Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker and written by Chris Gerolmo that is loosely based on the 1964 investigation into the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Neshoba County, Mississippi. It stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as two FBI agents investigating the disappearance of three civil rights activists in fictional Jessup County, Mississippi, who are met with hostility by the town's residents, local police, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Gerolmo began writing the script in 1986 after researching the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. He and producer Frederick Zollo presented it to Orion Pictures, and the studio hired Parker to direct. The writer and director had disputes over the script, and Orion allowed Parker to make uncredited rewrites. The film was shot in a number of locations in Mississippi and Alabama, with principal photography from March to May 1988.

On release, Mississippi Burning was criticized by activists involved in the civil rights movement and the families of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner for its fictionalization of events. Critical reaction was generally positive, with praise for the cinematography and the performances of Hackman, Dafoe and Frances McDormand. The film grossed $34.6 million in North America against a production budget of $15 million. It received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Cinematography.

Plot

In 1964, three civil rights workers – two Jewish and one black – went missing while they were in fictional Jessup County, Mississippi (the actual events took place in Neshoba County), organizing a voter registry for African Americans. The FBI sends Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson to investigate. Ward is a Northerner, senior in rank but much younger than Anderson, and approaches the investigation by the book. In contrast, Anderson, a former sheriff in Mississippi, is more nuanced in his approach. The pair find it difficult to conduct interviews with the local townspeople, as Sheriff Ray Stuckey and his deputies influence the public and are linked to a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

With the help of the son of a local pastor, the FBI is finally able to bring forward a witness who saw Klansmen firebomb a house, and three white men are arrested and tried for felony arson. A local judge, however, gives the men a token suspended sentence while deriding the FBI as "outside agitators" who provoked the men to violence. He then releases the men, who promptly hang the witness's father and attempt to kill the witness. The FBI evacuates the family to the north and realizes they will receive no help at all from local authorities.

Meanwhile, Anderson has developed a close relationship with the wife of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell, who, in a tearful confession, reveals to Anderson that the three missing men have been murdered by her husband and his Klansmen accomplices, who then buried the bodies in an earthen dam. After the bodies are discovered, revealing to the nation that the disappearance of the civil rights workers was murder, Pell brutally beats his wife for her betrayal.

Ward and Anderson's different approaches spill over into a physical fight, which ends with Ward pulling a gun and admitting that his methods have been ineffective, and he gives Anderson carte blanche to deal with the problem in his way. Anderson devises a plan to indict members of the Klan for civil rights violations instead of murder, because civil rights violations are federal crimes for which conviction is more certain than state-level charges of murder. The FBI arranges the kidnapping of Mayor Tilman, taking him to a remote shack, where he is left with a black man who threatens to castrate him unless he speaks out. Tilman gives him a complete description of the killings, including the names of those involved. The abductor is revealed to be an FBI operative who has been assigned to intimidate Tilman. Although the obtained information is inadmissible in court because it was obtained through coercion, it still proves valuable to the investigators.

Anderson and Ward concoct a plan, luring identified Klan collaborators to a bogus meeting. Still, the men soon realize that they have been set up, and they leave the fake meeting without discussing the murders. The FBI then concentrates on Lester Cowens, a Klansman of interest who exhibits a nervous demeanor, which the agents believe might yield a confession. The Feds pick him up and interrogate him. Anderson stages a tussle with Pell at the local barbershop in retaliation for the attack on his wife and takes off. Later, Cowens is at home when a shotgun blast shatters his windows. After seeing a burning cross on his lawn, he attempts to flee in his truck but is caught by several hooded men who intend to hang him. The team arrives to rescue him, having staged the entire scene where the hooded men are revealed to be other FBI agents.

Cowens, believing that his redneck brothers have threatened his life because of his admissions to the FBI, finally incriminates his accomplices. The Klansmen are charged with civil rights violations. Most of the perpetrators are convicted and sentenced to 3–10 years in prison, while Sheriff Stuckey is acquitted. The FBI later finds Tilman has hanged himself, and FBI agent Bird wonders why. Ward tells him Tilman was guilty by association, for acting as a witness to the events. Mrs. Pell returns to her home, which vandals have completely ransacked. She resolves to stay and rebuild her life, free of her husband. Before they leave town, Anderson and Ward visit an integrated congregation, gathered at an African American cemetery, where the black civil rights activist's desecrated gravestone reads, "Not Forgotten."

Cast

Historical context

thumb|right|Missing persons poster created by the FBI in 1964, showing the photographs of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner.

On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were arrested in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, and taken to a Neshoba County jail. The three men worked on the "Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to organize a voter registry for African Americans. Price charged Chaney with speeding and held the other two men for questioning. After Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner failed to return to Meridian, Mississippi, on time, workers for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) placed calls to the Neshoba County jail, asking if the police had any information on their whereabouts. Two days later, FBI agent John Proctor and ten other agents began their investigation in Neshoba County. They received a tip about a burning CORE station wagon seen in the woods off Highway 21, about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia. The investigation was given the code name "MIBURN" (short for "Mississippi Burning"), and top FBI inspectors were sent to help with the case. They were discovered underneath an earthen dam on a 253-acre farm located a few miles outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. All three men had been shot. While writing a draft script, Gerolmo brought it to producer Frederick Zollo, who worked with him on Miles from Home (1988). Zollo helped Gerolmo develop the original draft before they sold it to Orion Pictures.

The studio then began its search for a director. Filmmakers Miloš Forman and John Schlesinger were among those considered. Upon returning to the United States, Parker met with Colesberry in New York and spent several months viewing the research.

Writing

Gerolmo described his original draft script as "a big, passionate, violent detective story set against the greatest sea-change in American life in the 20th century, the civil rights movement".

After Parker was hired to direct the film, Gerolmo had completed two drafts. By January 4, 1988, Parker had written a complete shooting script, which he submitted to Orion executives. before Orion suggested Hackman. Frances McDormand plays Mrs. Pell, the wife of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell. On working with Hackman, McDormand said: "Mississippi Burning, I didn't do research. All I did was listen to [Hackman]. He had an amazing capacity for not giving away any part of himself (in read-throughs). But the minute we got on the set, little blinds on his eyes flipped up and everything was available. It was mesmerizing. He's really believable, and it was like a basic acting lesson."

Gailard Sartain plays Ray Stuckey, the sheriff of Jessup County, a character based on former Neshoba County sheriff Lawrence Rainey. Sartain described Stuckey as "an elected official ... who has to be gregarious – but with sinister overtones". Stephen Tobolowsky plays Clayton Townley, a Grand Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Michael Rooker plays Frank Bailey, a Klansman involved in the murders of the three civil rights activists. Pruitt Taylor Vince, who had a small role in Parker's previous film Angel Heart, plays Lester Cowens, a Klansman who unknowingly becomes a pawn in the FBI's investigation. Vince described the character as "goofy, stupid and geeky" and stated, "I never had a prejudiced bone in my body. It gave me a funny feeling to play this guy with a hood and everything. But when you're in the midst of it, you just concentrate on getting through it."

Kevin Dunn joined the production in February 1988, appearing in his acting debut as FBI Agent Bird. Tobin Bell, also making his feature film debut, plays Agent Stokes, an FBI enforcer hired by Anderson to interrogate Cowens.

Appearing as the three civil rights activists are Geoffrey Nauffts as "Goatee", a character based on Michael Schwerner; Rick Zieff as "Passenger", based on Andrew Goodman; and Christopher White as "Black Passenger", based on James Chaney. Filming began in Jackson, Mississippi, where the production team filmed a church being burned down. The sequence required a multiple-camera setup; a total of three cameras were used during the shoot. In addition to Jones's score, the soundtrack features several gospel songs, including "Walk on by Faith" performed by Lannie McBride, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" performed by Mahalia Jackson and "Try Jesus" performed by Vesta Williams. A motion picture soundtrack album was released by the recording labels Antilles Records and Island Records.

Release

Mississippi Burning held its world premiere at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on December 2, 1988, with various politicians, ambassadors and political reporters in attendance. United States Senator Ted Kennedy voiced his support of the film, stating, "This movie will educate millions of Americans too young to recall the sad events of that summer about what life was like in this country before the enactment of the civil rights laws." Orion was confident that the limited release would help qualify the film for Academy Awards consideration, and generate strong word-of-mouth support from audiences. The film opened in wide release on January 27, 1989, playing at 1,058 theaters, and expanding to 1,074 theatres by its ninth week.

Box office

Mississippi Burnings first week of limited release saw it take $225,034, an average of $25,003.40 per theater. After seven weeks of wide release, Mississippi Burning ended its theatrical run with an overall gross of $34,603,943. and the seventeenth highest-grossing R-rated film of that year.

Home media

Mississippi Burning was released on VHS on July 27, 1989, by Orion Home Video. A "Collector's Edition" of the film was released on LaserDisc on April 3, 1998. The film was released on DVD on May 8, 2001, by MGM Home Entertainment. Special features for the DVD include an audio commentary by Parker and a theatrical trailer. The film was released on Blu-ray on May 12, 2015, by the home video label Twilight Time, with a limited release of 3,000 copies. The Blu-ray presents the film in 1080p high definition, and contains the additional materials found on the MGM DVD. Kino Lorber reissued the film on Blu-ray on June 18, 2019, with a new 4K transfer and all the previously available extras.

Reception

Critical response

thumb|[[Frances McDormand's performance received critical acclaim, earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.]]

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes sampled 29 reviews and gave Mississippi Burning a score of 79%. The consensus reads: "Mississippi Burning draws on real-life tragedy to impart a worthy message with the measured control of an intelligent drama and the hard-hitting impact of a thriller." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, assigned the film a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 11 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

In a review for Time magazine entitled "Just Another Mississippi Whitewash", author Jack E. White described the film as a "cinematic lynching of the truth". Columnist Desson Howe of The Washington Post felt that the film "speeds down the complicated, painful path of civil rights in search of a good thriller. Surprisingly, it finds it." Jonathan Rosenbaum lambasted Parker's direction and stated that the film's focus on "the FBI as the sole heroic defender of the victims of southern racism in 1964...subverts the history of the civil rights movement itself". In addition, he opined that the nonwhite characters in the film are portrayed as "noble, suffering icons without any depth or personality". Pauline Kael, writing for The New Yorker, praised the acting, but described the film as being "morally repugnant".

Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the film's fictionalization of history, writing: "The film doesn't pretend to be about the civil-rights workers themselves. It's almost as if Mr. Parker and Mr. Gerolmo respected the victims, their ideals and their fate too much to reinvent them through the use of fiction." In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert surmised: "We knew the outcome of this case when we walked into the theater. What we may have forgotten, or never known, is exactly what kinds of currents were in the air in 1964." On the syndicated television program Siskel and Ebert and the Movies, Ebert and his colleague Gene Siskel gave the film a "two thumbs up" rating. On his year-end top ten films list, Ebert ranked Mississippi Burning the #1 movie of 1988. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Siskel praised Hackman and Dafoe's "subtle" performances, but felt that McDormand was "most effective as the film's moral conscience".

Like Siskel, Variety magazine also praised the performances, writing: "Dafoe gives a disciplined and noteworthy portrayal of Ward ... But it's Hackman who steals the picture as Anderson ... Glowing performance of Frances McDormand as the deputy's wife who's drawn to Hackman is an asset both to his role and the picture." Sheila Benson, in her review for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: "Hackman's mastery at suggesting an infinite number of layers beneath a wry, self-deprecating surface reaches a peak here, but McDormand soars right with him. And since she is the film's sole voice of morality, it's right that she is so memorable."