Fearful Symmetry

Fearful Symmetry is an approximately 90 minute long documentary about the classic film, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The documentary is excellent, blending interviews with still photographs and excerpts from the film. Kiselyak has interviewed practically every living person associated with the 1962 film, including writer Horton Foote, producer Alan Pakula, composer Elmer Bernstein, director Robert Mulligan, and stars Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, and Phillip Alford. Sadly absent from the documentary is Harper Lee herself. However, according to an essay written by Kiselyak, Ms. Lee spoke with him at length regarding the documentary, and arranged for the participation of people who knew her and her father (the basis for Atticus Finch) years ago.

The documentary delves wonderfully into the making of the film, but also into the social and historical background underlying the novel and the film. In handling the latter, Kiselyak presents the voices of both scholars and people living through those times.

Those wishing to watch this enjoyable documentary need only rent or buy the Collector's Edition of the "To Kill a Mockingbird" DVD.

In reading through the reviews, I see one reviewer who savaged this documentary. I find this criticism excessive, and would like to temper it a bit.

It is true that this documentary is poorly titled, and a bit rambling. But that is hardly the point. "Fearful Symmetry" gives one the chance to see most of the people involved in the creation of the film "To Kill a Mockingbird" discuss the process of making this classic. The interviews with Gregory Peck (Atticus Finch), Robert Mulligan (the director), Horton Foote (the writer), Elmer Bernstein (the composer), Philip Alford (Jem), Mary Badham (Scout), Brock Peters (Tom Robinson) and Robert Duvall (Boo Radley) are all priceless. It is quite a marvel that so many of the main people involved were still alive 36 years later. Especially in the light of Peck's recent passing, I think we should be less critical of the rambling nature of the documentary. I learned many things about the writing of the book, its translation to a screenplay, and the various difficulties in transforming a screenplay to a movie that has become an American classic. What more should one wish from a documentary of this nature?

I wish this self-conscious doc was more about the making of the wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird film. Instead, I felt it was a self-conscious waste of time. I believe the guy hired to do it was trying too hard to make 'art,' instead of a providing information on the production. The combination of the real actors, writer, and producer with random folks from 'the south' made no sense to me & was really confusing at times -- they'd start talking and I'd have to stop and think "who is this? Are they talking about the movie I want to know more about or are they sharing some personal memory." I think this really didn't work & wish there were something more informative on the collector's DVD.

This is in response to a few of the comments posted below. (See comments below for more information.) I do believe, as at least one other person commented, that this is a very informative documentary. If it rambles a bit, so what? Let's give those rambling on a little bit of license to do so. After all, they were there and these were their experiences and, to be frank, they know more about their experiences than we do. (And if we don't want to know any more about their experiences, we can simply do the smart thing and TURN OFF THE MOVIE.) And if it makes them feel better to ramble on and reminisce, what's the harm? One day, we will all be old and someone will wish WE would quit rambling on and on about our experiences.

As for those "random Southern people" mentioned in an earlier post, if memory serves, those people were the people actually from the town where Harper Lee grew up. They knew her and her father. They went to school with her. They played with her as children. They shared some very personal experiences with the author which, when shared, lend a lot of personal and emotional depth to both the movie and the book which would not have been gained simply by viewing or reading. They offer a view of Harper Lee, and of the world in which they all grew up, in a very different perspective, a sort of "third person" perspective. And, as we all know, a third person perspective often helps us to see things about ourselves and our world, things which we would not have noticed otherwise--things which help us become well-rounded people. Similarly, these people--rambling and with their seemingly "pointless" third person points of view--actually help to make both the book and the film more well-rounded.

If the documentary had simply been about behind the scenes technicalities and about the stars of the film itself, I would have been very turned off. As we all know, the film which wishes to make a statement, as this one does, is not about the actors themselves. It is not intended to be a star vehicle, although that sometimes happens. It is much bigger than that. It is also not about the technicalities. Amusing and entertaining as they may be to learn of later, technicalities are what the finished film tries not to present. Instead, a film of this caliber tries to bring to life a human story and to make a statement about the human condition, whether to criticize it or to praise it. And it tries to make us better than we were before. Adding the Southern people from Harper's past, with their ramblings and anecdotes, only serves to reinforce that statement.