TEHRAN – The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) Cinematheque on Sunday screened the 1962 American legal drama crime film “A Tale of Alabama” directed by Robert Mulligan.
The screening was part of the “Laws of Cinema” series on the theme of “courtroom dramas,” and was followed by a review session in the presence of lawyer and film critic Jahanbakhsh Nowrai, IRNA reported.
The film, starring Gregory Peck and Mary Badham, is based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee.
The film depicts Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Depression-era Alabama who teaches his children to be less prejudiced while defending a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.
The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and the public. It was a commercial success, grossing more than six times its budget. The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress.
In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as having “cultural, historical, or aesthetic value.” In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century.
In 2007, the film was ranked 25th on AFI’s 10th anniversary list of the greatest American films of all time. In 2008, the film was ranked number one on AFI’s list of the top 10 legal dramas. In 2020, the British Film Institute included the film on its list of 50 films to watch by the age of 15.
Harper Lee’s novel was an immediate success upon its release. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools.
A Tale of Alabama won the Pulitzer Prize a year after its publication and became a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee’s observations about her family, neighbors, and events that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936 when she was 10 years old.
Despite dealing with serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is known for its warmth and humor. Atticus Finch, the narrator’s father, has served as a moral hero to many readers and a model of integrity to lawyers.
A Southern Gothic novel and Bildungsroman, A Tale of Alabama’s main themes are racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the Deep South.
The lesson from this book is to emphasize tolerance and denounce bigotry. In 2006, British librarians ranked it ahead of the Bible as the book “every adult should read before they die.”
“Alabama Tales” was Lee’s only published book until “Go Set a Watchman” was published in 2015. Lee continued to respond to the influences of his work until his death in 2016.
SS/SAB