Robert Mulligan, director of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, dies aged 83
New York born director Robert Mulligan literally had the weight of the literary world on his shoulders when in 1962 he adapted Harper Lee's much loved novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, a novel which had only just been published. Think DA VINCI CODE if it had been made just a few years earlier (I obviously mean in terms of how many people must have read it and not it's impact on everyone's lives). But to Mulligan's great credit, he not only didn't screw the adaptation up like so many directors have of great novels before and since but he also managed to transform it into a worthy piece of cinema. A work that on it's own right, is one of the greatest drama's ever told. A movie that IMDB currently lists at No. 47, a massively high placing for a movie made in 1962 which I'm certain those who have voted FIGHT CLUB and THE USUAL SUSPECTS so high probably haven't seen. He got an Oscar winning career performance out of Gregory Peck and along with Elmer Bernstein's memorable score, turned in a landmark film. Many directors would become more well known and have a fuller filmography of popular movies but so many never get that stellar hit, that landmark movie that will last till the end of time. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is such a movie. I haven't seen any of Mulligan's other works. Not his last movie in 1991 which introduced Reese Witherspoon to the world in THE MAN IN THE MOON or FEAR STRIKES OUT with Anthony Perkins or the Steve McQueen/Natalie Wood comedy LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER. But I have seen TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD many times. And for that movie, I wanted to say thank you. Robert Mulligan died aged 83 at his home in Connecticut on Friday.