To Kill a Mockingbird [1962 film]

A single father is the defense attorney for a black man in the south.

I would have liked it a lot more if it had focused on the trial, instead of all the business with the kids and Boo Radley. I never really feel like I'm seeing things from the kids' perspective, so they end up feeling like a distraction from the "adult" story.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.5/4

(Jun. 2010)

Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his children against prejudice.
Rated PG for thematic elements, mild violence and language

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.
(source: TMDb)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt56592/ http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47057524

My #10 best-seller. Actually, in one of the greatest literary psyops of the 20th century, Harper Lee ripped off Faulkner, wrote her best-selling plagiarized version of Intruder in the Dust, and then the powers that be memoryholed the whole thing, and now all that ever gets talked about is To Kill a Mockingbird. Told in flashback by ten-year-old Scout, it is the story of how she and her brother remember a summer in the American South when their father, Atticus Finch, defends a black man (Robinson) accused of raping and beating a white girl. Atticus fights for the truth in the face of racism and bigotry. The courtroom narrative absorbs the pace of a suspenseful legal thriller.
(foot note) The viewer or reader must understand the complex show more history of race relations in the South. Many states passed so-called "Jim Crow" laws (after a black minstrel show character), which severely limited the way African Americans could participate in society. The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for such laws in 1883, when it ruled that the 14th Amendment could not be enforced on an individual level. The first Jim Crow laws appeared in 1890; The laws increased from there and lasted until the civil rights movement in the 1960s, during the Lyndon Johnson administration. show less

The kinda Norman Rockwell-like spirit was best expressed in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” reflecting the all-American pioneering spirit, ingenuity, deep-rooted sense of justice and reverence for God and family. The film does justice to the book.

Alabama, 1932. L'avvocato Atticus Finch conduce una tranquilla esistenza nella cittadina di Maycomb, occupandosi dei suoi figli, Jem e Scout, con l'unico sostegno dell'affezionata domestica di colore Calpurnia. I bimbi sono infatti orfani della madre, morta di infarto quando avevano rispettivamente 6 e 2 anni. La vita dei due bambini è divisa fra il gioco e la curiosità per i fatti della città, particolarmente per il loro vicino di casa, Arthur "Boo" Radley, un malato di mente che non sono mai riusciti a vedere e che vive da anni rinchiuso in quella che viene chiamata "la casa maledetta", a cui i fratellini hanno spesso tentato di avvicinarsi. A loro si aggiunge Dill, un bimbo dalla bugia facile, che è venuto a vivere con la zia show more Rachel e che, si verrà a sapere poi, è stato abbandonato dai genitori. show less