Blog Six. To Kill A Mockingbird. "Tom Robinson's Dead." Due Thursday by 10PM.

(Read everything below, please)
...They were taking him to Abbotsville for safekeeping.  Tom broke loose and ran.  The deputy called out to him to stop.  Tom didn't stop.  He shot at him to wound him and missed his aim. Killed him.  The deputy says Tom just ran like a crazy man.  The last thing I told him was not to lose heart, that we'd ask for an appeal.  We had such a good chance. We had more than a good chance.  I have to go out and tell his family.  Would you look after the children, Maudie? (Three Screenplays.  Horton Foote.  Grove Weidenfeld, New York 1989. 71)

   "They shot him, said Atticus.  "He was running.  It was during their exercise period.  They said he just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started climbing over.  Right in front of them—"
   "Didn't they try to stop him?  Didn't they gave him any warning?"  Aunt Alexandra's voice shook.
   "Oh yes, the guards called to him to stop.  They fired a few shots in the air, then to kill.  They got him just as he went over the fence.  They said if he'd had two good arms he'd have made it, he was moving that fast.  Seventeen bullet holes in him.  They didn't have to shoot him that much.  Cal, I want you to come with and help me tell Helen."
   "Yes sir," she murmured, fumbling at her apron.  Miss Maudie went to Calpurnia and untied it.  
   "This is the last straw, Atticus," Aunt Alexandra said.
   "Depends on how you look at it," he said.  "What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of 'em?  He wasn't Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner."
   Atticus leaned against the refrigerator, pushed up his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.  "We had such a good chance," he said.  "I told him what I thought, but I couldn't in truth say that we'd had more than a good chance.  I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own.  Ready, Cal?" (315)

How could this be so, I wondered as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial.  Senseless killing—Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way.  Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case.  Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell had opened her mouth and screamed. (323)

It is the failure of all Harper Lee's characters to imagine a larger, reformative social vision that haunts the Maycomb otherwise so lovingly evoked in its quaintness, gentility, and rural quietude.  Believing in the transcendent power of law, Atticus is nevertheless forced to conclude that the law is no better than the individuals responsible for its functioning as an institution.  The law, he sadly recognises, is thus no better than and no different from the community that accepts its guidance.  Acknowledging the essential problem of 'community standards' and what we would term today 'jury nullification', he can imagine no solution [....] Does Atticus himself ever confront the the daily injustices he says are perpetrated against Maycomb's black citizens?  On [this] important [question], the novel offers only silence. (Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockinbird: The Relationship Between Text and Film.  R. Barton Palmer.  Methuen Drama, London, 2008.  31-34)

 Mockingbird [Peck] suggests,
...restates in a heart-warming way, some basic truths.  It doesn't hurt any of us, for instance, to be reminded that a clear conscience and self-respect are our most valuable possessions.  And on the question of racial prejudice, it reminds us that we already gave the answer to all our racial problems in this country.  The Golden Rule has been there all along. (Palmer 135)

Gbenga Akinnagbe as Tom

Brock Peters as Tom

 

To Kill A Mockingbird, Stratford Festival, Ontario, 2018

Today's discussion opened several questions we probably won't have time to answer.  But we can address a few of them here.

1. (For The Seniors Only)  Where does the Mulligan film fail most as an adaptation of Harper Lee's novel?  Write several sentences.

1. (For Juniors Only)  Where does Mulligan's film succeed most as simply a Hollywood movie?  Write several sentences.

2.  Look at the first two quotes at the top of the page—the first from Horton Foote's screenplay and the second from Lee's novel.  Several of you commented on how fast the movie moved (or, paradoxically, how slow it was).  A screenplay is generally 100 pages long—one minute of screen time for each page.  In adapting a novel, the scriptwriter generally tries to streamline the script to fit that magical 100-120 minute length (unless it's the new Avengers movie).  So that what is on the page of the novel, an almost half page discussion between two characters, getting reduced to one speech can be seen as effective screenwriting.  After all, we got to move the plot along.  But sometimes—as several of you said in class—the details count.  So what gets lost in Foote's adaptation of page 315 in the novel—and to what effect?  Would the film be stronger, deeper—different in a good way—if more of Lee made it into what Atticus says?  Quote from both the script and novel (what's at the top of the page) in your response.

3.  The movie was a huge success—$108 million in today's currency (it would have been the 29th highest grossing film of 2018).  Yet many of you found it okay—or just meh.  So what do you think made it so popular in its time, given its serious themes of racism and injustice?  In your answer, quote from one the quotes at the top of the page. 

Celia Keenan-Bolger and LaTanya Richardson Jackson

Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jeff Daniels

Gregory Peck and Mary Badham

And here's the stunning opening of the film, with music by Elmer Bernstein, best known for this theme:

Blog Five. To Kill a Mockingbird. "There's A Lot Of Ugly Things In This World, Son."

"...I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible."

Mayella on the witness stand:

Tom on the witness stand:

Mayella's testimony:

Jacobi and I were talking after class about what struck us about the trial in the film (which is almost word for word taken from the novel—Horton Foote knew when not to mess with something pretty close to perfect).  As he said in class about Mayella, Jacobi talked about how little he felt for her in the film.  I said I felt even more for her from the film. I think Brock Peters and Colin Wilcox give the best performances in the film; certainly they give the most gut-wrenching.  They're small roles but they make them memorable—and complicated.   

Enough of me.  So...

1. Your thoughts on the trial scene?  Was it what you saw in your head when you read it in the novel? If so, how?  If not–or if parts of it were and parts of it weren't—what did correspond to what you saw in your mind and what didn't?  What did watching the trial make you think and/or feel?

2. Look at the pictures above the clip: what do they tell you about Mayella and Tom, both separately and as two connected by the trial? Try to not repeat what others have said—add to what others write.

3.  Calpurnia as played by Estelle Evans:

One of the critiques of the film is the lack of almost any depth or story for Calpurnia.  There was a little in the novel, enough for us to see that Calpurnia had, indeed, a life away from the Finches; and enough to see a little of the black community in Maycomb.  There are a couple of striking moments in the film so far that speaks to a story that could have added depth to it in terms of allowing the black characters some life. One is Jem and David Robinson's meeting at the Robinsons, the way the two boys regard each other with curiosity and friendliness—I would have loved to have heard what their conversation would have been if Bob Ewell hadn't shown up.  The second concerns Calpurnia herself. She seems to have no life beyond working for the Finches.  When Atticus asks if she could stay the night, she says yes without hesitation.  But there are moments when Estelle Evans infuses the cipher that is Calpurnia with life; one is when she chastises Scout for embarrassing Walter Cunningham, and even smacks her on the butt—is that what a cook does to the white daughter of her boss?  Well...yes. The second is when Atticus is about to drive her home, and there is this 10 seconds of silence as she watches Jem in a chair on the porch.  She looks so intently at the boy without saying a word; and she walks by him to go to the car, she ruffles his hair and says goodnight to him.

The television writers Joshua Brand and John Falsey wondered themselves what Calpurnia's life was like. They created a series in 1991—I'll Fly Away—that gave us a Southern lawyer with three children and a black housekeeper in the late 1950s as a vehicle to explore the unexplored life of a Calpurnia-like character.

So: a slightly different question.  Think of a moment in the film which features Calpurnia. In her mind and/or in her voice, what do you think she's thinking—and feeling?

Again: 200-300 words.  Yani: write more than you did last night.

Harper Lee and Mary Badham:

See you tomorrow or Thursday.

Blog Four. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962). "Well, It's Customary For The Boy To Have His Father's Watch."

SCOUT. What are you going to give me?
ATTICUS.  Well, I don't know that I have much else of value that belongs to me. But there's a pearl necklace...and there's a ring that belonged to your mother...and I've put them away...and they're to be yours.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Director: Robert Mulligan
Screenplay: Horton Foote (Academy Award Best Adaptation), based on the novel by Harper Lee
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Atticus Finch: Gregory Peck (Academy Award Best Actor) Scout: Mary Badham
Jem: Phillip Alford
Dill: John Megna
Heck Tate: Frank Overton
Miss Maudie: Rosemary Murphy
Mrs. Dubose: Ruth White
Tom Robinson: Brock Peters
Calpurnia: Estelle Evans
Judge Taylor: Paul Fix
Mayella Ewell: Colin Wilcox
Bob Ewell: James Anderson
Miss Stephanie Crawford: Alice Ghostly
Arthur "Boo" Radley: Robert Duvall
Mr. Gilmer: Willian Windom
Walter Cunningham: Crahan Denton
Adult Scout (narrator): Kim Stanley

Released 25 December 1962 Budget $2 million ($16.5 million in 2019)
Box Office $13.1 million ($108.2 million in 2019)

The Broadway production poster:

A poster from a 2017 Ottawa, Ontario stage production written by Christopher Sergel:

And two pages from a 2018 graphic novel adaptation by Fred Fordham:

This is the original trailer. It's clear the novel had already attained almost classic status.

A staged shot of Atticus (Gregory Peck), Scout (Mary Badham), and Jem (Phillip Alford):

Atticus and Tom (Brock Peters):

Atticus (Jeff Daniels) and Tom (Gbenga Akinnagbe) in the Broadway production:

Mayella (Colin Wilcox) and Bob Ewell (James Anderson):

Calpurnia (Estelle Evans) and Jem and Scout:

Atticus and Calpurnia (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) on Broadway, written by Aaron Sorkin:

The film To Kill a Mockingbird is, indeed, a  classic American film, but not necessarily for its cinematic virtues.  The film itself is straightforward and cleanly filmed; director Robert Mulligan is no Kubrick nor Kurosawa, nor would he ever claim a kinship to such stylistically original and unique filmmakers.  As he said in an interview, "I don't know anything about 'the Mulligan style.' If you can find it, well, that's your job."  Probably more crucial to the success of the film is the screenplay by Texas-born playwright Horton Foote, who won an Oscar for this film and Tender Mercies in 1983.
What has made the film so beloved is its story—which follows so closely to Lee's novel. Along with its massive popular success and Oscars,  the American Film Institute (AFI) named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century, the film itself the 25th greatest movie of all time as well as the best courtroom film, and the music by Elmer Bernstein the 17th greatest film score.

So...

1. Your reaction to the what you've seen? And how successfully is this—for you—an adaptation of the novel?  What works?  What doesn't?

2. What scene or image or moment stayed with you—and why?

3. The filmmakers made a deliberate decision to film this in black and white.  What's the effect of that for you?  Do you like it?  Dislike it?  Does it make sense?

250-300 words. 

Here's a scene not in the book.

 And here's a scene in the book.

 See you all tomorrow.

200 words.  See you tomorrow.