Red Badge Of Courage Film Analysis

To shorten an at least three hundred if not longer paged book filled with a complicated storyline, intricate details, complex characters, and an endless amount of time into two or three hours would put the director, actors, actresses, and many other film crew members in a predicament. This could lead to why an enormous amount of people find their beloved books turned into movies ruined. With multiple chapters scrapped, characters changed, scenes rewritten and added, and the budget they are given to add onto the pressure it seems understandable on how such well-written series like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter received movies only to disappoint their fanbase. In the first chapter of the book The Red Badge of Courage there are a few scenes
Throughout the first fifteen minutes of the film it appeared to follow the first chapter of the book almost identically. Both beginnings start out with a view or description of the base the soldiers stay at for the moment. Afterwards it shows the men marching with their guns, some who rode on horses, and those who practice how to hold their gun. Then they seamlessly move towards the scene where men are in the lake, washing their clothes only for one to reveal he heard they will see action by tomorrow and will move their base. The plots are moved along with a large group of men who hear about the supposed plan and argue the truthfulness or falsehood of the claim. While they debated a young soldier walked away from the group and looked frightened at the thought in both productions. The young man walked towards a tent and shortly afterwards another soldier came where the two talked about the upcoming battle and how many, if any of their fellow squad members would run away in terror. So, the very beginning of soldiers talking, and practicing would take not even a day to film and could simply be recreated as long as the actors and other influences such as the weather did not cause too much trouble. Overall the reader and viewer received a similar beginning, even though a few scenes and details did not make the
The first example of this happened in the beginning where in the film only two men washed their clothes in the river, whereas the book lead readers to believe most men are in the water. Instead of the person who already knew the news tell everyone the movie a man ran from the lake and announced it in the middle of the base. Maybe the difference was not wanting to pan out on an entire lake and risk the equipment so close to the water. Now another minor, but the way the movie and book differ is that in the book a black man did assist the men. However, in the 1951 movie as far as the fifteen-minute mark all the men introduced on the screen came up as white. This most likely happened due to the severe racism that plagued society in the 1950’s. Furthermore, the biggest difference between the book and movie is the movie completely cut out any flashbacks of the young soldier’s life before the decision to enlist in the army. The entire scene where the mother and at the time a farmer went back and forth on if the boy should enlist or not, what happened after the boy signed up, the advice the mother gave before leaving, and the treatment and stories of old veterans the young man received before the arrival. Other minor things are how the book detailed the tent and surroundings far more than the movie did. Besides the whole debate of