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Analysis Of ' Kill A Mockingbird ' By Robert Mulligan

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Based on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird published in 1960, Robert Mulligan’s 1962 film adaptation employs the use of several nonverbal elements to emphasize emotions that dialogue fails to portray or evoke reactions from viewers. In Lee’s novel, Scout is narrating past events of her childhood that seem to accurately portray the characters and their personalities. The children, Jem Finch, played by Philip Alford, Jean Finch or Scout, played by Mary Badham, and Dill, played by John Megna, are very curious and adventurous. They are mature for their age due to the way in which they were raised, yet their childlike curiosity sparks a desire to find out if the rumors about Boo Radley are true. This curiosity leads to them sneaking into the …show more content…

The children are ignorant of these horrors until Atticus takes the Tom Robinson case, but then the children are able to understand that Boo is not a monster and he is in fact very wise to stay to himself. Then, before they enter the Radley’s yard, the adaptation shows the children stop and crouch down next to the fence. The camera gets a medium shot from a low angle to get on the children’s level and add suspense, for the children’s expressions show reluctance and fear to going up to the Radley house, especially after the children hear a loud thud while discussing their course of action. The camera switches to a view of the front porch where the wind is blowing, and it appears that the wind has caused the swing on the porch to bump the wall creating the thud. This causes the children to relax slightly, as they have not been caught or the sound was not created by anything other than the wind. Then the camera goes back to an extreme long shot to show the house in the darkness and covered in shadows while a suspenseful series of piano notes plays to recreate an eerie feeling and get back to the action taking place. The scene dissolves into the children crawling on the ground to the fence they are going to crawl under to get into the Radley yard. The eerie music then changes to a light and childlike melody with a few undertones of occasional eerie notes. This childlike melody exemplifies the children’s inevitable curiosity, the

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