Hansel and Gretel - movie vs. fairytale

                                                     Hansel and Gretel


            The Brothers Grimm collected a fairytale called Hansel and Gretel, and it told of two children that, after some unfortunate events, got encaptured by a witch. They then had to use their wit and quick thinking to escape, and then live happily ever after. 
            In 1987 there was a movie made on Hansel and Gretel and the producers actually did a pretty good job on getting most of the main ideas correct. They gave the mother direct quotes from the original story, and she is still annoying and cruel even though they never specifically said she was a stepmother. In the movie the witch is also pretty blind, and she gets cooked in the oven as well.
           
            There are some differences, however, even though most are small. At the beginning of the movie Hansel is given two pieces of flint by the blacksmith for a fire him and Gretel later make when in the forest. The crumbs they sprinkle as a trail were given to them by the baker rather than taken from their own meal like it says in the book. They also only get put into the forest once in the movie versus twice as it was in the tale.  Their father does love them immensely in both the movie and the fairytale, but he continues to look for them all throughout the movie unlike it was told. The witch was also given magical powers and a magical scepter in the movie which allowed her to turn other children into cookies. This was something the directors must have added for a more dramatic twist, but it was a little unneeded in my personal opinion.
              
           Why would these various differences be made in the movie that changed it from the fairytale? Most of the times it is to make the movie longer, add a more dramatic effect, or to make events make more sense. An example would be how in the movie they made the father get money from the baker who cheated him out of money. This allowed them to explain some of their poverty. In the fairytale, the only thing we see is that Hansel and Gretel get jewels and riches from the witch once she got pushed in the oven. The movie also adds this factor by making the witches scepter turn into money.