Some film classics are time tested for their greatness, if not more beloved and significant now than upon their release; others are great by association.
The film adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” may just fall into the latter category, the book that everyone read in high school, followed immediately by the movie everyone saw in high school. Maybe it gets some holiday TV time, and the book is so indisputably a classic that it’s hard to see the movie as anything else.
It’s possible then that Robert Mulligan’s film gets a few passes it perhaps doesn’t deserve. The average, casual movie watcher can lump “To Kill a Mockingbird” in on their lists of black and white movies they’ve actually seen along with “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the first part of “The Wizard of Oz”. It was nominated for Best Picture in 1962, losing to a real classic, “Lawrence of Arabia”. And Gregory Peck won the Oscar for Best Actor, years later also taking the American Film Institute’s title for the greatest American movie hero.
But does it actually do anything especially great? An easy analysis might say no. This is Old Hollywood through and through, full of toothless, folksy charm and Hays Code-friendly gestures of racism and violence. “To Kill a Mockingbird” only achieves the social and racial poignancy by riding the coattails of its richer source material, and even then it’s very much rooted to its times.
To play along the racial language, the touches of greatness in “To Kill a Mockingbird” are more than skin deep.
Perhaps better than any other film of its time, “Mockingbird” lives in its time and its pastoral setting. Scout’s literary recollection of her Southern home color the film beautifully. And the folksly dialogue is at the peak of what Hollywood could deliver at the time. The Southern mythology in the children’s words, the tender pleasantries and the noble sentiments seem everywhere.
Atticus Finch reveals himself as the film’s true hero because more than any other character, he’s a beacon of nobility and the kind of person who won’t even dignify hatred and injustice in the world with his own disappointment. The film actually spends a lot of time from the children’s perspective, low at their eye level if not looking up at them to make their neighborhood adventures feel more welcoming and grand, but Atticus comes across as a both figuratively and literally towering, patriarchal figure who commands respect.
Peck’s masterstroke work is actually very little bravado and much more control, reserve and mystery. One of the film’s best scenes observes a rabid dog making its way down the street. Atticus races home and is handed a gun to kill it before it can do harm. Peck squints and juggles for a moment before suddenly and smoothly removing his glasses and gaining his composure to kill the animal. Because this is all from Scout’s perspective, this is a unique look at a man, both physically and symbolically, we haven’t seen before who quietly has the mark of a hero within him.
Iconic may be the word for “To Kill a Mockingbird” more so than great. Its courtroom scene is a prime example, a compelling and powerfully photographed moment of political and social storytelling. These are arguably soapbox-y sentiments, but Peck avoids the Stanley Kramer posturing and delivers practical and principled ideas, all spread out in the scene’s tense, real-time dynamic.
Recommending “To Kill a Mockingbird” might be as needless. You’ve seen it, you’ve read it, and other films beloved and under the radar need the attention more. But if you do enjoy something of quality that begs to be seen, “In the name of God, do your duty.”