The Amazon Guide

Copyright © 2006 Ed Bagley

To Kill A Mockingbird – 3 Stars (Good)

Gregory Peck won a Best Actor Oscar in this adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about white lawyer Atticus Finch defending an innocent African American man accused of raping a white woman.

This is a story that illuminates everything that is wrong about hate, prejudice, bigotry, ignorance, stupidity, lack of backbone and lack of a heart. It is a story about an all-white male jury who makes important life decisions without right thinking and right motives.

Finch (Gregory Peck) suffers retribution because of his defense of Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) who is accused of raping Mayella Violet Ewell (Collin Wilcox). The real villain is her father Bob Ewell (James Anderson) who beats her and tries to kill Finch’s daughter Scout (Mary Badham) and son Jem (Phillip Alford).

Scout narrates this story about her childhood memories. She and Jem team up with friend Dill Harris (John Megna) in a subplot involving “Boo” Radley (Robert Duvall) who ultimately saves Scout and Jem from Bob Ewell by killing Ewell with his own knife.

Sheriff Heck Tate (Frank Overton) would later claim that Ewell fell on his own knife. Tate knew that Ewell was two legs and bad news coming in the form of one bigoted human being; there would be no charges filed against Boo.

In the end, the innocent Tom Robinson is found guilty and shot to death when he tries to flee his injustice.

It is no irony that this 1932 story takes place in Macon County, Georgia, a cesspool of racially motivated hate even in 1962 when this film was released.

To Kill a Mockingbird shows that some people will never have any discernable personal growth in their entire life; thank God that others do.

Boo, a scary recluse who only came out at night, was Duvall’s first movie role. Duvall apparently stayed out of the sun for six weeks and dyed his hair blond in preparation for the role.

Dill was modeled after author Harper Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote. Finch was the middle name of Harper Lee’s father.

Horton Foote, who wrote the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird, won an Oscar and the film also won for Best Art Direction for a black and white film. The film earned 5 other Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, won by Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif.

Gregory Peck picked up the Golden Globe for Best Actor, and the film also won another for Promoting International Understanding. Peck has said that this film was his favorite work.

His character Atticus Finch was voted the top screen hero of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute. This is truly a no-spin honor. To Kill a Mockingbird is also ranked No. 2 on AFI’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (It’s a Wonderful Life with James Stewart is No. 1).

The evidence of just how emotional To Kill a Mockingbird is comes from Brock Peters (the accused) who started to naturally cry while shooting the testifying scene. Gregory Peck said he had to look past him to keep from choking up himself.

Racial bigotry is an extremely emotional and hateful occurrence that continues to linger with us today. Were it not for a loving God who is color blind, the hurt would be even deeper and more destructive.

To Kill a Mockingbird is as appropriate today as it was when it was released. Each generation must work to progress past the sins of past generations. Tom Robinson may rest in peace knowing his descendants will then have a better system of justice.

About the Author:

Ed Bagley’s Blog Publishes Original Articles with Analysis and Commentary on 5 Subjects: Sports, Movie Reviews, Lessons in Life, Jobs and Careers, and Internet Marketing. Read my 3-part series on “Secrets Men Don’t Want Women to Know” and reviews on the Broadway musicals “Camelot”, “Chicago” and “The Phantom of the Opera”. These are all excellent films. Find my Blog at:
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/MovieReviews.html

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – “to Kill a Mockingbird” Exposes the Destructiveness of Bigotry

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Wendell Potter worked for 15 years as the head of public relations for CIGNA, one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S. Wendell’s job was to keep high profile complaints from becoming major news stories. So when policy -holders were denied care or were kicked out of the plan for getting sick, Wendell’s job was to make sure that the fewer the people who knew about it, the better. For years, Wendell convinced himself that working on behalf of his company’s shareholders over and against the health needs of actual human beings was the right thing to do.

All of this changed at a health exhibit in Wise, West Virginia. When Wendell assumed that he would see things like routine blood pressure checks, what he actually saw astounded him. Wendell saw the people that were being treated in animal stalls and on gurneys, and the “long, long lines of people waiting to get care.” That’s when he had his epiphany. Wendell suddenly realized, “There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.”

Wendell Potter is now one of the nation’s top whistle-blowers advocating for health care reform. Whether you agree with Wendell’s politics or not, there’s something about Wendell’s story that I think should serve as a lesson for Christians of all political persuasions. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus laid out a principle that, if applied correctly, could go a long way in correcting many of the problems associated with corporate greed.

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”

As I reflect on Jesus’ words, I can’t help but to think of Wendell’s story. It took seeing real people for Wendell to realize that his line of work was harming people instead of helping them. I don’t know if Wendell Potter is a Christian, but let’s assume temporarily that he is a Christian and that all those years of covering up claims of health care abuse for the purpose of lining shareholders’ pockets, Wendell regularly attended a Christian church. Might it not have been appropriate for a Christian that had been unjustly denied care by Cigna to confront him on the basis of the Matthew 18 principle? And had Wendell refused to listen, might the next step not have been to bring two or three witnesses and then to talk with his pastor or the elders of the church? Had Wendell refused to listen at that point; then perhaps the pastor or the church elders could have chosen some form of church discipline, like excommunication or denying communion.

If such an approach seems far-fetched, it’s probably because of the gigantic gap between modern Christianity and New Testament Christianity. In New Testament times, Christians were admonished not to drag their fellow Christian to secular courts (I Corinthians 6:1-6). Moral disputes and reparations were supposed to be kept within the Church. Nowadays, most Christians are so accustomed to appealing directly to Caesar for justice that we virtually skip the process that Jesus and the Apostles laid out for dealing with sin in the Church.

I wonder how many American Christians are doing jobs similar to that of Wendell Potter, or any other number of jobs that work against the interests of the poor—be it here or a far away country—and haven’t given it a second thought? It’s to these Christians that I think the Matthew 18 principle could go a long way in helping them to repent. The issues then become less about politics and more about personal discipleship. The fewer the Christians there are participating in unjust corporate structures, the brighter the Church’s light will shine. May God raise up Matthew 18-type ministries everywhere!

About the Author:

Aaron D. Taylor is the author of “Alone with a Jihadist: A Biblical Response to Holy War” and the founder of Great Commission Society. To learn more about Aaron’s ministry and his new book, go to http://www.aarondtaylor.com Follow Aaron on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aarondtaylor . Aaron can be contacted at fromdeathtolife@gmail.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – A health care whistle-blower and a call to Christian accountability