8.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 5.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
Starring: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy, Ruth WhiteDrama | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS 2.0 Mono
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy (as download)
DVD copy
BD-Live
Mobile features
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.5 | |
Overall | 5.0 |
1962 was a rather remarkable year for films featuring stellar performances by young actors. Patty Duke took home a well deserved Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her iconic work in The Miracle Worker, but Patty’s was hardly the only notable performance that year. Duke was joined in the Best Supporting Actress category by another young girl whose performance has entered the annals of the near legendary, namely Mary Badham’s beautifully rendered work as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. There were a slew of other films that featured standout younger performances—Lolita, Sundays and Cybele, Cape Fear, The Music Man just to name a few—but no other film that year (and arguably any year) actually captured the viewpoint of children as magically yet realistically as To Kill a Mockingbird did. What’s perhaps so incredible about this beautifully heartfelt film is how effortlessly it manages to sum up an entire generation’s experience of one distinct region of the United States, namely the American South, dealing with all sorts of issues from the epochal (like race relations) to the seemingly picayune (like sibling rivalry and loyalty). The fact that To Kill a Mockingbird does this while virtually never deviating from its children’s perspective makes the film one of the most extraordinary achievements in the annals of film, one which intentionally maintains a simple, unaffected style that still manages to produce one of the heftiest emotional wallops imaginable. While a major subplot of the film casts a rather unseemly light on the American South, the incredibly noble and moral character of the focal children’s father, one Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), an attorney who is hired to defend a black man accused of raping and beating a white girl, gives this film a strong ethical center which further helps to distinguish it and which adds inestimably to the film’s allure.
Scuttlebutt has it the world may be ending in 2012, and there may be further signs of an impending apocalypse, at least for some ardent film fans, with the news that Universal, long the bane of catalog title collectors, seems to have finally woken up and realized how to treat its asset treasures. Now, I have never believed that at least some of Universal's catalog Blu- ray releases were as outright terrible as some claimed, but I seem to have a much higher tolerance for DNR than some. (On the other hand, edge enhancement and haloing drive me a bit crazy.) To Kill a Mockingbird is presented on Blu-ray with a VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 (and, yes, you read that right: VC-1). The film is part of Universal's well publicized 100th Anniversary promotional push to revisit many of its storied films, restoring and remastering them for home video release (not all of these legendary films will receive Blu-ray releases, unfortunately). This new Blu-ray has been sourced from high res scans of original 35mm source elements and the results are simply gorgeous. The clarity and precision of the image is breathtaking at times, with beautifully modulated gray scale, deep, rich blacks and piercing, though never blooming, whites. Though the film and all of the supplements are on a BD-50, perhaps because the supplements (save for the restoration featurette) are in SD, and there are absolutely no compression artifacts to report. The restoration featurette, which actually covers a lot of titles, actually spends a few seconds discussing one aspect of Universal's high def releases which seem to create the biggest controversy: digital noise reduction of grain. In the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, there were a number of optical push ins (as opposed to zooms) which magnified grain to a really ugly degree, something shown quite clearly in the restoration featurette. Rather than "erase" the grain, which the team of restorers quite clearly state is unthinkable, they used a new algorithm which "averaged" the grain over the entire sequence, including before and after the optical push. The results should please even the most persnickety videophiles. Several scenes which have been murky in previous home video releases, especially the final climactic Halloween segment, have whole new levels of shadow detail on this new Blu-ray. Well done, Universal—keep it up.
To Kill a Mockingbird offers both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix as well as a standard DTS 2.0 mix. This would not seem to be a film especially suited to a surround track, and the good news is the track hasn't been overly "tarted up" to provide a false sense of immersion. The best part of the 5.1 track is the fuller representation of Elmer Bernstein's glorious score, one of the finest scores of the composer's long and legendary career. (I'm on record as having stated that Bronislau Kaper was robbed of an Oscar for his 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, but Bernstein's To Kill a Mockingbird certainly gave him—and eventual winner Maurice Jarre for Lawrence of Arabia—stiff competition). Ambient sounds occasionally dot the surrounds (the rustle of leaves in that final horrifying Halloween sequence is a notable example), but the mixers have wisely kept things largely front and center, as they should be. Fidelity is excellent and the soundtrack bears no noticeable signs of age related damage. There is just very slight boxiness to some of the stems, including Kim Stanley's voice over narration, but it's not very distracting.
All of the supplements from the Legacy Edition 2 DVD set have been ported over to this release, with the exception of the cardstock reproductions of the international lobby cards (some of which are reproduced in this Blu-ray's accompanying Digibook text):
I'm not ashamed to admit I was once again a puddle of tears as To Kill a Mockingbird drew to a close as I watched it to prepare for this review. I've seen the film countless times, and it has the same effect on me, certainly a good indication of just how emotionally powerful the film is. How many films can you think of that lose little if any of their emotional resonance upon repeated viewings? To Kill a Mockingbird is one of that rare breed of films which seems timeless even as it precisely recreates a very specific time and place. Classic film lovers have come to dread Universal catalog releases (rightly or wrongly), but To Kill a Mockingbird sets a new standard for the studio, one which they hopefully will continue with as their hundredth anniversary celebration takes center stage. To Kill a Mockingbird instantly jumps to the front of the pack of best releases in the still young 2012, and it comes Highly recommended.
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1962
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1962
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1962
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