To Kill a Mockingbird

Movies are usually inspired a by stories or book as well. One classic which was turned into a movie is To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem, in 1930's Alabama. Through their neighborhood meanderings and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems.

The summer when Scout was six and Jem was ten, they met Dill, a little boy who spent the summer with his aunt who lived next door to the Finches. Dill and Jem become obsessed with the idea of making Boo Radley, the neighborhood recluse, come out of his home. They go through plan after plan, but nothing draws him out. However, these brushes with the neighborhood ghost result in a tentative friendship over time and soon the Finch children realize that Boo Radley deserves to live in peace, so they leave him alone.

Scout and Jem's God-like father, Atticus, is a respected and upstanding lawyer in small Maycomb County. When he takes on a case that pits innocent, black Tom Robinson against two dishonest white people, Atticus knows that he will lose, but he has to defend the man or he can't live with himself. The case is the biggest thing to hit Maycomb County in years and it turns the whole town against Atticus, or so it seems. Scout and Jem are forced to bear the slurs against their father and watch with shock and disillusionment as their fellow townspeople convict an obviously innocent man because of his race. The only real enemy that Atticus made during the case was Bob Ewell, the trashy white man who accused Tom Robinson of raping his daughter. Despite Ewell's vow to avenge himself against Atticus, Atticus doesn't view Ewell as any real threat.

Tom Robinson is sent to a work prison to await another trial, but before Atticus can get him to court again, Tom is shot for trying to escape the prison. It seems that the case is finally over and life returns to normal until Halloween night. On the way home from a pageant, Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout in the darkness. After Jem's arm is badly broken, their ghostly neighbor, Boo Radley, rescues Scout and her brother. In order to protect Boo's privacy, the sheriff decides that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife while he was struggling with Jem. Boo Radley returns home never to be seen again.

Through the events of those two years, Scout learns that no matter their differences or peculiarities, the people of the world and of Maycomb County are all people. No one is lesser or better than anyone else because they're all people. She realizes that once you get to know them, most people are good and kind no matter what they seem like on the outside.

The different media of film and book mean that with the same story of To Kill a Mockingbird different devices can be used to show the meaning of the story. However, the film is compressed and some sections are inevitably omitted. This means that the film director had to be selective as to which parts were included in the film, which could distort or alter the final impression that you are left with. The book To Kill a Mockingbird his concerned with many wider issues such as family, childhood, and Southern customs, but the film focuses mainly on racism and prejudice.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a much better book than a movie. The book is much more descriptive and easier to understand. The movie is harder to understand because there is no narrative, like in the book. The book also has more suspense, and keeps you interested waiting for something to happen. The movie moves to fast, and misses too many scenes. This makes the movie too predictable. It is easy to see what is going to happen. In conclusion, the book is much more thorough and significant that the movie.

First of all a film is a visual medium, which makes a first-person story difficult to tell. To have Scout narrating throughout the film as she does in the book would prove distracting, so Scout as narrator is only presented to set the mood of a scene in the film. As a result, viewers don't get a strong sense of Scout's first-person narration as they do in the book; instead, they simply notice the childlike perspective portrayed in the story. The film uses music to help reinforce the child's point of view. Because the narration is not as straightforward in the film, the film seems to shift more to Jem's experiences. For example, Jem finds all the articles in the tree. Jem accompanies Atticus to tell Helen Robinson of her husband's death. Jem is left alone to watch his sister. Scout is still an important character, but the film expands on her brother's role.

Any book or movie is incomplete without the characters. A film has less time to tell its story and therefore often concentrates the events of a story into fewer characters; when a book makes the transition to film, characters and their actions are often combined. For instance, Miss Stephanie Crawford is Dill's aunt and Cecil Jacobs, not Francis Hancock, drives Scout to break her promise to Atticus about fighting. Aunt Alexandra isn't present in the movie at all, so the issue of Scout "acting like a lady" never plays a major role in the film. Film also often introduces new characters to help develop the story line. In the film, Scout and Jem have a conversation about their deceased mother which brings her alive for the viewers; the book devotes a single paragraph to her. Viewers also meet Tom Robinson's children and father. His father isn't mentioned in the book, and his children receive only a brief mention.

There are many characters who, in the film, were left out, but whose presence was critical to the story in the book. The most important of these characters are Lula, Alexandra, and Jack. These characters were placed in the book each for their own specific reason. Lula, who was used to illustrate the counter racism which also took place in the south, was the only example in the story of black on white racism. Alexandra, was used to exemplify the stereotypical southern woman, the huge importance she placed on family, her affinity for gossip, and her penchant for stern disciplinary action are all representative of the clichй of a southern woman. And lastly, Jack was used to counteract that clichй and reflect the more progressive southern person, along with Atticus, he showed that not all southerners conformed to the older schools of thought. His patience with Scout, his understanding of Atticus' situation, and support thereof, all contradicted the norm of the community in the south, thus showing that not everyone fit the stereotype. The movie, however, excluded all three of these characters who seem to be somewhat