To Kill a Mockingbird TCM

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To Kill a Mockingbird

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In a small Southern town, a youth watches a relative protect a proud black man from a lynch mob










































































Filmed on location in Oxford MS (1949)

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Filmed on location in Oxford MS (1949)

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I just found this one on Max

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To Kill a Mockingbird

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One of Capote’s worst novels.

Naming a dog or child Atticus was a nascent form of virtue signaling.

I always vastly preferred "Intruder in the Dust" (1949). It seemed vibrant and realistic. It grabs you by the collar, and doesn't couch things. "Mockingbird" always struck me as a mopey, inward-looking tone-poem with self-conscious messaging, and shares a dreary-spooky aesthetic similar to "The Miracle Worker" (1961). Both those latter two are well-made and quite beloved, and I don't really knock them, but they just really aren't my cup of tea.

No, I don't really mind the narrative from a child's perspective, nor the somewhat stylized approach to reality. Those can and often do resonate with me. Maybe it's partially because of the meshing of these elements with the heavy subject-matter that I found the results a little unappetizing. I don't know. Usually I also expect a child's perspective to be a bit more expressive of joyful wonderment, but the film's approach was more dark and moody and typical of post-war psychology, despite its earlier-era setting. A certain brand of unctuous artificiality that was common the dramas of that period, which I've never really cottoned to.

Probably also didn't help that my first introduction to the film was divided into two parts over two days, when it was screened on 16mm for us school students, during a teacher-workday period. Not saying that I have an active, total dislike for the film. It's tolerable enough. But I wish I could warm up to it more, especially since I had a nice chat one time with Mary Badham, about thirty years ago, and found her most pleasant.