To Kill a Mockingbird

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

I watched this once or twice before, when I was much younger (including watching it in english class when we studied the book in high school). I know it more from my love of the beautiful score by Elmer Bernstein which I still listen to regularly. I saw it had been released on bluray as part of Universal's awesome 100 year anniversary restoration and rereleasing scheme. I'm really excited about some of the titles that are going to finally be released but this was one that I only have vague memories of so was really interested to check out again.

It's easy to see why it's such a classic. There's an elegance to everything about it, that seems so simple and yet accomplishes so much. All the pieces are right where they need to be and do exactly what they are designed to do to tell this story. It's a brilliant adaptation, emotive and full of nostalgia.

Atticus Finch is a character that's almsot christ-like. He's put up on such a pedestal I find it hard to believe anyone like him actually exists in the world, however as in the novel, the point of view is always a recollection from the children which also explains the bed-time story feeling of the whole film.

And I totally recognised Robert Duvall this time.

The clean up and restoration is pretty good but you can see a lot of grain smoothing going on which doesn't look that nice. Unfortunately the film features a lot of post push ins which makes this all the more noticeable. I'd personally prefer to just see the grain.

Wonderful to watch this again and if Universal's other restored releases are this loaded with extra features as well, we're in for a hell of a year.