Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'

If you have ever read the Harper Lee novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" and/or seen the movie adaptation of said-novel, then, this engaging documentary should prove to be of some relevant interest to you.

Through stills, archival footage, and interviews - This "Hey, Boo" presentation offers the inquisitive viewer a much better understanding of novelist Harper Lee (1926-2016) and the enduring appeal of her novel (which was written some sixty years ago).

Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird (2010)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mary Badham, Tom Brokaw, Rosanne Cash, Alice Finch Lee, James McBride, Jon Meacham, James Patterson, Anna Quindlen, Richard Russo, Scott Turow and Oprah Winfrey are among the people interviewed for this documentary, which was released on the 50th anniversary of the release of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The documentary talks about Lee's early life, getting the book published, the success and movie that followed and of course how the author turned away from the public as she rarely granted interviews and never released another book. If you don't know the story of Lee or the book then this here is a must see. There's no question that just about every aspect of the book is covered and I found it incredibly interesting hearing about some of the real people that characters in the book are based on. The Truman Capote connection is also another fascinating subject that is covered. The film never really answers the question on why Lee ran away from everyone or why she never wrote another book. There's talk about perhaps she knew she couldn't top it and the rumor of Capote having wrote it are also discussed. The interview segments are all pretty good as the celebrities and writers talk about the impact that both the book and film had on them. There's also some good stuff about how the book deserves credit for being one of the earliest movements in the Civil Rights. At 80-minutes the film is very fast paced and it covers quite a bit of ground, which should please fans or those just wanting to hear the backstory to this classic novel.

Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' (2010) -

It's amazing to think that this hugely famous author only really had one novel in her lifetime and how much that one books popularity made her and its title a household name.

Yes she had a second novel released just a few years before her death, but it will always be 'To Kill A Mockingbird' that she is remembered for. As such I think that tells us how brilliant and important the novel must really have been and still is with its resonance in today's society still sadly rife.

I have only currently seen the big screen adaptation of'Mockingbird' starring Gregory Peck, but I felt that it was ahead of its time and it was a brave thing for Harper and the publishers to release this book at the time and for it to be made in to a film so shortly afterwards in 1962. I mean we're still fighting racism in 2024 for goodness sake, so back then it was really making a statement.

Whether the book would be so well received now I can't say, because so many have been written that have broached the same topic since, but I would bet money that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and by extension Harper Lee lead the way for most of those important, boundary pushing and brave stories that did follow.

I've never understood racism and as such the stock footage shown here of violence towards people of colour sickened me, although it was nothing I hadn't seen before, because it's always horrifying to see how recently we as a people were treating people so badly just for the hue of their skin. What a ridiculous idea!!!??

Based on this documentary it's obvious that Lee wrote about what she knew, which is only fair, but not only must she have had an interesting time in her youth, she also knew how to get it down on paper in an engaging way. This study of her novel and life would never have been made otherwise.

It was interesting to see the views of those interviewed with regards to Harper having only written one book, which was true in 2010 when the film was produced, because I felt kind of smug knowing that there was another book that has since been released.

I definitely felt an empathy with Nelle Harper Lee, because I find it hard to motivate myself to write my own stories too and I recognised her fear that the next book she wrote could never live up to her first, but it is such a terrible shame that with the exception of 'Go Set A Watchman', her second novel released in 2015, we will never get to experience what else she may have had to offer due to those fears. Either way, this look at her life and her main great work have certainly sparked an interest in me and I look forward to reading both of her works.

706.88/1000.

In this engaging documentary film, director/writer Mary Murphy explores both the background to and impact of author Harper Lee's enormously influential and well-loved 1960 novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." Drawing upon a host of resources including: interviews with residents of Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama and personal friends of the author's; film footage of civil rights demonstrations in the U.S. south during the early and mid-1960's; commentary by a host of celebrities (Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, Rosanne Cash, Anna Quindlen, Scott Turow and many others); still photographs; and scenes from the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, Murphy weaves together a compelling portrait of the gestation of a literary novel. "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- which won a Pulitzer Prize -- is one of those rare books that manages both to look back in time to small-town southern life in the 1930's and also forward to the racial and social issues surrounding the civil rights struggles of the 1960's. It has rightly become a touchstone of American literature in the 50+ years since its publication. It is to filmmaker Murphy's credit that -- while not scanting the civil rights' issues the book antedates -- she keeps the major focus of this 2010 film upon the book and its author. By so doing, she manages to augment the viewer's sense of the book's impact; understatement possesses a quiet power that overblown rhetoric cannot touch.

At 78 running minutes, "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'" is not a long film documentary, but it pulls the viewer in and commands attention. It is delightfully funny in some places (novelist Allan Gurganus' reminiscing about novelist Truman Capote -- a childhood friend of Lee's -- comes to mind); horrifying in others, and -- like the book it examines -- ultimately moving.