Important Movie in American History

Rating: 9/10 (21 October 2015)

To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the novel by Harper Lee, is a movie that is iconic, on the order of the Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. Unlike these other movies, the subject of this movie is the deadly serious topic of racial injustice. The movie and the book highlight the perverse nature of this injustice be letting it be seen through the eyes of children, the main characters. Their ordeal of witnessing the (most likely) unjust prosecution of a black man for rape represents a fall from innocence for the kids and a stark commentary on the sick nature of American racist society.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a great film. It accurately depicts human nature both at its most virtuous and most ugly. Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch, an amazing character that lets us believe that we as human beings are capable of great compassion and love. Peck understates it but plays it with great passion, and the effect is extraordinary. On the flip side, James Anderson plays brilliantly Bob Ewall, a drunken bigot of the type we know that most likely beat up his own daughter and blamed it on Tom Robinson, the luckless defendant. The child actors, Mary Badham and Phillip Alford, playing Scout and Jem, are terrific and take us along for their trip out of innocence.
In my view, the most important thing about this movie is that it stands beautifully on the cusp of a key battle of ideas in the 60s-- the question of whether racism in any form is justifiable. The film is iconic because it provides a strong answer--NO.