'
novels, "Great Expectations" is also considered the most perfectly
constructed.

The best known movie version of the book was made in 1946 by the great
director David Lean.

Aside from introducing a few talking trees, Lean's version stuck tight
to the original story. In 1994, John Linson, who works for his father and
is a co-producer of the film, was reviewing Lean's movies. He thought
"Great Expectations" was ripe for a remake because it was still relevant.

"I said, 'It's a horrible, horrible idea, but thanks anyway,' " Mr.
Linson recalls telling his son. Then he watched the movie, read the book
and changed his mind.

Others involved in the project were also skeptical at first, among them
Mitch Glazer, a longtime friend of Mr. Linson's, and the screenwriter for
"Scrooged," who wrote the script.

"I thought it seemed so specific to Dickens's time," Mr. Glazer said.
"Initially, I couldn't think of how you would update it. But the more I
thought about it, there was a lot in there that was timeless and really
just great and powerful stuff.

"I grew up in Miami," he said, "and for vacations we would take a drive
up to Palm Beach and we would drive past huge mansions. Miss Havisham,
who is she? The idea of the ruined, eccentric lady from Palm Beach was
an easy way into it. And thinking that the Pip character could be the
nephew of a fisherman or a gardener who goes off to work on the lawn of
Miss Havisham's mansion, and meets her niece, Estella."

So Mr. Glazer made Pip an artist who goes to New York and tries to win
Estella by becoming a celebrity artist. He also eliminated many of the
subplots. "There were just too many coincidences piled on top of each
other," he said.

And the name changes? "Almost from the start, I knew I was going to
change the names," he said. "I was afraid they would take people out of
the movie. 'Miss Havisham,' 'Pip,' 'Magwich,' were almost untouchable to
me. To keep the names might signal a literal remake."

At this point the film was still without a director, and Mr. Cuaron, who
had made "A Little Princess," was in Paris, wondering what to do next.
"I had made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to do anything that
had to do with tales or children when Art started harassing me about
'Great Expectations.' I said, 'No way.' He said, 'At least read 20 pages
so you can pass.' I read 20 pages, and here I am."

Three months ago, the cast and crew went to work in Cortez, Fla., where
Finn (a k a Pip) is born and raised and where he encounters Lustig, Miss
Dinsmoor, Uncle Joe (played by Chris Cooper) and Estella (whose name was
kept, according to Art Linson, "because we could never top it"). Then
they moved to New York. One night they could be found setting up to shoot
Finn's first SoHo gallery show (with paintings by Francesco Clemente) at
the Thrall Gallery, whose owner is played by Nell Campbell.

Mr. Cuaron had his Mexican contingent with him: Emmanuel Lubezki, who is
director of photography, and the camera operator Rodrigo Garcia, who is
the son of the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

A slightly less literary group was made up of what Mr. Hawke (whose own
novel, "The Hottest State," was recently published) calls the "Hollywood
types," Mr. Glazer and Mr. Linson. Mr. Glazer was married to his first
wife at Mr. Linson's home, and Mr. Glazer and his second wife, Kelly
Lynch, were two of five guests at Mr. Linson's second wedding in Hawaii
last year.

Then there was what Mr. Hawke calls the New York actor group, referring
to himself and Ms. Paltrow, who are old friends. And Mr. De Niro, of
course, who has done four previous films with Mr. Linson. Then there's
Drena De Niro, Mr. De Niro's daughter, who has a cameo role as a gallery
assistant.

And then there's the color green. Everyone -- behind the camera and in
front -- was wearing something green, a color the director favors. Like
Mr. Cuaron's "Little Princess," "Great Expectations" was designed almost
entirely in shades of green.

"I have to say that green is the only color I understand," explained Mr.
Cuaron. "I can really frame it; I know how to work with it. I see other
colors, and they feel alien. I cannot give you a rational explanation
why.

"There are a whole lot of things," he added laughing. "I'm trying to get
my green card and green lights for my movies."

Ms. Paltrow put it another way: "Alfonso has a green problem. I think
he's clinically insane, but in a very charming way."

So, probably, did Ms. Karan, the queen of black, who was asked to design
Ms. Paltrow's wardrobe but only in shades of green. So, probably, did the
150 extras who appear at Finn's gallery opening, who were told to wear
some combination of black and green.

"Some days it makes me insane, and sometimes it makes it easier," said
then costume designer Judianna Makovsky. "But all films have a palette,
and you have to keep in mind that green can be anywhere from khaki to
dark black green." Ms. Paltrow said she even wore light green nail polish
in one scene "as my ode to Alfonso."

But Mr. Cuaron may not have as much influence with the movie's title as
he has had with its palette.

"I hope we can change the title," he said. "It's scary because you will
create all these great expectations about 'Great Expectations,' which,
in a way, is not 'Great Expectations.' That was so smart what they did
with 'Clueless.' They didn't pretend to be 'Emma,' but they didn't deny
it."

The problem, said Mr. Glazer, is that the "title is exactly what the
movie's about."

"It's the greatest title there is," Mr. Linson said. "If I had a candy
bar, I'd call it 'Great Expectations.' "

CREDIT: Ethan Hawke, as Finn (a.k.a. Pip) and Gwyneth Paltrow, as
Estella. (Phillip Caruso/20th Century Fox)

Copyright 1996 The New York Times