Saturday, April 28, 2012
The Half Century Mark
It's a Saturday morning, I was having a relaxing idyll while surfing various sites I visit when I have the time, when I stumbled upon this nugget:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fDo2vhMA24k
Yep, it has been 50 years since the premiere of the film version of To Kill A Mockingbird. The White House hosted an event to commemorate the occasion, which included the attendance of the woman who played Scout in the film. Though a half-century older, those eyes gave her identity away.
This may be the book I read as a child that had the greatest influence over me. I don't recall if I read it as part some summer reading program or if it was passed along to me by my parents or older sister. Consider the time I read it: it was after Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, before Birmingham, Selma, or the tragedies that surrounded the push to register voters in Mississippi. It was also before the Kennedy assassination. Even in Tulsa, while there were rumblings that change was afoot, it was a time of innocence, when people did not lock their doors, children would walk to school (and even go home for lunch). There were no pictures on milk cartons; color televisions were rare and there were only 4 TV stations.
Introduce to my simple world the characters of Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, Jem, Scout and Dill Harris. Add to this mix Aunt Maud, the sinister Mr. Ewell, his hapless daughter and Tom Robinson. I could hear the nighttime sounds in their neighborhood, I could feel the oppressive heat of a summer afternoon steaming from the pages. I, too, had secret hiding places inside tree trunks for the treasures one discovers in childhood. Although I did not know a Boo Radley, I felt certain I knew exactly which house in Tulsa was his (it was in the 1700 block of South Detroit).
I don't think I had ever read a book that later became a film until this one came out. When I saw it, every image I had in my mind was visible on the screen. It was perfectly cast, seemingly filmed through some gauze filter. No character has moved me before or since more than Atticus. Mr. Peck played the role with such understatement, allowing the force of his character to dominate the scene instead of his acting. Oddly enough, the scene that had the most profound impact (and still brings a constriction of my throat) is when he is leaving the courtroom after everyone else but those in the gallery, where Scout is watching through the railing. "Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father's passin", said the minister. Such a simple scene, the respect for this character so eloquently illustrated. I know I have not seen a film treatment of a book since that captured the essence of its story so perfectly.
I have read disparaging comments about Harper Lee, that she only wrote this one great book. Perhaps, but it is one book more than nearly all the rest of us have written. I would be fine if Orson Welles had made no other film but his first one or Renoir had stopped painting after that boating party; genius need not be repeated, so long as it happens but once. I know my life is infinitely richer as a result of reading this book and seeing this film. I think I'll celebrate by buying a copy for each of my children. Perhaps it will inspire each of them to create an Atticus moment for someone else.
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Are you a believer that Truman Capote, "Dill" was the actual author?
ReplyDeleteI had heard that rumor and dimly recall an all-night discussion on the topic in college. Dill Harris is Truman Capote; he and Ms. Lee were neighbors. As to Capote's authorship, I don't believe it. He did introduce her to a literary agent, she did have several stories published prior to this novel and the prose was unlike anything else Capote ever wrote.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Harper Lee was a model, of sorts, for the Skeeter character in The Help?
Here's a series of suppositions I thought of this morning: First, imagine Mayella Ewell being alive in Alabama today. Second, assume she becomes pregnant either from Tom Robinson (artfully disproved by Atticus) or her father (a subject so repulsive for the allegedly genteel era about which Ms. Lee wrote). The conclusion: current Alabama law mandates that she carry that child to term. Mind you, I am not taking a position one way or another, simply placing a fictional tale into a current context.