About the Screenplay:

Horton Foote's uniquely personal style of screenwriting is at its peak in this collection of two Academy Award winners, To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies, and The Trip to Bountiful, a film widely regarded as a classic.

Each of the three screenplays sprang from a different origin. To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted from the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee. Tender Mercies was conceived for the screen, and The Trip to Bountiful came from Horton Foote's own stage and television play. While each demanded solutions to different cinematic problems, all are marked by Foote's own mastery of the screenwriting form, as well as his understanding of human relationships. All three show a modern Chekhov at work, revealing the deep currents of American society through the simplest details of daily life.

What people say:

"In an age when the lexicon of cinema is largely visual, Foote writes films. He stresses dialogue and character development rather than spectacle or even traditional narrative." — New York Times Magazine

"If the integrity of a film adaptation is measured by the degree to which the novelist's intent is preserved, Mr. Foote's screenplay should be studied as a classic." — Harper Lee

"The Trip to Bountiful has a quiet, understated feel for the small towns of its time. … [Horton Foote's] rhythms and dialogue come out of unstudied real life." — Chicago Sun-Times

About the Screenwriter:

Horton Foote (1916-2009) was a prolific American playwright and screenwriter with an ear for the resilient spirit of daily life in the small-town southern US states. Known as a writer's writer, he switched readily from the stage to television and film. He received Academy Awards for his screenplay adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies. During the Golden Age of television, he authored numerous notable live television dramas. For his 1997 television adaptation of William Faulkner's "Old Man," he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing of a Miniseries. He received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize and his first Tony nomination for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta.