In this essay, my intent will be to compare two film adaptations of the book, Great Expectations. Great Expectations is a very famous classic novel that was published in newspapers during the period of 1860-1861.

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The opening pages of a book and the opening scenes of a film are the same in one way: they should make the reader or viewer want to carry on with the book or film.

In this essay, my intent will be to compare two film adaptations of the book, Great Expectations. Great Expectations is a very famous classic novel that was published in newspapers during the period of 1860-1861. David Lean made his film in 1946, and the BBC created their version in 1997. I will decide whether they are successful in creating fear and tension.

Nowadays, it is becoming easy to create realistic special effects using computers and digital cameras. In 1946 when David Lean shot ‘Great Expectations’, he chose to make the film in black and white, when he had the option of colour. He did this because he wanted it to look like the time when the novel was set. Black and white films, more often create a scarier atmosphere, rather than that of a sophisticated colour film. An example of this is his graveyard scene, where it is dark and dull. Black and white films only make you concentrate on one thing (the most important bit), and not the background. He had neither expensive software nor previous film interpretations to help him. However, he managed to create a very good opening scene.

Lean’s opening shot is a close-up of the first page of the novel, followed by a gust of wind and the pages flicking over. Lean does this to inform the viewer that the film is an adaptation of a book, and uses continuity editing to link the first and second shots together. It also gives the viewer an idea of the weather in the opening sequence. The wind gives a little fear because it gives the viewer a bit of a chill.

The setting here is bleak and dull. The first sound we hear after the title sequence is a voiceover of the grown-up Pip, reading the text shown on the screen. This calms tension reassures the viewer that Pip survives his eventful childhood, so they stop worrying about the end of the film and pay more attention to what is happening. There is a sound-bridge of trees swaying and the wind whistling. Then, as the pages turn over and the text becomes unreadable, the audience will concentrate more on the voiceover and the rest of the film. The background music follows on from that of the title sequence, so is still fairly light-hearted. As the wind blows, the music ends with a stringed instrument; usually, a stringed instrument is a tension-building device.              

Then, the picture fades, leaving a black screen and the music, which stops as soon as the second shot appears. It builds up suspense. This is a very long shot of the marshes, with the camera panning right to follow the tiny, silhouetted figure of Pip running along the horizon. This view emphasises Pip’s isolation – not just in this sequence, but also in his life in general. He has no parents, no brothers or sisters his own age, and no friends. The sky is full of dark grey clouds, and appears menacing and powerful. The strong wind is very apparent in this scene, almost blowing Pip over as he runs towards the churchyard, reminding the viewer of his youth and vulnerability. There is no music in this scene – merely the sound-bridge continuing of the wind and a solitary bird, which adds to the sense of a vast expanse of flat, empty space. 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.

Pip runs past two gallows, or gibbets as they are called in the book. 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 a mise-en-scène. The fact that there are two gibbets instead of one indicates the presence of the other convict. This builds up fear because 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”. This stays very close to the book.

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After, 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 distanced Pip from it, which yet again shows that 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 ...

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