31st Favorite Movie - To Kill A Mockingbird

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

To Kil A Mockingbird is one of my favorite books, and there really is no drop-off with the movie.

How many times can you think of where the movie lives up to the book? I thought of a few:

*Lord of the Rings
*Harry Potter (this shows I am not a true HP fan)
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
*Shawshank Redemption (originally a short story by Stephen King)
*Goodfellas

Of the books we were assigned to read in high school, To Kill A Mockingbird was one of my favorites, along with The Catcher in the Rye. The book/movie are about a family growing up in the Jim Crow south. The story centers around the trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. The father of the family, played by Gregory Peck, is the defendant in the trial. His name is Atticus Finch... and he is my hero (it even says so on my Myspace!). Atticus stands for all that is good in the world: honesty, compassion, patience, and standing up for what is right. One of my favorite scenes is when one of the men in the town spits in his face for defending someone who is black. Atticus gets real mad... but he doesn't do anything to retaliate. He just walks away.


The title refers to a line in which Atticus says (paraphrased) "it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, because all they do is sing and make other people happy". This idea of it being a sin to kill something or somebody good is related to different characters in the movie, especially the creepy but harmless neighbor, Boo Radley, played by a very young Robery Duvall. One of my favorite moments in all of cinema is Scout saying, "hey Boo..." at the end.


Overall, the movie is a faithful retelling of the book and nothing gets lost in translation.


I only hope that they do as good a job with Catcher in the Rye someday...