Film and American Culture Series: "To Kill a Mockingbird" Review

     This week I am reviewing To Kill a Mockingbird directed by Robert Mulligan. It was produced by Alan J. Pakula and was released December 25, 1962. The cinematography was done by Russell Harlan and the musical score was written by Elmer Bernstein. To Kill a Mockingbird won three Academy Awards for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. It also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor (Motion Picture Drama), Best Original Score (Motion Picture), and Best Film Promoting International Understanding (Award category was given from 1946-1964)

    To Kill a Mockingbird follows Jean Finch (Mary Badham), nicknamed Scout, and her brother Jeremy, Jem, (Phillip Alford) for a couple years. Their father Atticus (Gregory Peck) is a lawyer in town. We see him with a case defending Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), an African American, against accusations of attacking and raping a white girl in town. The kids also have another plotline about a neighbor’s son named Arthur "Boo" Radley (Robert Duvall) who is known in town to be not of right mind. We see the court case for Tom where Atticus reveals that he was actually the victim of an assault and the father of the girl, Bob Ewell (James Anderson), witnessed it and he was the one that beat her. Although a good case was made the jury still declared Tom guilty. Tom was killed while trying to run away during transport to a jail. Bob was humiliated by Atticus' case and tried to attack the children out of revenge but Boo intervened and saved them killing Bob in self defense.

Does this film have specific meaning to the time it was released? Or does it have a universal them we can apply to today? There is definitely a historical meaning. You see a lot of racial elements in this film. There is segregation and clear negative social racial attitudes. There is also an element of ignorance and fear of mentally handicapped people. This film clearly has a theme of trying to promote knowledge, human compassion, and equality. Elements even to this day can be used like gender roles and the current movement that men can be victims too. You can understand that for the time this clearly was a revolutionary and controversial film with it’s content and views.

     Overall I really enjoyed this film. I feel the acting was very well done. I also thought it was more impactful as a black and white film then it would have been as a color. The scene where Atticus stayed outside the jail to watch over Tom and the mob approached him with ill-intentions only for the children to become involved was very striking. The fact that what turned them away was the children saying how good of people they were showed a great example of how human emotions work with guilt, ethics, and crowd behavior. Given the respect and tenure it holds as an American classic you can definitely pick up the seriousness of the film's message. Like I mentioned earlier, even to this day you can pick up messages that can be expressed and put to use in our lives and society.