To Kill a Mockingbird (film)

• Release Date: 1962
• Director(s): Robert Mulligan
• Writer(s): Horton Foote
• Principal Actors and Roles: Gregory Peck (Atticus Finch); Phillip Alford (Jem); James M. Anderson (Bob Ewell); Mary Badham (Scout); Robert Duvall (Boo Radley); John Megna (Dill Harris); Frank Overton (Sheriff Heck Tate); Brock Peters (Tom Robinson); Collin Wilcox (Mayella Violet Ewell)
• Book / Story Film Based On: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 black-and-white courtroom drama that is one of the country’s most-beloved films. It is faithfully adapted from one of the nation’s greatest books, Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.

The movie combines a career-pinnacle role for Gregory Peck with an extraordinary script by Horton Foote, one of the nation’s premier playwrights and screenwriters. Foote expertly captured the coming-of-age aspects of Lee’s beautiful book with its unflinching look at racial politics of the 1930s South. His rendition was so successful that the film delighted Lee and her readership. Similarly, Peck so completely inhabited the role of Atticus Finch that people who have read the book and seen the movie find it impossible to picture the narrator’s father as anyone else.

The film has also become an American classic for reasons other than its exceptional script and cast. One is the perspective of the narrative, which presents the loss of girlish innocence from an adult point of view, using voiceover by an uncredited Kim Stanley. Another is the way the film reflected the racism and social injustice of the era it depicts and during which it was made. Another is the cinematography, which helps create a powerful sense of time and place while capturing a universal sense of nostalgia for childhood and carefree summers. The movie transports its audience far beyond the courtroom drama at the center of the action. Even Elmer Bernstein’s music is considered one of the greatest film scores of all time.

But in the end, the movie is cherished most because of Gregory Peck’s performance as Atticus. Lee supposedly received numerous offers to turn her novel into a play, a TV show, a musical, or to remake the movie. She always refused on the grounds that no one could match Peck’s performance. According to legend Atticus Finch was based on Lee’s father, and Lee gave her late father’s gold pocket watch to Peck after she saw the movie.

Plot

Jean Louise "Scout" Finch and her older brother Jem live in 1930s Maycomb, Alabama. The story progresses across a three-year period of natural and forced maturation for the pair. Their widower father is a lawyer in town. He allows his children to call him by his first name, Atticus. The story is told from the point of view of an adult Scout.

At the opening, it is summer and Scout and Jem are playing happily and speculating about an unseen neighbor, Arthur "Boo" Radley. Boo never leaves his house and thus is the subject of many rumors.

When Atticus defends a young black man, Tom Robinson, against charges that he raped a white girl named Mayella Ewell, the innocence of Scout’s childhood begins to end. She and Jem are taunted at school. Atticus faces prejudice in the courtroom. Scout observes the trial from the "black section" in the balcony. During the trial, Atticus notes that Mayella was beaten on the right side of her face, probably by a man’s left hand. He then demonstrates that Tom has no use of his left hand, whereas Mayella’s father, Bob Ewell, is left-handed. Atticus implores the all-white jury to put aside their prejudices and find the obviously innocent Tom not guilty, but the young man is convicted.

When Atticus reaches home following the trial, he learns that a deputy has killed Tom, supposedly because Tom tried to escape. Jem accompanies Atticus as the lawyer drives out to inform Tom’s family. While there, Jem sees Bob Ewell spit in Atticus’s face. Atticus does not retaliate.

Later, Jem and Scout attend a Halloween pageant at their school, at which Scout wears a hard-sided ham costume as one of the county’s chief products. She misplaces her clothes and has to wear the costume home. On the way, they are attacked. The costume protects Scout but prevents her from running or seeing clearly. Jem is knocked unconscious but another man appears. Scout can hear a brief struggle. She wriggles out of her costume to see the unidentified man carrying Jem to their home. She follows him inside and leaps into Atticus’ arms.

The doctor arrives and treats Jem’s broken arm. The sheriff then comes to the house. When he asks Scout what happened, she sees Boo Radley behind Jem’s bedroom door. She knows who came to their aid. The sheriff tells Atticus that Bob Ewell is dead in the woods with a knife between his ribs. Atticus thinks Jem killed Ewell, but the sheriff insists Ewell fell on his own knife while intimating that Arthur Radley killed the man to protect the children. He tells Atticus that putting a spotlight on the reclusive Radley would be "a sin." This leads Scout to a precocious insight: Forcing Boo into the public eye would be like killing a mockingbird. In the final scene Scout holds Boo Radley’s hand as she walks him back to his house.

Significance

It is impossible to overstate the impact of To Kill a Mockingbird. Although some twenty-first century critics attack the book and movie for the "white savior" figure of Atticus, it remains one of the best-known and best-loved films in American cinematic history.

The accolades it received are unmatched. In 1995 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry. The American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest film hero of the twentieth century. The AFI ranks it second on its "100 Years . . . 100 Cheers" list, behind only It’s a Wonderful Life. It is twenty-fifth on the AFI’s list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time." And the AFI named it the best courtroom drama ever.

It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three—best actor, best adapted screenplay, and best art direction. The other nominations were for best picture, best director, best black-and-white cinematography, best supporting actress, and best musical score. The score received a Golden Globe for best original score, and the AFI also named it seventeenth best film of all time. It received a Golden Globe Award as the best film promoting international understanding. And it continues to be introduced to new audiences, being shown to high school students across the country every year.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1962) Best Actor: Gregory Peck
• Academy Award (1962) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Horton Foote
• Academy Award (1962) Best Art Direction-Set Direction (Black-and-White)
• Golden Globe (1962) Best Motion Picture Actor (Drama): Gregory Peck
• Golden Globe (1962) Best Film Promoting International Understanding

Nominated

• Academy Award (1962) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1962) Best Director: Robert Mulligan
• Academy Award (1962) Best Supporting Actress: Mary Badham
• Academy Award (1962) Best Cinematography (Black-and-White)
• Golden Globe (1962) Best Motion Picture (Drama)
• Golden Globe (1962) Best Score: Elmer Bernstein

Bibliography

Bergan, Ronald. The Film Book. London: DK, 2011. Print.

Brown, Jared. Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life. New York: Back Stage, 2005. Print.

Castleberry, Marion. Blessed Assurance: The Life and Art of Horton Foote. Macon: Mercer U, 2014. Print.

Charles River Editors. American Legends: The Life of Gregory Peck. Seattle, CreateSpace, 2014. Print.

Foote, Horton. Three Screenplays: To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful. New York: Grove, 1994. Print.

Giglio, Ernest. Here’s Looking at You: Hollywood, Film & Politics. 4th ed. New York: Lang, 2014. Print.