"I don't know anything, not any more..."
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That is not, of course, to criticise the play, a trenchant commentary on the entitled and sometimes murderous arrogance of those who take their privilege for granted. The world, even in 2024, is full of Eva Smiths, and of Birlings who need taking down a peg or two.
The play suits adaptation to film well, with a number of flashbacks, and the largely character actor cast is solid, with Jane Wenham being particularly impressive. Yet Alastair Sim owns this film. He is menacing, magnetic, charisma itself: the quiet, otherwordly centre upon whom all things revolve. This is a career defining performance.
Guy Hamilton helms the film in a straightforward, unshowy manner, perhaps. Yet that is exactly what is needed here: directorial restraint. Simply using the words and the performances to carry the devastating story is exactly what is needed here.
After this performance from Sim... it would surely take extreme bravery for anyone else to portray this part on film.It's a rare film which is elevated to greatness by one performance... but this is certainly one of them.
I learned about "An Inspector Calls" when I was in my second school and grew to love the concept that the Inspector was a ghost when I was a child because I loved ghost/supernatural concepts and everything that had to do with them. (During reading the book, I reenacted the Inspector's commanding presence by interupting other characters at the right moment). We were briefly shown this film in class, though we only saw half of it. I was a bit put off by the Inspector's name being changed from "Goole" to "Poole".
ReplyDeleteLooking back as an adult, I have learned some disliked the choice to dramatise all the Eva Smith scenes (even if it was out of necessity for a movie audience) and can understand why. What I really like and appreciate more about the original story is that "Eva" could have been anyone, there could even have been (as Birling/Gerald suggests at the end) a different girl on each occasion, and it's open to interpretation. It ultimately doesn't matter who she is; what's important is that she was one of millions who are suffering as she did. I feel that some of that impact is lost by concretely deciding that there was just one girl and making it clear to us who she was.
I also wonder if the more obvious focus on the Inspector's explicitly supernatural feel, especially when he vanishes from a chair in a room with no way out, might be too much; a stage production with Tom Baker playing the Inspector also stuck with the empty chair ending so even though the Inspector was physically absent from the last part of the play, because he was supposedly in another room his presence was still felt, hanging over the Birlings and the audience.