Mockingbird's 40th Year!!

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2002)

This movie is definitely near the very top of my all-time favorite films! Quite a few of my friends have not seen "To Kill a Mockingbird". I have been surprised at how many of them have responded:
"Oh, ' To Kill a Mockingbird '.............I saw the remake with Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock!: ' A Time To Kill' ".
Though I actually loved that 1996 flick with McConaughey and Bullock, I still feel that it's a bit of an insult to suggest that "A Time To Kill" is the same movie as "To Kill a Mockingbird" (or that it even approximates the older story). There are totally different characters, with totally different personalities in "Mockingbird". The story is similar only in a few superficial ways. One clearly comes away with a truly unique flavor in "Mockingbird"; "A Time To Kill" cannot really hold a candle to this Gregory Peck masterpiece (Peck himself has said that this was his favorite film-----and that being offered this role was the luckiest day of his life).

I am glad that, though this movie came out in 1962, they chose to shoot it in black and white. A completely different mood comes out, by presenting this movie in those softer, darker colors. "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" also came out in 1962; it was a black and white movie as well. I recall reading that Bette Davis talked to that film's producer, and threw her support behind the idea of filming that story without color (again to create a darker mood).
Actually, there are at least three things that a black and white "Mockingbird" does. One: it complements the serious and tragic tone of the story. Two: it complements some of the childhood memories which are rather spooky and akin to a horror movie. Three: This is, after all, 1932 Macon, Georgia. The black and white colors do kind of take us back to a world which no longer exists (and a world which was right in the middle of the Great Crash/Depression). Many people who were adults, then (or were children having to pitch in during this national crisis), developed a completely different mindset; a mindset that so many of us will never know (of course the Depression aspect is greatly overshadowed, in this film, by the theme of a Black man accused of impropriety with a White woman in the early 30s Deep South).
It is hard to know where to begin, with a movie of this great caliber. I will just throw some of my thoughts out, and let the chips fall where they may. I thought that the theme song for "Mockingbird", which begins and ends the film, was truly an incredibly beautiful song. At the end of the film this music is like a song of TRIUMPH! It is also a very TOUCHING song. Elmer Bernstein, the composer of this music, said in a documentary that he was going for a kind of child-like tune-----one in which a child would just be playing around with a few keys on a piano. Mr. Bernstein certainly transformed that tune into a very sentimental piece, that kind of tugs at your heart strings.
The first time that I saw this movie, I was not paying complete attention, and I thought that one of Atticus Finch's (the lead character played by Gregory Peck) loved one's had died, on account of the unpopular stance that he took. I teared up, as the movie closed out with that powerful music (not realizing that "good" had almost completely overtaken "evil", here).
Of course I cannot comment on "Mockingbird" without alluding to Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch. What a wonderfully noble and good man! You could say, more specifically, that he was a wonderful father (especially raising two children as a widower, and a very busy attorney). Of all the moving and powerful interactions he had with his children, what impressed me most was how he reasoned with them as if they were little adults (rather than "children"). He never seemed to talk down to them. He tried to talk (and negotiate) with them, as close as he could, to one of his peers (a very interesting irony, since both his children called him "Atticus" and not Dad or Daddy!).
You couldn't help but respect Atticus for taking on such an unpopular case, during that Era (and in that part of the country). He even told his daughter:
"If I didn't take this case, I couldn't hold my head up in town! I couldn't even tell you and Jem, not to do something that was wrong!"
Atticus knew that someone had to take this case and he accepted it. He also truly believed that his client was innocent (Tom Robinson, a strong, young Black man, accused of raping a White, Southern Belle). His performance in the court room (including his closing statement) was stellar! It was riveting to hear that powerful, dramatic Peck voice, as he went to bat for his client!
Near the end of the film, one of Atticus' neighbors said to his young son, Jem:
"Jem, there are some men who are born to do our unpleasant tasks........Your father is one of them."
In a small way Atticus Finch seemed to symbolize Christ, when I considered this. Though he did not actually lose his life, doing what was right came at an extremely heavy cost to himself and his family.
There is a whole lot more to this movie, than just the proverbial racial strife between African-Americans and Whites. I encourage anyone who feels this way to give this film a chance. Hopefully it will speak to you (and more importantly, MOVE YOU), as it did me.