united kingdom, 1958, englishFinally back in the AGCU! This is where all his characters end up eventually, even Obi-Wan Kenobi. Especially Obi-Wan. A force ghost painting pictures of feet forevermore.
RONALD NEAME
The Horse’s Mouth
It’s been quite a while since my last Alec Guinness film, which is an utterly intolerable situation to be in. Luckily I have rectified it, with this oddball weirdo of a movie. Funny and charming, but also just random and confusing. These are the types of gems that would be lost to history without groups like the Criterion Collection, long may they reign.
I find it somewhat incredible that, until I began this journey, I only knew Alec Guinness from one role. And, in particular, that it was from Star Wars. That’s like only knowing Max von Sydow from... uh... Star Wars. Bad analogy maybe. But my point is that Obi-Wan Kenobi is, by far, Guinness’ least interesting or compelling character. His entire career before that is full of absolute bangers and I can’t believe I almost never knew about them.
One of the many things I love about his acting is how different the roles he played were. A lot of that is down to directors, I suppose, although he certainly worked with Ronald Neame a lot. But in this case he actually wrote the script himself, so clearly he wanted to push himself. And push himself he did. This is a weird character. We pick up in medias res and never totally recover, but we can piece together the general feel of things.
And that feel is of a weirdo with a very distinctive voice. An anti-hero, maybe, but maybe just a jerk? A character who is engaging with the world around him like a natural disaster does. Unpredictable, often unpleasant, sometimes creates something of true beauty. Like a hurricane and the beautiful sky it leaves in its aftermath. Not someone I’d ever want to know in real life, but a fun character to spend an evening watching.