To Kill a Mockingbird is an excellent movie based on

Rating: 9/10 (19 September 2010)

To Kill a Mockingbird is an excellent movie based on the novel by Harper Lee and Screenplay by Horton Foote directed by Robert Mulligan. This movie is about Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) and his children, Jem (Phillip Alford) and Scout (Mary Badham), dealing with racism. Atticus tries to raise his children to not be prejudice. When Atticus defends a black man Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) who has been wrongfully accused of raping of a white woman, Jem and Scout are confronted with conflict from classmates at school. This conflict raises questions that motivate the children to go on adventures to satisfy their curiosity. They are curious as to why so many people hate Atticus for defending a black man. The children get a dose of reality of how cruel people are when it comes to black people when they enter the courtroom to watch the trial. The children have no prejudice and this is seen when they sit on the balcony with all the other curious black people. The children also encounter a different kind of prejudice when it comes to Boo Radley (Robert Duval). They hear many different exaggerated stories about how scary and insane he is. The kids are terrified because of these stories and fear Boo.
There are many themes in this movie but there is one that coincides with the plot and this deals, again, with prejudice. It is seen throughout the movie, more specifically with the trial of Tom Robinson. The trial of Tom Robinson shows the largest amount of prejudice in the movie. It starts with the separation of the whites and blacks with the seating in the courtroom, the whites on the main floor and he blacks on the balcony. The jury is even made of all white men.
To Kill a Mockingbird is similar to the movie Crash directed by Paul Haggis. Both movies deal with prejudice, but Crash seems almost worse because it focuses not only on black people, but all races and nationalities. The creation of the movie Crash shows that prejudice is still alive and well today as much as it was back in the era of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lighting and angle enhanced many points of this film. The low-key lighting allowed the shadows to bring fear to Scout and Jem in the forest and at night in their neighborhood. The shadows of the trees looming overhead were spooky. The best low-key lighting scene is in the forest as Jem and Scout were walking home through the forest after Scout's play. She was still in her ham costume that limited her vision. Once they started hearing the footsteps, they knew they were in trouble. The shadows allow the viewer to feel the intensity of the fight even though the viewer doesn't know who is fighting. The shadows playing over Scout during the fight, is frightening because it is so close to her and she is forced to watch what the viewer can't. This is an edge of the seat scene for sure. The angle of this scene also enhances the fear and uncertainty of what is happening. The angle works with the low-key lighting to only show the kids and not the danger. You can see the fear on the kids' faces before the attack begins.
There are many forms of prejudice, but To Kill a Mockingbird is a reminder of how black people had to live in fear and little hope for proper justice.