Force Fed Films: To Kill a Mockingbird

I'm really liking Puneet's recent choices of movies for me. This week I'm "forced" to watch To Kill a Mockingbird from 1962. The version I got was even in black and white! This is one of those movies that I've heard the title a TON but never saw, or even really knew what it was about. Upon reading the plot summary though I was quite intrigued. Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, is a lawyer who is assigned to defend a black man in a rape case. There is hardly any evidence and the facts make it pretty obvious the charges are false. Unfortunately, this is in the days where black people had very little rights. Even so, he does his best to defend the man, unblinded by colour. Can he sway the all white jury to this man's side? Hit the jump for more.


This movie is powerful and shocking in it's themes and how it depicts what this point in time was like. It's mentioned that people are almost all poor and it being due to the depression, so that gives you a sense of the era. What should be an open and shut case becomes a horrifyingly intense courtroom drama due simply to the overbearing racism that nearly all the citizens have. Even in the process of Atticus' defense, he mentions that these feelings are simply accepted cultural rules. Even that's hard to swallow coming from a man who seems so good hearted, but those were simply the sad times they lived in.

What I didn't expect in the least was that the majority of this movie would be told from his kid's perspective. We constantly follow around his son and daughter, Jem and Scout, occasionally accompanied by their friend. For a large portion of the movie, the things they get upto don't even have anything to do with the case, but instead focuses on a mysterious neighbour who never leaves his home and is rumoured to be terribly violent. For a while this seems unimportant, but it does play into the story towards the end.

Atticus acts as the defense for the unfairly accused

At any rate, seeing the trial and the racism through the innocent eyes of the children really helps hammer down the idea that even in that time, racism didn't really makes any sense. Also, great job in finding child actors that weren't annoying to watch. Scout, the daughter, played by Mary Bedham was especially cute and did a wonderful job.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a great movie that seems to accurately, and certainly embarrassingly depict the way racism ruled the world in the past. There's a few instances of racist language that can be unpleasant to have to hear, but the movie treats it as best as it can while staying true to the times. I definitely recommend seeing this.