Roots analysis

The director makes the characters thoroughly helpless, because he wants to stress the fact of the cruel and harsh life the slaves faced in America. The white masters and the slave overseers in the movie do not express their true hatred towards the slaves. They do beat the slaves, but the staunch, deep hatred is not truly shown by the white characters. The slave owners are often kind towards the blacks, and that fact is over exaggerated in the movie. The director made this personality change in the white characters, because this movie is made right after the civil rights movement, and if he does not show kindness in the whites, the movie would lose popularity among the majority of the population. The change in the names or personality of a few characters does not change the story, because most of the changes are made to minor characters. The director changes mostly the minor characters because, he does not want to alter a true story, but he still keeps the minor characters interesting, and a part of the story. The movie is more effective in telling the story because it gives the viewer a visual image and provides the same detail and story as the book. This holds true because, even though the characters are slightly changed, they provide the viewer the same information from Roots, and the director succeeds in keeping the characters very similar to the book. .
             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.