To Kill a Mockingbird (Film)
Based on Harper Lee's classic, which is ranked by many as the book that most influenced them (other than The Bible), the film was turned down by many studios, but eventually made by Universal with Alan J. Pakula producing and Robert Mulligan directing. Horton Foote was hired to adapt the novel, but Harper Lee was on hand during the shooting. Gregory Peck was the first person asked to play Atticus Finch, and he agreed immediately. It's difficult to comprehend anyone else playing the part, and it's one of the most indelible meldings of actor and character in film history. It's no surprise that Mary Badham, who played his daughter Scout, called him Atticus for the rest of his life.
For the two or three who don't know, the story takes place in a sleepy Alabama town in the 1930s. On the surface, it is idyllic. Scout and her older brother, Jem, play in treehouses and tire swings, and are obsessed with the recluse who lives down the street, a mysterious figure named Boo Radley, who is kind of a bogeyman to them, even though they've never seen him. It's the kind of childhood we wish we had (I think of the Twilight Zone episode called "Willoughby"). But under the surface, just out of comprehension of a child's perception, lurks something darker, and it's not Boo Radley. It's racial prejudice.
Atticus Finch is appointed to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, for raping a white girl. Her father, Bob Ewell, is the kind of small-minded mean bigot that is the real bogeyman. Atticus believes Tom Robinson's story, and in the trial easily proves his innocence, but at that time there is no way a white jury will believe a black man over a white woman. He is convicted, and there's an innocence lost in the paradise of childhood.
Like the book, the film is about so many things it's hard to wrap one's mind around it. It is certainly a manifesto of liberalism--Atticus is still today a hero to many, who scoffs at notions of bigotry and prejudice, and believes that taking the point of view of the other person is the key to getting along. He also sees the court system not as an idealist--he believes in the sanctity and reality of the law. He also resists a fight--when Ewell spits in his face, he turns the other cheek, Jem looking on, learning a life lesson. With a lesser actor, Atticus would have been a cardboard saint, but Peck invests in him a man who is holding his rage inside. Consider how he briefly erupts when, during his courtroom summation, he hits the word "temerity" when he mentions that Tom Robinson felt sorry for Mayella Ewing, an unthinkable breach of society at that time, or when he hears of a tragic loss, he clenches his fist in frustration. Peck won the Oscar that year, as he would almost any year.
Mary Badham was also nominated for an Oscar, and though her career didn't last very long it's a great performance. The production team wanted nonprofessionals who were real kids, not miniature performers. There are few scenes better with a child actor than the one between her and Peck when he tucks her in, and he tells her that she will inherit the pearl necklace of her late mother. But I also give great credit to Phillip Alford, who plays Jem. Though the book is from Scout's point of view, Jem is the real sufferer of the book--he is the one hit hardest by its events. Alford perfectly captures a boy on the edge of adulthood, and what it means to leave behind the carefree notions of childhood. And I love the scene in which he, who has wanted a gun but is not allowed, learns that a schoolmate has one.
The film has two great endings. One is Atticus' courtroom speech, and his exit from the courtroom, with the black audience standing to recognize him. The other is when Scout finally meets Boo Radley (I don't want to give anything away, but it is a fifty-year old film). Scout, though never having seen him, recognizes him, and sees him not as an enemy, but as a savior. Badham's face crosses with enlightenment, and she says, "Hey, Boo," two of the most generous words ever uttered in any film, a sentence that seems to say, "We're all in this together, and we're all brothers and sisters." Boo was played by Robert Duvall, who doesn't utter a word but transmits so much.
I mentioned in this film that viewed through the prism of history, there is some discomfort. As with many treatments of civil rights, even up to the current day, this is a story told through white eyes, and a white man is presented as the crusader for the race, while the blacks themselves are passive, stoic, and noble. But I've heard enough black people who admire the film to be swayed that this can be overlooked. One that was interviewed said that it was great, at that time, to see a black man who was not guilty--forget that he wasn't acquitted, it was great that he was actually innocent. It's also interesting to view the character of Calpurnia, the Finch's housemaid, after the film The Help was released. She is the mother to the children, and Atticus treats her with the greatest respect. But one wonders what she's thinking, just the same.
The main reason I think this film has endured, and why it is so emotionally resonant, is that Atticus Finch, besides being the exemplary figure of justice, is also the kind of father we all want. He's a man who allows his children a certain freedom--they call him Atticus--but instills in them the values he wants them to have by actually living up to those values himself. When Scout asks him why he is defending Tom Robinson, he tells her it's because if he didn't, he couldn't hold his head up in the town. And the closing scene, when he holds Scout in his arm, sitting all night by the sickbed of his son, has to tear up the heart of anyone.
I've seen To Kill a Mockingbird several times, and it never fails to get me. Yes, it's a bit square, and it may seem simplistic, but it's anything but. In some ways it's the most representative film about 20th-century America.
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