When Pip reaches the end of the visible horizon, he turns and continues running down the path towards the camera. The shadows on his face gradually fall away, giving the audience their first clear view of the main character. As he gets closer, his heavy breathing becomes more audible, suggesting he has been running for a long time, and possibly running away from something (Mrs. Joe Gargery, for example).
Pip also runs past two gallows, or gibbets as they are called in the novel. Although these are only in view for no more than a few seconds, they are a vital part of the opening sequence. In the concluding paragraph of the first chapter of ‘Great Expectations’, Dickens describes the convict limping towards the gibbet, ‘as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again’. This image has a great effect on Pip (‘it gave me a terrible turn when I thought so’), but has been omitted from the film. Therefore, the gibbets are in this shot to represent the last part of the chapter; a technique more commonly known as mis-en-scène. The fact that there are two gibbets instead of one indicates the presence of the other convict, of whom Magwitch says, “there’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am an Angel”. In the last shot of the opening sequence, we see Pip running back across the moors, and the gibbets are once again clearly visible against the menacing sky, reminding the audience of Magwitch’s threat to “softly creep and creep his way to him [Pip] and tear him open”.
In the next few shots, Pip jumps over a gap in the wall and walks across the churchyard. This simple action sets the scene for the viewer, and also makes a contrast between the solitary, living figure of Pip and the rows of cold, stone graves behind him. Lean has made the church look cold and uninviting by casting it half in shadow. He has also put distanced Pip from it, which yet again shows that he (Pip) is alone. The fact that Pip is so isolated in this scene makes the viewer concerned for him, and the suspense mounts as we wait for the inevitable to happen.
When Pip reaches his parents’ grave, he starts pulling weeds out of the surrounding earth and replacing them with fresh flowers. We can see from the close-up of the grave that it has been considerably neglected, so the viewer makes the assumption that Pip is the only person who ever visits the grave. Suddenly, Pip stops and turns round, looking up at the large tree behind him. The contrast between the dark, moving branches of the tree and the grey, cloudy sky creates an unforgettable image in the viewer’s mind, and the sound of the creaking trees in the wind adds an eerie touch to the scene. The camera then switches back onto Pip’s scared face, then onto a knot in another tree, which looks strangely like a face. This shot suggests that Pip is beginning to imagine things in his nervous state of mind, and also leaves the audience in suspense as to whether Pip is actually being watched. We then return to the close-up of Pip’s face. I think that this sequence of shots corresponds very well with the line ‘and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.’ The audience can see and hear exactly what is making Pip uneasy, and should begin to experience some of the fear which is obviously affecting him.
It is at this point that Pip finally runs into Magwitch. Lean builds up the tension very well here, by keeping the camera on Pip constantly, following him as he gets up and runs away. This means that we do not see Magwitch until Pip runs straight into him, which is a great shock for the audience.
Strangely, Lean does not use music to increase the tension in this part of the film. The creaking of the trees, coupled with the occasional sound of a bird, are the only sounds used. This near-silence helps to create an atmosphere of isolation, and reminds the viewer that Pip is (supposedly) the only living person in the churchyard, and indeed for quite some distance. The tension is finally released when Pip looks up at Magwitch and screams. This is the first ‘human’ sound we have heard since the voiceover ended, so the scene begins to seem less eerie and instead, simply terrifying.
Magwitch has obvious power over Pip, and Lean has used their differences in heights to demonstrate this. Pip is at least a head shorter than Magwitch, and instead of bending down to speak to him, Magwitch lifts him up to his eye level. This means that Magwitch is able to threaten Pip sincerely – he keeps eye contact, while maintaining his powerful, foreboding stance. Later, when he is ordering Pip to “bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles”, he puts him on top of a tombstone and tilts him backwards, ‘so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine [Pip’s], and mine looked most helplessly up into his.” This again shows the audience just how strong Magwitch is, and makes them more fearful for Pip.
There are only two points during this sequence when the audience sees a different side to Magwitch. The first of these is when he is eating the apple which falls out of Pip’s pocket. The close close-up of Magwitch shows him eating hastily, almost feverishly, as if he hasn’t eaten for days. This makes him appear more vulnerable, and the audience may start to wonder if he is threatening Pip because it is his nature, or simply because he is a deperate man. The second of these points is when Magwitch asks Pip where his mother is, and Pip points towards the gravestone. Magwitch obviously thinks that Pip’s mother is alive, and turns round and starts to run away. The fact that a grown man, especially a hardened criminal, is afraid of a young woman, may have seemed quite ridiculous to a 1940s audience, and this glimpse of fear on Magwitch’s part may make them less afraid of him, if only until he begins threatening Pip again.
One of the main differences between the book and the film in this opening sequence is that Lean focuses more on Pip’s character, rather than Magwitch. In the book, the chapter ends with Magwitch leaving the churchyard, and Pip watching him. Here, Dickens uses Pip’s narration to make the reader feel sympathy towards Magwitch, by creating images of him ‘hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet along the great stones dropped into the marshes’. Lean’s version does not provoke as much sympathy for Magwitch, and instead ends with Pip running through the churchyard and tripping over a tree root, before returning to the long-long shot of the marshes, with Pip running back home along the horizon. This again reminds the viewer just how vulnerable Pip is, and makes the audience feel anxious for him in his haste to get away. I appreciate that it is impossible to include all the elements of an entire chapter in just a few minutes of footage, but I think that David Lean has made Magwitch appear more cold-hearted and inhumane than Dickens intended him to be. Also, when we later learn that Magwitch is in fact Pip’s unknown benefactor, this seems less realistic as he was appeared brutal and uncaring in the opening sequence. This may be intentional however, as a dramatic twist in the plot of a film is very effective, and Lean would have wanted to emphasise this particular part of the novel in order to keep the audience in suspense throughout the film.
In preparation for this coursework I have watched three other versions of ‘Great Expectations’: the BBC version, the HTV version and a modern BBC version. The BBC version starts at the churchyard, again with a voiceover of the older Pip re-telling his story. The voiceover continues for longer in this version, however. The voiceover in the David Lean version stops at the end of the first short paragraph of the novel, but this voiceover continues until Magwitch starts speaking. I think this is quite effective, especially as the camera shots follow the narration (for example, when he voiceover reads out the names of Pip’s five brothers, the camera pans across the five children’s graves). When the last word is read out (“Pip”), Pip suddenly turns round and we see a close close-up of Magwitch’s face. I do not think that this version is as scary as the original, because we do not get the feeling that Pip is being watched, so there is a lot less suspense. The slow, minor string music in the background is too calm and depressing for the audience to feel frightened. The only moment which may provoke fear in the viewer is when Pip turns round and sees Magwitch, as the music suddenly pauses on a dischord, similar to that in horror films.
The HTV version is a lot closer to the original. We see Pip weeding the grave, and the trees moving in the wind. The music (unusual orchestral dischords) adds a great deal of atmosphere and tension to the sequence. However, I think that the opening sequence which provokes the most suspense and fear in the audience is the modern BBC version. It starts with Pip running through a deserted cornfield. We cannot see Pip, but we can hear his heavy breathing, and the camera moves forward jerkily, as if we are looking at the scene through Pip’s eyes. This is known as a ‘point-of-view-shot’, and is very effective as we cannot see who or what Pip is running from. Eventually, Pip reaches the churchyard and crouches down behind a gravestone. He cautiously peers around it, looking for his pursuer, but we can still only see his feet. The audience does not see Magwitch in full until he is on top of Pip, which causes a great deal of suspense as we want to know why Pip is running, and what the man looks like. The clever use of point-of-view shots enables the viewer to empathise with Pip, and share his fear of Magwitch during this opening sequence.
In conclusion, I think that Lean has combined camera angles and shots with use of sound effects and light to create an effective atmosphere of suspense and fear in this opening sequence. Some of the techniques used, such as the point-of-view shot of the knot in the tree, are very innovative and, I assume, quite unusual for such an old film. A modern audience, particularly a younger one, might not be so moved by this film, as nowadays we are constantly being bombarded with special effects and computer graphics, but a 1940s audience would certainly have been captivated from the moment the film began. Lean was certainly a pioneer in the film industry, and I think that if he had had access to the technology and finances that directors have today, he would have been able to create an even more gripping and frightening version of this equally gripping and frightening novel.
