Compare And Contrast To Kill A Mockingbird Book Vs Movie

The Everlasting Debate
One of the most debated subject in the world now is whether the book or the movie is better. Those who side with the book often times might argue that the book has more detail or has a better narrative. On the other hand, those who side with movie might say the movie depicted the story better. This debate is such a widely spoken debate due to its relativity. Almost every book and movie combo have its critics to compare them. The movie and book combo of To Kill a Mockingbird is no exception. The movie and the book To Kill a Mockingbird have many differences including differences in characters, themes, and events throughout the story. And even though Author Harper lee stated "I can only say that I am a happy author. They have made my story into a beautiful and moving motion picture. I am very proud and grateful." It is still obvious that the book is more effective and overall more developed.
Loss of Scenes
Movie producers often times remove scenes when making movies of books.
The directors are often criticized when the scenes are removed even if those scenes are minor ones. Robert Mulligan was also a director who removed scenes from the movie (To Kill a Mockingbird) when necessary. One of the scenes that was cut during the movie was inside the school house in the beginning. The movie skipped from the begging of the school day right to the end when the fight occurred. Skipping the scenes in the school house and the loss of the caste system in Maycomb causes the film to lose Maycomb’s depth. The novel form of To Kill a Mockingbird goes more in depth into the town of Maycomb and into its many layers. Maycomb’s caste like structure, an example is how the Cunninghams cannot pay anyone back, gives more insight on the way of the
town.
Loss of Characters
Due to the time limit that a movie has to face, oftentimes characters are removed to allow the movie to progress smoothly and feel less crammed. The downside to that is that removing characters can take away from the story. When removing characters’ directors will remove characters who they feel can be combined in to one person, or any character who doesn’t seem important. In reality all characters are important in a story, even if it seems like they aren’t they help progress the story somehow. Oftentimes characters that are removed can change the themes present. One theme lost from To Kill a Mockingbird is acting like a lady. The movie does not feature aunt Alexandra at all, during the novel Alexandra tells scout that she should act like a lady. Due to the loss of the character in the movie an important theme is lost as well. In addition, actors casted for characters might not match the description of the character in the book. Now what may seem as a problem to have, this can be very distracting to avid book readers. The readers cannot get past the incorrect look for a character and cannot enjoy the movie. In the movie, the character Dill is one of them, In the novel he has very light hair that resembles duck fluff, while the movie shows him with dark hair plastered to his head. Also in books a narrator is easily done, inner workings of a character and narrations done are difficult to do in a movie. During the movie there was a slight narration done in scout’s perspective. The narration was solely used to to establish settings or to further explain something. This caused the narrator to be less effective than in the novel. The novel featured scout’s experiences including in the court case. When there was no narration in the court scene of the movie an important part of the theme of coming of age was lost. The film never showed scout trying to understand the case, trying to become more of an adult. Instead the movie remained quiet during this scene, which caused it to lose its effectiveness.
Loss of Themes
When a movie form of a novel is made, one large change that occurs is the loss of themes. Sometimes new themes are created, but oftentimes many themes are lost. This Leads authors to complain that their stories have been misinterpreted. Famous author Daniel Handler ( Lemony Snicket) stated in an interview “[The writer feels] like everybody is thinking about your thing and they’re not thinking about it the way you want them to.” This idea occurred with To Kill a Mockingbird, as many themes were lost with the creation of the movie. One of the lost themes was the theme mentioned before of acting like a lady. When new themes are created and lost the idea the author was trying to spread is changed