A RAISIN IN THE SUN - Play and Movie

 The changes that the movie made to the play largely added to the story by putting in details that the play form was unable to. 

The brief scenes of Walter working at his job and discussing the deal with his friends at the bar made his character stronger. The audience got a better idea of how his situation affected him and how desperate he was for the deal to go through earlier in the story. Walter and Mama’s conversation happening at the bar also seemed to make it more significant - Mama is seeing Walter making bad decisions but is still choosing to trust him. The contrast between this trust and Walter’s later choices is much stronger when she is trusting him more.

The choice to have a scene where they visit the house that they bought was also very good. Especially since they combined it with the part where they gave Mama their gifts and put it before they met Lindner rather than after, as it is in the play version. Seeing how nice the new house is, especially in comparison to their apartment, really drives home how important this is to them. It emphasizes how upset they are at Lindner, and makes both Walter’s initial choice to give up the house and his eventual choice to keep it much more significant.

The worst choice that the movie made was replacing Beneatha and Asagai’s conversation about why she wants to be a doctor and Asagai’s intent to create independence movements in Africa with a conversation about Walter’s choices, and cutting Walter’s reactions to their conversation. This choice cheapened both Beneatha and Asagai’s characters by removing a significant part of their development, and makes Walter’s choice to sell the house back to Lindner seem like it came out of nowhere.

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