Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) 1962

 

Heaven and Earth Magic (1962)

 

Dog Star Man (1962)

 

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

 

An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

 

A Dog’s Life (1962)

Paolo Cavara

Gualtiero Jacopetti

Franco Prosperi

Lawrence of Arabia (1962 ) ***

Director David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is an epic, three and half hour-plus film about how T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) unwittingly won Saudi Arabia for the British military during World War I.  On the one hand you could say the production was grand and the cast renowned, but on the other hand you could say the film was too long and comprised solely of men—there are only brief sightings of women.  As such, the film often drags and has a primarily testosterone infused plot—even if there are some homoerotic themes to be found.

The film was nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards and won seven: Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Original Score, and Best Director.  While it garnered two acting nominations, I must say that I was not overly impressed by anyone in this dream cast other than Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif. For me, O’Toole gets a bit hammy in this and Anthony Quinn’s performance is just the epitome of overacting.  Perhaps Sharif had an advantage on most of the cast, as he was actually from the Middle East (Egypt), but his performance as Sherif Ali is engaging and believable, and he deserved his Best Supporting Actor nomination. While Guinness may not have been from the Middle East, he is particularly memorable as King Faisal. I expect he took great pride in doing so well in a role that was originally supposed to be played by Laurence Olivier.

Whenever I think about Lawrence of Arabia I remember an endless desert, camels, and trains being blown up.  The sheer size of the production is mind-boggling, which is one of the reasons I think it is still so highly regarded by film critics.  Filming with a cast of thousands, comprised of both people and animals, in the desert was a monumental task for Lean.  Of course, Lean was no stranger to large productions (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Oliver Twist), so he knew quite well how to be the ringmaster of such a massive circus.  He benefitted greatly from having one of the greatest British cinematographers, F.A. Young, doing the heavy lifting.  Really, it’s not the story that makes Lawrence of Arabia such a memorable movie—it’s all about the images captured by Young. And, these striking images paired with Maurice Jones’ unforgettable score make the perfect pairing. 

In a post-colonial world, Lawrence of Arabia can be a troubling film.  It was actually banned in many Middle Eastern countries (sans Egypt) because of the way it depicted Arabs. The whole idea that Lawrence was some sort of messianic figure to the Arabs somehow infantilizes them.  Also, the depiction of Arabs as gullible savages did not play well in newly emancipated Arab nations.  While no one should ever condone terrorism, there is a reason many in the Middle East don’t like Westerners—you ask them to help you free themselves from the yolks of the Ottoman Empire with the promise of self-rule and then take them over yourselves to plunder their resources (mainly petroleum and gemstones) and there is bound to be some animosity. 

Overall, Lawrence of Arabia is a masterful work of brilliant cinematography.  The story is somewhat interesting, but if you are a student of history the blatant inaccuracies in the movie can be unpleasant to endure. Fine performances from Sharif and Guinness, at least, temper this unpleasantness. 

 

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) **1/2

Who doesn’t wish their father was a little bit (or maybe a lot) like Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck)? Kind, soft-spoken, principled, honorable, and patient are the words that spring to mind when I think of this iconic film and literary hero. If the stories are true that author Harper Lee based her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird on her own father, then she was an extremely lucky child and woman. She was also blessed by the fact that producers Alan J. Pakula and Robert Mulligan (who also directed) brought her novel to the screen and created one of the most timely American films ever. 

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was released at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had not yet given his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, nor had the nation descended into a fervent anti-war sentiment regarding the Vietnam War.  Still, racism and militarism were prevalent themes running wild in the American mindset.  In 1962 it was still an acceptable practice in the South (and parts of the North, too) to call African Americans ‘niggers’ and to refer to grown black men as ‘boys’. Miscarriages of justice and vigilante retributions ran rampant through Jim Crow and up to its bitter end with the passage of the various Civil Rights Acts (1957-1968).  This is why both the novel and the film To Kill a Mockingbird are such important testaments regarding  Southern Americana.

The story is a Southern Gothic tale told from the viewpoint of six/seven-year-old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch (Mary Badham).  She and her older brother Jem (Philip Alford) are seemingly the protagonists, but their father, Atticus, is clearly the moral center of the film.  While the children are enchanted and frightened by their mysterious neighbor Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his big screen debut), Atticus must prepare a defense for his client Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man who is accused of raping and beating a white woman (Collin Wilcox).  The Finch family must endure insults and, most alarmingly, physical threats by Bob Ewell (James K. Anderson), because of the case.  The plot culminates when the Boo mystery and the Ewell threat meet head on one dark Halloween night.

I’m sure everyone has their own particular favorite scene from To Kill a Mockingbird—there are so many wonderful ones to pick from—but I expect the most memorable one is when Atticus delivers his closing arguments to an all-white jury. This is probably the scene that won Peck the Best Actor Oscar. In it, he dares to tell the truth: all of the evidence clearly proves his client is innocent. While he is somewhat resigned to the fact that the jury will come back with a guilty verdict, he vehemently defends his client and discusses the unwritten codes of Southern culture. It is an awesome display of honesty, despair, and condemnation all at once.  Of course, the words that Peck spoke had the added weight of being heard in movie theatres across the country in 1962, too.  It was as though he were truly speaking to the nation about the disease of racism.

There are many things to like about To Kill a Mockingbird. The acting is natural and understated—something that doesn’t always happen when your principal leads are children.  Badham was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress nomination and, of course, Peck won his only Oscar for playing Atticus, but Alford and Anderson also do memorable work, too.  As a matter of fact, I think it was pretty shabby of the Academy to overlook Anderson’s compelling and powerful performance. 

Russell Harlan’s black-and-white cinematography is crisp and does an excellent job of setting the Gothic tone.  His effort was greatly aided by Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead, and Oliver Emert’s Oscar-winning art direction.  Their fictional creation of Maycomb, Alabama harkens back to the days of old Southern towns where everyone knew one another and children freely walked the streets after dark.  Still, Elmer Bernstein’s whimsical but somewhat eerie musical score suggests that perhaps children shouldn’t be roaming the dark Maycomb County streets.

What I think is most telling about To Kill a Mockingbird (both the film and the book) is how it has endured. While I don’t agree that we live in a post-racist society as some may suggest, I do believe that over the last fifty years America has made great strides in this area.  When I taught middle school, I always had my eighth graders read the book and then we would watch the movie, and they enjoyed doing both (at least as much as they could). Unlike the hysteria that sometimes surrounds teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with its constant use of the word ‘nigger’, To Kill a Mockingbird was (at least for me) easily accepted by my students and their families. I suppose having the story told through the eyes of a little girl helped, and the complete condemnation of racism is a plus, too, I’m sure.