How does the film compare to the images of childhood represented in other movies or television programs you have seen?

The film has
a very realistic portrayal of
childhood. Especially in the way the children talk to each other.
They speak
as if they have their own world separate to the adults. This is highlighted in
the
sequence at the beginning when an unseen child is playing with her toys
using her own added
sound effects. Thecontinues through the children's
obsession with the legend of .

The realism reminds me of
British films about childhood such as Kes.
The children in
Kes are older and less innocent, but like To Kill
A
Mockingbird, the film portrays the children in a way the viewer
can strongly identify
with.

However, I think
most strongly resembles
Night of the
Hunter €“ a film made about 7 years earlier. There are
definitely
differences, but the children in the films have a similar background. Like in

To Kill a Mockingbird the children in Night of a
Hunter
are brother and sister from a small town in the south. In
the same way,talks to herself when she
plays with her toys, the young girl in
Night of the Hunter talks to herself
while playing with
her doll. In addition, both sets of children come from one-parent families.

The children in To Kill a Mockingbird are raised by their father and
the
children in Night of a Hunter are raised by their
mother. At the beginning of
both films this gives the children the freedom to
roam and play that they perhaps wouldn't have
had otherwise.

The difference between the two films is that To Kill
a
Mockingbird shows the child's imagination as wild and not necessarily based
in
reality while Night of the Hunter shows the child's
imagination as having
more than just a small element of truth to it. While in
To Kill A
Mockingbird, Boo Radley, the film's would be
bogey man proves to be harmless, in
Night of the Hunter,
the Reverend Harry Powell proves to be a psychopath. He
will do anything to
get his hands on money. Even hunt down and kill
children.

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