Nov 12, 2008 03:57 PM
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Mock: To imitate or to mimic…
Mockingbird: Is a bird that produces music and is absolutely harmless!
What would it be “To Kill A Mocking Bird”?
Robert Mulligan had a different idea and had to look into Harper Lee’s novel and then made this classic which gave Gregory Peck his black lady. Released in 1962 and with limited resources in technology and maybe even equipments, this is a black and white film with a lot of shades of grey.
*Maycomb, Alabama 1932
*Scout, Atticus’ Finch’s tom boyish daughter, is a very feisty, nosy and inquisitive 6 year old who takes us through this era of a worst recession seen in USA at that time. Maycomb is atypical tired old town with dirt roads and individual houses with garden fronts, a small dirt ridden path leading to the houses. Sleepy little town with an unusual trial of a black being prosecuted doing the rounds.
Atticus Finch (played remarkably by Gregory Peck) a widowed man, is the lawyer who has been awarded the case to defend the innocent-until-proven-guilty black Tom Robinson for allegedly raping a white girl. Atticus has for his household work a black house keeper Calpurnia (Estelle Evans) reining the children Scout and Jem and keeping them in check for the daily routine chores that they must do as children of a famous lawyer. Club them with Dill whose aunt Rachel he is visiting for the summers, they are quite the threesome who are typical in their childish interactions, nosy inquiries and forming quick conclusions to jump fences and treading places that are forbidden to them as children.
Eccentric as their behavior may sound or look; this sleepy old town is also riddled with the presence of “BOO” Radley an unseen neighbor of whom a lot is known by rumors or truth…. Nobody dares to explain. The children want to obviously know...
The surmise of BOO Radley to his friend Dill by Jem goes like this; “judging by the size of his footprints he is at least 6 and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and cats for food. There is a long scar that runs across his face and his teeth are yellow and rotten eating all the squirrels and cats. He drools most of the time.”
They even jump the fence of the Radley house in the dark one evening and then they are seized by fear of a huge shadow which is so huge that they make a mad scramble back to the safety of their homes but not before Jem looses his pants in the bargain.
The premise of the film is the trial of the black but it’s the Mocking bird mystery that keeps you glued to your seat. The film is almost sleepy in its progress with spurts of action that will make you sit up in alarm. It’s the way the children are interspersed that keeps you alive. You subconsciously look forward to the naughtiness and the mess that they might land into next!!
*Now the sleepy pace of the film.
*The film is pacy to the extent of keeping in with the times that the Director has depicted and the pains that people undergo during depressions, its almost mocking you all the time. It has the audacity to keep you thinking and guessing as to what will happen next and the scene that you see will almost make you jump out of the reverie. Its very quietly hair raising.
The angle of Bob, the white girl’s father brings in a new dimension to the film. It has the threats and the strong under current of the battle between blacks and whites. Its almost sinister. The children also get mocked in school as a result of the trial and their father being the lawyer for a black man. Its almost as if by default the whites have decided that Tom is guilty and has to face the consequences.
The court room scenes are worth the wait. They have been shot well with authenticity to the drama and have been detailed out with the event and evidences that are produced. It then becomes clear that Tom is NOT GUILTY. That no rape has occurred. Still the all white jury passes a verdict of guilty. Throughout the trial Atticus’ children are seated in the black section of the courtroom. And when the jury leaves very quickly, the blacks actually stand silently to let Finch the noble lawyer to pass his way out. That for me was a very admirable moment in the film.
Bob, the girls father is out at the Finch’s home to celebrate his victory and to call names to Finch when finch is actually at Tom’s house to pay his respects because Tom has been shot dead as he tried to escape from the prison. Bob even spits in finch’s face. And then the worst happens. The children do not believe the story at all and when Bob attacks them the children miraculously get saved by none other than “BOO” Radley.
*Now let me get to the theme of the film.
*It’s not about any moral attitude in those days about how the whites treated the black. How heel bent they were to get rid of them or even the ghastly things that we know about Mississippi Burning, it’s about the way life calls at your door. How a small action of defending a black at that time could devastate a family. How a lawyer despite his colour tried his best to upkeep the law and yet loses. How noble intentions can be charred to death by the denizens of the law and the people who support it. Lynch mobs were such a common thing of past where the gun ruled the governance of being alive that the attack of Bob on the children in spite of winning the case is so clearly out of the blue and unexpected that you get equally surprised when its BOO who helps the children out of the trouble.
These turn of events right at the end tell you a different story altogether.
A mockingbird is supposed to produce music and is completely harmless. But maybe it’s the size of the bird or the myths that have led us to believe that YOU DO NOT KILL A MOCKING BIRD!!
My personal recommendation is to keep the book handy. Even if you don’t see this film, the book should be an amazing companion. But of course if you are a Gregory Peck fan… You have to see this for him.
p.s continuing in the comments section
