Ali Gul
How successful are the Openings of Steinbeck’s.
“Of Mice and Men” And Gary Sinise film version as
Foundation for the story
Steinbeck’s tragic and hard writing novel critique of the us in the 1930s. The everlasting novel is about two outsiders who are looking for a job on ranch so they can collect enough money to find there own place in this unforgiving world.
The opening of the novel and the film differ from each other in many ways. The film has a tense and dramatic start where as the novel is set in a quiet and peaceful woodland area as Steinbeck sets the scene in clear detail. The film opens with chilling pace of music in the background while the credits appearing in white writing for a couple of minutes. Gary Sinise puts the credits at the beginning rather than at the end. As the music fades there is black background with the infrequent, faint beam of moonlight, streaming through the open cracks in the box car of a train. The camera shot focuses on a lonely person, crouched in the corner, looking by the expression on his face as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. This makes the audience curious about who the man is, which makes them want to watch on to find out the identity of this character. Suddenly the film explodes into colour in a dramatic style as a panic and stricken woman, with her dress ripped, runs towards a group of men working on a ranch. The next clip is of the group of men, carrying guns on horseback, chasing two un-armed men. These two men are Lennie and George, who are racing through the grassy fields and bushes. A sense of danger and threat is created as George is continually looking over his shoulder and pushing Lennie along as the men on horseback continue to hunt the two men. When George always look over his shoulder for Lennie in real life. It shows a mother always looking over her shoulder to see if her baby is all right. Both of the men fall into a stream and hide under the overgrown Weeds and grass from the Men. The men pass by the stream and this causes a sense of excitement within the audience. The first close up on Lennie shows us his big, worried eyes, like a child, The heavy breathing stops but both men remain silent, and as time goes by the crickets begin to chirp this shows that the men have stopped chasing them.
