Of
Mice and Men, Book and Movie Review
Of
Mice and Men is a novella
written by Nobel
Prize-winning author John
Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the story of George Milton
and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant
ranch workers, who
move from place to place together in search of new job opportunities
and who have the dream to have their own ranch at one point in their
life. Lennie is a very big guy and very strong, but he is not smart
and does some bad things sometimes because he doesn’t know better
and because he’s obsessed with petting soft things. George is a
small guy but he’s very smart and he takes care of Lennie. The
story happens during the Great
Depression in California,
United States. The book was made into a movie in 1992.
There
are a few differences and lots of similarities between the book and
the movie. Differences are the
part where Lennie hallucinates about Aunt Clara and the giant rabbit
that was cut from the movie. Also in the movie, George could not find
Lennie in the brush but instead embraced with Lennie in the water.
Another difference from the book and the movie is that at the end of
the novel Slim, Curley and Carlson come to find Lennie dead and
George with the gun in his hand. George lies and tells the men that
Lennie took Carlson's gun and he tells them that he took the gun away
from Lennie and shot him in the back of his neck. The book ends with
Slim saying "You hadda George. I swear you hadda." and the
two walking away. Curley then asks Carlson what’s bugging the two.
This scene was completely cut out of the movie and replaced with
George's flashbacks. Similarities between the book and the movie are
that Lennie and George are traveling together and they both have the
dream of having their own ranch and be free men. Furthermore, in
both, the movie and the book, Candy had an old dog and he was shot by
Carlson. A third similarity of the book and the movie is the fight
between Curley and Lennie which ends with Curley having a crushed
hand. I think that scenes were added in or taken out in the movie to
make it easier to understand and maybe more interesting and
attention-drawing. Some scenes from the book just wouldn’t make
much sense in the movie and wouldn’t work out well enough, That is
why the director changed some scenes, for example the beginning and
the end.
In my opinion, the characters
did an amazing job of portraying their characters. I think George,
Lennie and Candy did the best job in having effective expressions and
gestures. The three delivered all their lines in a very convincing
way, were sympathetic and had awesome facial expressions which showed
their emotions and made the scenes easy to understand for the
viewers. For me, Lennie in the movie was exactly how I pictured him
in the book, both personality and appearance was perfect. He was big
and strong, as it is described and the book and he’s slow from his
brain and not smart. Also Candy didn’t differ at all from my vision
of the character in the novel in personality and appearance. He is a
little old guy who has a warm heart and loves his dog. He lost his
hand during a work accident and joins George’s and Lennie’s dream
of having their own ranch. I pictured George a little bit shorter
when I read the book and he was not as mean in the movie as he was in
the book. Otherwise, appearance and personality was a good match.
The director used a lot of
different camera angles, music and lighting to make the scenes
interesting. In the scene in which Lennie kills Curley’s wife, the
camera is up on the ceiling and the viewer looks down into the barn
and sees her lying in the hay. That is a very special camera angle
and the director chose that to make the scene more effective.
Additionally, the scene out on the farm when all the men are working
in the field has very happy and nice music and the sun is shining.
That shows that the characters are doing their job well and that
Lennie and George were included into the group and that they are a
good addition to the team. The music and lighting underlines that
effect. Another interesting scene is the scene with Lennie and Crooks
in Crook’s room. There is no music at all, and it is very dark in
the barn. The director chose that to make the viewer focus on the
dialogue and make it more dramatic.
The most moving scenes in the
book and the movie for me were when Carlson shot Candy’s dog and
also the end, when George kills Lennie. Both these scenes are really
sad and the director made it more moving and effective with using
close-ups on the actors faces and using special music and lighting.
With using close-ups to for example Candy’s face in the scene when
Carlson shoots his dog, it makes the viewers feel empathy and
understand the feelings of the character better.
At the end of the book there are
three deaths. Candy’s dog was shot by Carlson, Lennie killed
Curley’s wife and then George shot Lennie. John Steinbeck made
these scenes so powerful by focusing a lot on the feelings of the
characters and describing how it happened. When I read those scenes,
I felt very bad and sad for the characters (Candy and the dog,
Lennie, and George). These scenes in the movie were just as powerful
for me. The director made it very effective by using different camera
angles, for example close-ups and bird-perspective, and lighting and
music. The scenes seem more dramatic and are more effective by having
either not a lot lighting at all or having it very bright. Also, with
using different music, very slow and sad and then very fast and
hectic sometimes, it makes the viewer get excited and interested.
Also the camera focuses on the actor whose feelings are hurt most by
the death in the scene and that makes it also very powerful, because
the viewer can practically feel all the emotions the actor is feeling
too.
I think Of
Mice and Men
makes a better movie than book. Reading the book was not bad at all,
but because it is all dialogue and it was set up to be a play, it was
a little hard to read and sometimes boring. Also, it was hard to
understand the slang John Steinbeck used as the language. I liked the
movie a lot because the actors all did a very good job, had great
gestures and facial expressions and the director made the movie very
interesting and attention drawing with adding some scenes, using
music and lighting and different camera angles.
The director effectively
portrayed the two themes friendship and dreams. Lennie and George
have a very deep and strong friendship and they always have each
other’s back. They support each other and work together. Lennie
and George stick together no matter what happens and go through thick
and thin. This shows friendship in the movie. The director focused on
that theme and portrayed it very well through dialogue and scenes
like when they all work out on the field and George and Lennie help
each other and smile at each other. The theme dream is also portrayed
very well. The whole movie focuses on Lennie’s and Georges dream,
how they are going to have their own farm and “live of the fat of
the land” and Lennie says “and then I get to tend the rabbits”
and that idea is constantly repeated through dialogue and action.
Also Curley’s wife’s dream is mentioned a lot. She mentions more
than once how she could have had a totally different life and she
could have been in the movies but now she is married to Curley, whom
she actually doesn’t like very much and isn’t allowed to talk to
any other guys. The movie focuses on the different dreams of the
people a lot.
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