Literature in Film Blog #3” “To Kill a Mockingbird”

"To Kill a Mockingbird" 

While watching this film I had some of the thoughts from the film, culture, and ideology packet that was distributed recently; I quickly attempted to view the film “To Kill a Mockingbird” to observe what it revealed about society or culture. The film certainly can file under the film and society, and film and mass culture headings; in fact, the film was highly received by many. Some claim the film as “one of the best ever made” and I must agree, “Just as film works on the meaning systems of culture-to renew, reproduce, or review them-it is also produced by those meaning systems. The filmmaker, like the novelist or the storyteller, is a bricoleur -a sort of handyman who does the best s/he can with the materials at hand. The filmmaker uses the representational conventions and repertoires available within the culture in order to make something fresh but familiar, new but generic, individual but representative.” The familiar in the film is the setting of inequality between blacks and whites in the town. It is a new spin on the old topic of modern slavery. Also, the film can stand on it’s own aside from the book, but also be unified in representation.  I believe the most interesting part of the novel is the application of Atticus as a lawyer; he has the powerful belief of every man having the same rights as the one beside him. Atticus makes the decision to defend Tom. Without even knowing the magnitude of racism, Scout also defends the black man by stepping in front of the crowd before they stormed into the jailhouse where Tom was held.