As it turned out, I didn't have to go to a Knicks game to run into Spike Lee. Turner Classic Movies presented a free screening (yay for free activities!) of To Kill a Mockingbird as part of the classic film fest series, and Mr. Lee was present for a discussion with host Robert Osborne about the film, and for a Q&A session with the audience. It was held in the spectacular Ziegfeld Theatre- a theatre so beautiful that I wish I could just live inside of it. It's an opulent and romantic old-school movie palace with massive chandeliers, gold trimmings, and red velvet in abundance. Though I've seen Mockingbird more times than I can count, seeing it on the Ziegfeld's massive screen, as all films are intended to be seen, was such a pleasure. It's as if I was seeing it for the first time. Shot after shot, I was left with my eyes wide and my mouth agape- what a brilliant film Robert Mulligan made in 1962! I actually met Horton Foote, who is from Texas, and who wrote the screenplay for Mockingbird, when I was in college. I attended a reading of his memoir Beginnings; he was lovely and humble. As I studied theatre, I always had admiration for him as a great playwright. And he certainly deserves high praise for his adaptation of Harper Lee's novel. It's always fascinated me that Mockingbird was Harper Lee's first and only novel. I suppose that winning a Pulitzer Prize for your first book sets up an enormous amount of pressure and expectation.
A young Robert Duvall in his first film role, alongside Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, & Frank Overton
"And now, and maybe now I should change/ Because I’m starting to lose all my faith/ While those around me are beaten down each day" --The Boo Radleys, Lazarus
