Alec Guinness is distinctive in his ability to combine the skills of
character actor and realistic performance in the same role. Although
he is identified with the school of acting which works from the outside
in rather than from the inside out, accumulating external details rather
than revealing inner truths, the virtuosity of his impersonations does
not seem to damage the credibility of his characterisations. His Fagin
in David Lean's Oliver
Twist (1948), though physically a caricature, is emotionally a character
of some depth. In the Ealing comedies, Kind
Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he plays all eight of the doomed
d'Ascoynes, gives full scope to his playful virtuosity, while The
Man in the White Suit (1951) gives him a role of appealing but dangerous
innocence.
Guinness won an Oscar, a New York Film Critics award and a British
Academy award for his performance as the insanely uncompromising Captain
Nicholson in David Lean's The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), a theme on which he played variations
in Tunes of Glory
(1960). Since the 1960s, his performances have been a little more predictable,
though his role as Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars series almost stole
the movies from the action men. His most satisfying and complete characterisation
in recent years was as George Smiley in the BBC television serialisations
of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and Smiley's
People (1982). Knighted in 1959, he was given a Special Academy Award
in 1979 for 'advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable
and distinguished performances'.
