“For England”
along with his sidekick 006. He is also quite a humorous character.
In Of Mice and Men the hero is George. We first meet him in a sitting position, thinking hard about something. We can also tell he is on a train, as the sound represents that. Bars are in front of George, who is sitting in his own shadow, with light flashing on him. Each time the light does this, we see more and more of him. This then dramatically changes in to a chase scene, where we see George again, dominating a much more childlike character, called Lennie. We learn from these opening scenes that George is a dominant leader, has good ideas and is maybe moving on from something that he needs to think hard about. The whole story is a flashback of what George is thinking right at the start.
The use of the soundtrack in Goldeneye was quite good. At the start of the film was the well known “James Bond Theme Tune”. The sound definitely matched the action, eg. When 007 is diving, then the music is ver fast and dramatic. The film is mainly music with words on top, as there is rarely solo speaking solo music.
In Of Mice and Men, the soundtrack was excellent. At first, there was just a steady beat, played by string instruments, then on top of that there was a solo piano tune, gradually the strings faded out, which just left the piano. Then you heard the sounds of the train, so even if at first the audience wasn’t sure about what the object was, the music told them. Then there was chase music, which also made the action very obvious that it was a chase and not just say, a running race! The film was mainly words, but the soundtrack matched the action.
Goldeneye was a great example of colour imagery. Colour imagery also leads to emotion, as shown here. At the very start, there was red, white and black (standing for good, bad and evil). 007 and 006 were in black, and you could see only their shadows for quite a lot of the time, which showed they were secretive. There was pure white snow, surrounding the chemical plant, standing for innocence, but the rugged mountaintops were black, as a contrast. The Russian army wore dark green (which might mean they were all jealous and envious of each, and didn’t have any feelings for each other, as the leader just shoots someone for putting a toe out of line). On the whole, the chemical plant itself was very dull and boring.
Of Mice and Men didn’t use as much colour imagery as Goldeneye, but it was still good on the whole. Examples of the uses were; at the very start, when the actor’s names were appearing, they were in black and white, which was contrast symbolising that something dramatic is/has happened. Another example was when the girl was running through the field she was wearing a red and white dress, which maybe meant that she was a character misunderstood.
The camera angles were excellent in Goldeneye. The first good one was right at the start, when the audience looks through a gunhole at the red, white and black. Also when James Bond is falling from the dam, you see him from above, below and the side. When he enters the chemical plant you see the man sitting on the toilet from above and also from the person’s own eyesight. When 007 is falling from the plant to try and catch up with the plane, you also see him from above, below and the side.
Of Mice and Men hardly has any special camera angles, but here is one of the ones I spotted. When George and Lennie are hiding in the swamp, you see thought George’s own eyes, and see what he is also seeing.
It is interesting to see that two films so different in script share so much in the types of film technique. Examining a film so thoroughly definitely brings a deeper understanding and shows how hard a film directors job must be, if they were to direct a film!