Midnight
in the garden of good and evil
|
Book
| Movie
| Discussion
questions
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Book:
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Movie:
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Discussion
questions:
1.
The book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil begins with a
portrait of Jim Williams, the man around whom the book's "plot"
revolves. Yet the author sweeps Williams offstage after one chapter
and we do not encounter him again until the end of Chapter 11, when
we learn that he shot Danny Hansford.
What does Berendt accomplish by doing this? Is Midnight truly
Williams's story, and if not, who is its real protagonist?
How is this done in the movie? Who's the main character in the movie?
2.
Do you come away from the book and the movie believing that Williams
is guilty of murder? How does the evidence that surfaces during his trials reinforce or
contradict the impression that
Berendt/Eastwood convey elsewhere in
the book and in the movie? How do Williams's friends view him?
Is it possible to believe in Williams's guilt yet still feel
sympathy for him? Where else does the author/ the director elicit sympathy for
characters who are morally flawed and perhaps genuinely evil?
3.
Alongside his human characters, Berendt gives us detailed histories
and descriptions of several houses. To what extent are his
characters defined by the homes they live in and the objects they
use to furnish them? How did Eastwood handle this in the movie?
What role does geography, from the location of Joe Odom's latest
apartment to Savannah's position on the Georgia coast, play in the
book and the movie?
4.
The "Garden of Good and Evil" is Bonaventure cemetery, which the
author visits at the book's beginning and end.
What role do the dead play in the story?
How do they influence its action and haunt the living characters?
5.
How do we end up feeling about the character of "John
Berendt"? What does the author accomplish by making himself a character in his book
and in the movie --or, rather, by creating a character who happens
to have his name and profession?
6.
Although Williams behaves as though he were innocent of any
wrongdoing, he also goes to elaborate lengths to conceal the fact of
his imprisonment from his clients. The salesman's boss knows that he
wears makeup on one eye, just as none of Lee Adler's old associates
buy his altruistic pretensions. Why, then, might the characters in this book maintain their various
masquerades? Why is Williams hiding his imprisonment from his
clients? Is Berendt saying anything about the façades that all of us adopt in
order to survive?
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