To Kill a Mockingbird: A Review (Review #2186)

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

There are some books, some films, and some film adaptations that have become so beloved that they end up enshrined in a pantheon of greatness. To Kill a Mockingbird is such a book, film and film adaptation. This tale of a small Southern town with a quietly towering figure still has as great a power to move now as it did when released.

Told in sporadic voiceover by the adult Jean Louise Finch or Scout (Kim Hunter), we hear her story. Young Scout (Mary Badham) is a tomboy in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. She has an older brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), whom she has a love-hate relationship (mostly love). She also has her father, whom she and Jem openly call "Atticus" (Gregory Peck). Atticus is a lawyer, well-spoken and well-educated. However, he is like all his neighbors in that he has little in terms of money. To be fair, he is probably better off than most of Maycomb, but not by much.

What Atticus does have is love, patience and a moral certainty that cannot ever be shaken. He is a widower who is open about everything to his children. Atticus may not play football for the Methodists, but he cares and protects them. He cannot fully stop them from looking in on the mysterious Boo Radley. He is a near-mythic figure of terror to the community. Jem, however, keeps pushing to see this shadowy man. He, along with Scout and their summer neighbor friend Dill (John Megna) come close to danger both from Boo and from Scout's own bluntness about everything.

One thing that not even Atticus can protect them from is the case of Tom Robinson (Brock Peters). Tom is a black man who stands accused of violating Mayella Ewell (Collin Wilcox), a white woman. Mayella's father, Robert E. Lee "Bob" Ewell (James Anderson) is openly racist and a violent drunk. Atticus Finch will defend Tom Robinson against these charges. As the trial goes on, we see and hear from both sides.

We see that Tom would not have been physically able to commit the crime. However, he is a black man, accused of violating a white woman. Worse, he is a black man who publicly expressed sorrow for a white person. That is enough to convict him. Tom comes to a tragic end. That fate may also fall on Jem and Scout. Will they be able to survive the darkness of man? What role will the hereto mysterious Arthur "Boo" Radley (Robert Duvall) play in the end?

To Kill a Mockingbird, I think, is going through a reevaluation. Not all that reevaluation is positive. For decades, Atticus Finch was seen as the embodiment of all moral goodness. The American Film Institute voted him the Greatest Screen Hero of All Time. Generations of lawyers have said that Atticus Finch, and Gregory Peck's performance, inspired them to enter law.

Now, Atticus is seen in less saintly light. He is called a "white savior", the noble figure almost come down from Heaven to save (or at least try to) the poor, defenseless black man. Horton Foote's Oscar-winning adaptation of Harper Lee's novel was not going to change Atticus' nobility and purpose. Foote, for example, was not about to give us Tom Robinson's perspective. Far from it. Tom Robinson as portrayed by Brock Peters was so docile and accepting of his fate that his suffering and passivity seem to suggest a curious nobility. 

Tom Robinson must suffer so that Atticus Finch can save him and pick up that white man's burden.

This perception is not helped by Gregory Peck's performance. Peck has been lauded, if not downright worshipped, for his Oscar winning role of Atticus Finch. He has a bravura scene when he does his closing arguments. His monologue runs about six minutes. As he intones rather grandly and loftily about how our courts are "our great levelers", I began to wonder if Atticus was aware of where he was and who he was talking to. The jury not of Robinson's peers were also not of Finch's peers. These were rural men, who were not as well-educated and verbally dexterous as Atticus Finch. Earlier, there was a powerful scene where rural men (perhaps some who were now on the jury) came close to lynching Tom Robinson. Now, Atticus Finch is attempting to do what was probably impossible: get an all-white jury to acquit a black man accused of molesting a white woman.

It has been a long time since I read Harper Lee's novel. Therefore, I do not know if Atticus Finch's closing argument is close to what was in the novel. That being said, Finch came across not as noble. It came across as almost pompous bordering on self-righteous. I got the sense that Finch was, probably inadvertently, talking down to his audience. Atticus Finch was not about to adopt a folksy, pleasant manner to try and win over a pretty hostile audience. Instead, Atticus Finch was going to thunder at them. He did not appeal to the better angels of their nature. He was attempting to appeal to his moral and intellectual superiority over them. "In the name of GOD, do your duty! In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson".  

In retrospect, this closing speech is far from great. It is great in that the ideals that Finch is expressing are right. It is wrong, however, in that his audience was not going to be receptive to it. Peck's Atticus Finch came across here as aloof and thinking himself superior to everyone around him. "I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our court and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working REALITY!", he tells the jurors. At that point, I wondered if he, albeit accidentally, insulted the jurors by suggesting that he knew that they were not going to have integrity to make the right decision based on the evidence. 

When he is playing the morally upright Atticus Finch, Gregory Peck is good but not great. Peck is much better when working with the children. He has a still serious demeanor. However, he allows a warmth, compassion and caring to come through. It is curious to me that Peck is more lauded for his courtroom scenes than his scenes with the child actors. 

Each of the child actors does standout work. It is a credit to the three of them, especially given that two of them were newcomers. Mary Badham received an Oscar nomination for her turn as Scout. She was wonderful as the tomboy who was blunt but unaware of how insulting she could sometimes be. Her great scene is when she talks to one of Tom Robinson's potential lynchers. Her mix of kindness and naivete as she compliments his son is deeply moving. Phillip Alford was not nominated for his turn as Jem. That surprises me as To Kill a Mockingbird is, to me, surprisingly Jem-centered. His performance is of someone more aware of things, but not by much. He is adventurous and courageous, sometimes dismissive of his sister and sometimes deeply protective of her. John Megna as Dill also did well. He was the only child actor with experience. He made Dill into this insecure figure who yearned for friendship.

Director Robert Mulligan got his other actors to give strong performances. In her big scene, Collin Wilcox made Mayella someone who brought out both sympathy and antagonism against her. She was frightened but also, in her way, defiant. Brock Peters' turn did unfortunately make Tom Robinson very docile. It was a good but not great performance. Still, he did better than James Anderson's Bob Ewell. He seemed exaggerated in his virulent hatred and menace. However, as that was the character, I cut him some slack. To Kill a Mockingbird was Robert Duvall's debut in his silent performance of Boo Radley. While it was a single scene, he communicated Boo's strangeness mixed with gentility well. 

To Kill a Mockingbird has other elements that work so wonderfully. Elmer Bernstein's score gives the film a mix of nostalgia and innocence. It is soft, tender and sweet, evoking a sense of childhood and of an adult looking back. 

To Kill a Mockingbird is a deeply moving and beautiful film. I think that perhaps it has been romanticized a bit more than it should be. After sixty years, the film still stands as a chronicle of how adults can do so much wrong but still end up doing right. One can see why it is still so beloved. 

DECISION: A-