Kunta Kinte says this harsh quotation after he is stripped away from his family, his friends, his home, his town, and his life and taken to America to work as a slave. This quotation shows how Kunta compares the rich culture in his African hometown, to the American culture. The story of the life of Kunta and his descendants is told by Kunta’s seventh generation descendant, Alex Haley, in a stunning book Roots. Roots traces Haley’s ancestors back to Africa and beyond, covering a journey and a saga of more than two hundred years. Roots is made into a movie, and a mini series covering the story of the book. The director of movie tried to stay very close to the author’s intent of the novel. This is shown in the movie through the similar characters, plot, major events, and overall message.

The characters of Roots show how the movie is very similar to the book. The characters in the movie are made to act more affectionately by the director. He wants to show how loving the characters are and how their family is caring and affectionate. The characters in the movie bring out more sympathy from the viewer, compared to

The resemblance of the movie to Roots can be traced by the identical major events. One such event concerns the capturing of Kunta in Africa. This scene is crucial in Roots because it is the bridge of the transformation of life for Kunta. This scene sets up the story of Kunta’s forlorn and long ill fated life in America. This scene is very significant and is acted out amazingly. The capture of Kunta is shown with ruthlessness by the slave catchers. The director uses low-key lighting to foreshadow an image of a chilling event in the viewers’ minds. The low light in the event, does put an imagery of helplessness exerted by Kunta during his capture, but the occasional high angle shots and the fast paced nondiegetic music enhance the effect of the alarming event. The director uses these tools to his advantage, and augments the reality of the situation to the viewers. The setting of Kunta’s capture is very plain, and somewhat surrealistic. It is a huge grassland with some scattered trees, and no visible humans nearby. This setting makes it easier for the slavers to capture Kunta and overpower him quicker. It also gains sympathy of the viewers at Kunta’s devastating capture, and no friends to help him. The movie uses four slavers as the capturers, but the book claims of only two white men. The director adds more capturers, to tell how and why Kunta could not escape from the clutches of them. The director keeps this and other major scenes the same as the book, because he wants to inform the viewer of Kunta merciless capture, but also create a form of hatred towards the issue of slavery.

The plot of Roots shows the director’s views on keeping the movie very realistically alike to the book. The plot is parallel and the differences are very subtle, if any. The director keeps the plot very closely associated to the book because he wants to enhance the reality of the situation of slavery and the harsh cruelty of life in America. The plot action that is changed a bit by the director, concerns minor situations including the minor details of characters’ life, like Kunta’s childhood in Africa with his family, and though this aspect in the plot is missed, the overall message of the contented life in Africa is achieved through major events like Kunta’s manhood training and his relationship with his family and friends. The director also shifts minor plot action, to connect the scenes, and the movie together. The scene in which Kunta catches a bird, and s

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