Adapted from Harper Lee’s semiautobiographical Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was released just two years after the novel’s publication to rapturous critical acclaim and stellar box office. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards—winning three for Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Art Direction—and enjoys a reputation as one of cinema’s preeminent courtroom dramas. 

Set during the Great Depression in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, the film is narrated by six-year-old Scout, the daughter of Atticus Finch, a widowed white lawyer who represents mostly poor members of their community, many of whom are Black. When a white woman accuses a Black man of rape, Atticus is appointed to defend the man, igniting racial tensions in the community. 

Unlike many courtroom dramas of its day (such as 12 Angry Men, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Inherit the Wind), the story of the case is not told through the perspectives of the lawyers, defendants or prosecutors, but rather filtered through the perspective of the film’s protagonist, Scout, the daughter of the defense lawyer. This seminar will focus on analysis of the film through the lens of literary adaptation, visual style and narrative perspective. We’ll also discuss how the film is situated within somewhat related genres of the courtroom drama and the white savior film.