To Kill a Mockingbird MovieAFI's #1 Courtroom Drama - To Kill a Mockingbird |
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Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird
He says this with a look of fondness and love for his daughter so real that it's almost heartbreaking in its simplicity and sincerity. To Kill A Mockingbird isn't a movie about children really, although at first it seems like it might be. It's actually a movie about their father; the story is only told from the viewpoint of his children. To Kill a Mockingbird is the #1 movie on AFI's list of top ten courtroom dramas. The movie was made in 1963, but it's set in 1932, in the rural south. "Somehow, it was hotter then," the narrator tells us. And the movie does a fine job of communicating just how hot it was that summer, and how poor everyone was because of the Great Depression, and how ignorant and racist so many of the townsfolk were. To Kill A Mockingbird presents a man who is not only compassionate toward the victims of this racism, but also to the racists. Atticus Finch is charged with defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. At that time in our country's history, taking on such a task guaranteed bullying, harassment, and ostracism from a good percentage of the people who lived in the community. Especially in the South. But Atticus Finch feels more pity for the "bad guys" than anger or hatred. At one point, a character named Bob Ewell spits on Atticus Finch. If this were a modern movie, and Bruce Willis or George Clooney got spit on in that scene, the reaction would almost assuredly have been to throw a punch. The "good guy" would win the fight just because of his virtue, even though the "bad guy" throwing the punch probably has a lot more experience fighting. But 1963 movies were different. Atticus Finch could glare at a bad guy, display his anger and disgust, and be a hero by showing the strength of will to set aside his anger and wipe the spit off with a handkerchief and then walk away. It reminded me of scenes in another Gregory Peck film called The Big Country, where Peck plays a character who is so sure of himself that he repeatedly refuses to prove himself to anyone. Atticus Finch has this same kind of self-confidence, but it's the combination of this self-confidence with his love for his kids and his commitment to justice that makes To Kill A Mockingbird one of the greatest American movies ever made. Gregory Peck deserved the Best Actor Award he received for To Kill a Mockingbird. The movie features many good actors delivering fine performances, but To Kill A Mockingbird is in a sense a one-man show. Atticus Finch was also named the #1 movie hero in American film by the AFI. That means he beat characters like:
I like all those characters, but I'm glad that the peace and justice loving Atticus Finch won the contest. The kind of quiet strength that Gregory Peck displays in To Kill A Mockingbird (and in The Big Country) represents an ideal of how a man should act that might have been lost forever here in the USA. Modern audiences have little patience for a patient, compassionate hero like Atticus Finch. I think a modern audience is frustrated with Finch for not punching the guy who spits on him. I've never read the novel, and I might not ever get around to it. But I have two five year old daughters, and a few years from now, I'll watch To Kill A Mockingbird with them. See also: |
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"You
never really understand a person until you consider things from his
point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in
it," Atticus Finch says. |
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