Scheduled film for 16 October 2009

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) belongs to the type called "prestige film," though this is not a legitimate generic term. It's more a commercial term for a film, usually a "serious" adaptation of a major novel, with high production values and a general faithfulness to the novel. Unfortunately being faithful to a book is not necessarily better than being faithful to a director's individual artistic personality.
    Regardless, To Kill a Mockingbird has a generally high reputation and is often featured among Top Movie lists. Gregory Peck received the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Atticus Finch, also rated among the most beloved film characters ever. Yet the role as well as the performance seem, to this viewer, one-dimensional, while Robert Mulligan's direction seems fairly pedestrian.
    But this is not a class in final judgments about movies. Rather it's a class in interacting with films on all levels of cinematic style and making one's own judgments in terms of content and style. There's certainly a lot to look at, study, and think about in this film, both in terms of style and content.
    The title refers to a line spoken by Atticus Finch in the film, warning that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird, since the mockingbird does no harm. The relevance of title to plot is obvious, specifically to the two characters, Tom Robinson and Bo Radley, who becomes "Mr. Radley" by the end of the film.

---