Anytime Movies #9: To Kill a Mockingbird

While I catch up on the reviews still in "Draft" phase here, I'll re-run a feature I ran when I first started this blog seven years ago,* when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.

I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.

So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies.

Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie. And we begin in as contrary a way as possible (so as to avoid any comparison to a "Top Ten" list). This one is unusual in that it's a bonus (like the joke in This is Spinal Tap, "Anytime Movies" go all the way up to eleven). 

What is it about this film that puts it on so many favorites lists. Horton Foote’s masterful telescoping of Harper Lee’s frail, powerful novel? The fact that, as movie adaptations go, this is certainly one of the best? That it has an impeccably picked cast, directed to feel absolutely real, including three of the best child-performances in all of movies, by one of the best directors of actors, Robert Mulligan? The beautiful, fragile score by Elmer Bernstein, certainly contributes.

I remember seeing To Kill A Mockingbird when I was seven years old, and not “getting it” much. I remember being annoyed with my Mom for trying to cover my eyes during the “scary” parts—although Robert Duvall as “Boo” Radley did genuinely creep me out back then (in fact, he still does, a bit). I didn’t “get” the dog-shooting (“He won’t kill a mockingbird, but he’ll sure-as-shootin' kill a dog!”) But I remember that it was a scary movie for a kid. In the film, the night was so dark, and any light cast spooky elongated shadows and trees moved and leaves rustled. The World seemed restless and alive, full of mysteries and secret terrors just out of sight, when it should have been still and asleep. It was a world that, under the pretense of peace and calm, seethed with menace and dread just under the surface.

And that’s the key, I think. There seemed to be, in the movie, at least, a sense that the tremulous world was lurching and struggling to change—that the very earth was metamorphosing and demanding it, while the people entwined in that world, moved along, oblivious to the change, holding onto a complacent life that would inevitably end. At the same time, Mockingbird has the feel of nostalgia—the palpable sense that life flows through our fingers like sand, and that we’re always in danger of losing that life we hold precious. 

But you don’t think of these things when you’re a child. Summers are endless. Life is eternal. If born into a nurturing, protecting household (and that is key) there is the illusion that the world is benign and all things are possible…under heaven.

Heaven is a concept easily grasped by a child. If you’ve been “good” in your life, as a reward after death, you go to a “good” place to spend Eternity. In the years of growth, a child struggles to understand its world and to assert itself in an environment it has no control over. In a world too complex to understand, the concept of Heaven is a comfort to a child. It’s simple. It’s uncomplicated. It’s black and white. Like Good and Bad.

Like integrity.

Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) awaits a lynch-mob, that first—to his initial dismay 
and then wonder—is shamed and turned away by his own children. He shouldn't have wondered.

The children in To Kill a Mockingbird learn the world isn’t nearly as simple as they thought. That the Radley “kid” may not be the evil thing they whisper about in the dark before they go to sleep. That other peoples’ lives may not resemble their own. That their father is many things—but he is also fallible. Jem breaks down when Tom Robinson is convicted of raping a white woman, but I would doubt that he’s crying for Robinson. He’s crying for his father’s failure—a disappointment as palpable as his father being not willing to play football for the Methodists. Jem and Scout are too young to understand the idea of integrity. No, that's not quite accurate. They’re too young to understand the pressures of a world where integrity might be compromised. And they’re too young to understand that their father’s belief in right and good could actually cause them harm. 

But it is that integrity that makes their father dependable, despite the tragedies of the summer. It is that integrity in a fragile, changing world that will sustain and endure and remain a constant as sure as the north star in the void. And that echoes long in our minds at the end of the film with its last line of narration: “He would be in Jem’s room all night. An he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

When the American Film Institute held a vote for the cinema’s best hero, the honor did not go to the Sergent Yorks or the Skywalkers or the Bonds or any of the roles played by Eastwood, Willis or Schwarzenegger. It went to a character of gentle heroics who in the course of the movie only fires one shot, who does not raise a hand in anger, and with jaw set and quiet voice does what he knows to be right. It was a shock that Atticus Finch would be voted the greatest movie hero, but it was the best choice possible, and legitimized the idea of holding such a silly poll in the first place.

Stephen Frankfurt's evocative title sequence.

Music by Elmer Bernstein

Horton Foote died March 4th, 2009. Director Robert Mulligan died right before Christmas, 2008. William Windom, in 2012. Brock Peters died in 2005. Rosemary Murphy died in 2014. Peck, in 2003. My favorite actor in this and many things, Frank Overton, died in 1967. Survivors are Robert Duvall (Arthur "Boo" Radley), and the Finch kids.

And Harper...Harper "Nelle" Lee died February 19, 2016, just shy of her 90th birthday.

Except for her one gentle novel that stood like a golden spike in the Civil Rights Era, Nelle Harper Lee published no other major works, only a scattering of essays. Not a recluse, she merely avoided the public spotlight. She, in her shy ways, did no public speaking. She said what she is going to say. And that should be enough.**

Harper endures.

Anytime Movies:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Goldfinger
Bonus:  Edge of Darkness

* And, on Sunday, we'll put up a "Don't Make a Scene" feature from each week's film.

* * Just before her death, her agent published her first submitted work, "Go Set a Watchman," the rejected first novel that inspired her editor to tell her to try again and "write about the kids" which became "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Julia (1977)

Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) I won't get into the actual veracity of the story behind Julia (other than this article isn't tagged with "Based on a True Story" (not that any movie that claims that distinction is probably being very truthful). But, the movie (and Hellman in her book, "Pentimento") hedges its bets by opening with an atmospheric shot of Lillian Hellman (and, according to entertainment myth, it actually IS Lillian Hellman in that boat) and Jane Fonda's voice-over narration:

“Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. I'm old now and I want to remember what was there for me once and what is there for me now." 

Cut to memory of days gone by: Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) is writing...or trying to, anyway. It's a struggle.  She chain-smokes, stabs at the typewriter in frustration, and, even goes so far as to throw the damned contraption out the window. All of this is not lost on her lover, Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards), himself a writer (currently living on royalties) who goes about his day keeping up their New York coast beach-house and observing the recalcitrant chaos which is "Lilly" composing. "You know you don't have to do this," he rather sarcastically counsels. "It's not like you've written anything before. No one'll miss you. It's a perfect time to change jobs." 

He suggests that if she's blocked, she should do something else, another job, a vacation, go to Paris, see her friend Julia. "Just don't go crying about it!" he scolds. "If you're gonna cry about it, go stand on a rock!" But, she doesn't leave, just retreats to her memory. Her childhood friend Julia (Lisa Pelikan as a child, Vanessa Redgrave grown up)she remembers with absolute clarity, how she was a restless spirit, raised by her entitled grandparents (who tell her when she sees some injustice "don't look at it") and finally escapes when she is accepted at Oxford to study medicine and does graduate studies at the University of Vienna. She decides to go to Paris, re-purposes herself to write her play...and to see Julia. After many missed phone-calls, she gets a mysterious phone-call that Julia is in hospital, injured from an attack from fascist demonstrators on campus.

Once in Vienna, she find her friend badly beaten, unable to talk, and she is told that she has a reservation for her stay at the Hotel Imperial, provided by an "Herr von Fritsch" who is not staying at the hotel and cannot be reached. Julia disappears from the hospital and her records expunged, leaving Lilly confused, searching, frustrated, and unable to finish her play. She returns home and resumes writing.

But, the memory of the events in Vienna haunts her. She finishes her play, but finds Hammett in the morning, reading it, and more than critical. "You want to be a serious writer," he says. "I don't know what happened, but you better tear that up." A long torturous second draft produces "The Children's Hour," high praise from "Dash" and interest from Broadway, where she becomes the toast of the town. But, there is no word from Julia, although Lilly writes her regularly.

On a goodwill trip to Russia (along with Hal Holbrook's Alan Campbell and Rosemary Murphy's Dorothy Parker), Hellman is contacted in Vienna by a "Mr. Johann" (Maximillian Schell), who carries a message and a request from Julia—come see her in Berlin on the way to Moscow, in that way, with her help, anti-Nazi organizations can smuggle in $50,000 of Julia's money to bribe the release of some fellow dissidents. The mission is, of course, not a little dangerous; she will be detouring, travelling to Nazi Germany and Lillian Hellman is Jewish. Although she is warned that, as in childhood, she is "afraid of being afraid," she is cautioned by Julia's message not to be a hero, if she thinks she cannot do it.

Of course, she does it, although it attracts the curiosity of Campbell and Parker, and Hellman boards a train for a tense journey to Berlin, where, unbeknownst to her, she is being kept under watch by the Nazi's and under wing by the sympathizers, who anonymously supervise her every nervous move for a rendezvous she can't begin to imagine.  

The film won the BAFTA that year for Best Picture. It also won three Academy Awards: Vanessa Redgrave's supporting performance as Julia (frankly, every time Redgrave acts she should win an Oscar); Jason Robards won for Best Supporting Actor for his wry romanticized portrayal of Hammett (Schell was nominated as well) and Alvin Sargent's spare, episodic screenplay that, although it never stays in one place for very long, is nonetheless amazingly rich in detail. I also think this is probably Jane Fonda's most relaxed, most versatile and least mannered performance of her entire career—she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but lost to Diane Keaton's Annie Hall. Her portrayal is "scrappy" (as described in the screenplay) but also vulnerable, tremulous, but never weak, and Fonda takes major advantages of those moments for subtle drama and opportunities for comedy.

Fred Zinnemann was 70 when he made Julia and was approaching his fourth decade making movies (this would be his second to last film). His direction is meticulous, but like much of the director's work over the years, not so much as to be stodgy—he frequently punctuates the steadiness of the compositions with ones that are "catch-as-catch-can" to bring life to the story-telling. He is aided by editor Walter Murch—doing his first editing work outside the USC Mafia film-making tent—who is positively brutal in his cutting, but creates a dramatic tension through it that might not be there if he weren't so fastidious. George Delerue's score is uncharacteristically unromantic, relying more of the tension he employed in his work for The Day of the Dolphin. If there is any weakness to the film, it's in Douglas Slocombe's too-veiled photography, which looks like a bad imitation of Geoffrey Unsworth's fine-grained work. It may be a film of memory, but, if so, it's awfully fuzzy.

The film has been criticized for its emphasis less on Julia, but on Hellman's story, which seems odd. It is Hellman's story, and if hers is less dynamic, more flighty, and a bit specious in her pursuit of fame and fortune (and acceptance), then so be it. That's what her story was. "Julia" (if she existed) was out of sight, a creature of moments and not continuity, and ultimately, a mystery as unknowable as one of Hammett's femme fatale's. And she was a reflection of what Hellman wanted to be—worldly, passionate, committed, and independently wealthy. In some form, Julia existed, if only in a case of need.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen Julia, but I saw it a lot. It was the favorite film of a gal I was going out with at the time, and it was the "go-to" movie on date night. But, personal history aside, the film still resonates for its unresolved story, the questions, the regrets, the "what-could-have-been's" at its end and the sense of unreality that the world was drenched in during the 40's before, in our fear, paranoia, and triumphalism, we produced our "Scoundrel Time" in the 1950's. It's a deftly handled film of flawed individuals trying to do the right thing and falling short.

Lilly and Dash (left)

Lillian Hellman in 1939 (right)

Julia was also the film debut of an actress with the unlikely name of Meryl Streep
(wonder whatever happened to her?)

Anytime Movies (Transplanted): To Kill a Mockingbird

While I have a few reviews "in the works," It's as good a time as any to re-boot (actually transplant from the old movie blog) a feature I started years ago, when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.

I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.

So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies.

Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie.

What is it about this film that puts it on so many favorites lists. Horton Foote’s masterful telescoping of Harper Lee’s frail, powerful novel? The fact that, as movie adaptations go, this is certainly one of the best? That it has an impeccably picked cast, directed to feel absolutely real, including three of the best child-performances in all of movies, by one of the best directors of actors, Robert Mulligan? The beautiful, fragile score by Elmer Bernstein, certainly contributes.

I remember seeing To Kill A Mockingbird when I was seven years old, and not “getting it” much. I remember being annoyed with my Mom for trying to cover my eyes during the “scary” parts—although Robert Duvall as “Boo” Radley did genuinely creep me out back then (in fact, he still does, a bit). I didn’t “get” the dog-shooting (“He won’t kill a mockingbird, but he’ll sure-as-shootin' kill a dog!”) But I remember that it was a scary movie for a kid. In the film, the night was so dark, and any light cast spooky elongated shadows and trees moved and leaves rustled. The World seemed restless and alive when it should have been still and asleep. It was a world that, under the pretense of peace and calm, seethed with menace and dread just under the surface.

And that’s the key, I think. There seemed to be, in the movie, at least, a sense that the tremulous world was lurching and struggling to change—that the very earth was metamorphosing and demanding it, while the people entwined in that world, moved along, oblivious to the change, holding onto a complacent life that would inevitably end. At the same time, Mockingbird has the feel of nostalgia—the palpable sense that life flows through our fingers like sand, and that we’re always in danger of losing that life we hold precious. 

But you don’t think of these things when you’re a child. Summers are endless. Life is eternal. If born into a nurturing, protecting household (and that is key) there is the illusion that the world is benign and all things are possible…under heaven.

Heaven is a concept easily grasped by a child. If you’ve been “good” in your life, as a reward after death, you go to a “good” place to spend Eternity. In the years of growth, a child struggles to understand its world and to assert itself in an environment it has no control over. In a world too complex to understand, the concept of Heaven is a comfort to a child. It’s simple. It’s uncomplicated. It’s black and white. Like Good and Bad.

Like integrity.

Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) awaits a lynch-mob, that first to his initial dismay 
and then wonder is shamed and turned away by his own children. He shouldn't have wondered.

The children in To Kill a Mockingbird learn the world isn’t nearly as simple as they thought. That the Radley “kid” may not be the evil thing they whisper about in the dark before they go to sleep. That other peoples’ lives may not resemble their own. That their father is many things—but he is also fallible. Jem breaks down when Tom Robinson is convicted of raping a white woman, but I would doubt that he’s crying for Robinson. He’s crying for his father’s failure—a disappointment as palpable as his father being not willing to play football for the Methodists. Jem and Scout are too young to understand the idea of integrity. No, that's not quite accurate. They’re too young to understand the pressures of a world where integrity might be compromised. And they’re too young to understand that their father’s belief in right and good could actually cause them harm. But it is that integrity that makes their father dependable, despite the tragedies of the summer. It is that integrity in a fragile, changing world that will sustain and endure and remain a constant as sure as the north star in the void. And that echoes long in our minds at the end of the film with its last line of narration: “He would be in Jem’s room all night. An he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

When the American Film Institute held a vote for the cinema’s best hero, the honor did not go to the Sergent Yorks or the Skywalkers or the Bonds or any of the roles played by Eastwood, Willis or Schwarzenegger. It went to a character of gentle heroics who in the course of the movie only fires one shot, who does not raise a hand in anger, and with jaw set and quiet voice does what he knows to be right. It was a shock that Atticus Finch would be voted the greatest movie hero, but it was the best choice possible, and legitimized the idea of holding such a silly poll in the first place.

Stephen Frankfurt's evocative title sequence.

Music by Elmer Bernstein

Horton Foote died March 4th, 2009. Director Robert Mulligan died right before Christmas, 2008. William Windom, in 2012. Brock Peters died in 2005. Peck, in 2003. My favorite actor in this and many things, Frank Overton, died in 1967. Survivors are Robert Duvall (Arthur "Boo" Radley), Rosemary Murphy ("Miss" Maudie Atkinson), and the Finch kids.

And Harper.

Except for her one gentle novel that stood like a golden spike in the Civil Rights Era, Nelle Harper Lee has published no other novels, only a scattering of essays. Not a recluse, she merely avoids the public spotlight. She, in her shy ways, does no public speaking. She has said what she is going to say. And that should be enough.

Harper endures.


Afterword: Harper Lee died on February 19, 2016, shy of her 90th birthday. Her agent published her first novel "Go Set a Watchman,"-the rejected first novel that inspired her editor to tell her to "write about the kids"


To Kill a Mockingbird
Goldfinger
Bonus:  Edge of Darkness