Mississippi Burning

Great movies are ones that invoke a strong emotional response that lingers long after the movie is over. Mississippi Burning is that kind of film. You may love it, you may hate it. You may think that it is an accurate depiction of the south in 1964, you may think its pure fiction. No matter what you will respond strongly.

Director Alan Parker has been down this road before with Midnight Express, another crushing, gut-wrenching tale based on a true story. In both cases, a great deal of liberty is taken with the facts, but that doesn't matter. Mississippi Burning is not a docudrama or an A & E special, it is at its heart, a police drama, and a near perfect one at that.

It is criticized by some for its depiction of southerners of the time as a group of brain-dead racists with no moral fiber whatsoever. I don't believe that is the movie's intention, but it spends time showing this side of society to make us understand how hate breeds itself, and how it becomes a way of life and an accepted standard. As one character states, "When we were seven years old, they told us that segregation was in the bible. You hear that long enough, you start to believe it".

Mississippi Burning won a (well-deserved) Oscar for cinematography, but sat and watched Rain Main take home the majors. It was clearly the best film of 1988 and stands as one of the great works of American cinema of the 80's. Hackman and Dafoe are at their best, and Frances McDormand delivers a beautifully understated, powerful performance as the deputy's wife - a woman at war with her sense of right and wrong, struggling with fear and loyalty. Her character is the centerpiece of the movie.

This is not a preachy or melodramatic movie. You won't get a lecture on why racism is wrong. You will get an rich, engaging crime drama depicting a pivotal time in American History, and you will never forget it.

**** out of ****.

Mississippi Burning is set in 1964 when three civil rights activists are murdered in a small town by the Ku Klux Klan… Two of them were white and one of them black…

Based on actual events in Philadelphia, the screenplay centers chiefly on the hostility relationship between the two FBI agents (Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) sent down to the small Mississippi town to seek information about the vanishing of the three victims… Immediately upon their arrival, they are greeted with hostility by the local law enforcement and the town in general…

Dafoe's Ward— in charge of the case—comes off as the embodiment of everything those men in the south dislike about the "Yankees" who are coming down there commanding them how to act…

Anderson(Hackman), who was once a Mississippi officer himself, has a special feel for how to settle things with Southerners… He uses his charm to win the confidence of the friendly wife of a Klansman deputy, whom he suspects holds the key to unravel the details of the case…

The scenes between McDormand and Hackman are the best of the film… They dramatize how quickly two lonely people can match...

The film succeeds by being gripping, emotional, and disturbing… Alan parker graphically explores the hatred, motivations and mentality that were once flaming through the American society in the 60's.

Two FBI agents go to Mississippi in 1964 to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists. Based on true events, this is an absorbing drama about one of the most explosive chapters of American history. Hackman is terrific as an agent who doesn't condone the racism, but understands the culture of hatred, having grown up in the South himself. Dafoe is equally good as a young agent who struggles to reconcile his idealistic views about justice with the reality he confronts. McDormand is also fine as the good wife of a redneck sheriff. Parker wisely uses a documentary approach to infuse the events with a sense of authenticity.

What a great film. Hackman and dafoe amazing. Brilliant and moving story. Hasn't aged for me

With some certainty, Mississippi Burning was the best film of 1988. I watched it recently, as I do from time to time, and in reading other viewer comments, I was dismayed to read such unwarranted and unintelligent criticism of a film that has done so much to expose the realities of the Black experience in the Deep South during the 1960's. On more than one occasion, a viewer (usually anonymous) has pinpointed the film as racist, in that it offers a view of the Civil Rights movement involving whites and government agents as key instigators of change. They feel that it portrays blacks in a negative light, downplaying the roles blacks played in the acquisition of their own equality. These people are either unaware, or just plain ignorant. There is a reason that this film focuses on the efforts of White FBI agents to locate the three missing boys. To begin with, this film focuses on a true story (slightly fictionalized for cinematic effect). During Freedom Summer of 1964, many white college students and black students as well worked under the guidance of groups like the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, in an effort to set up voter registration drives for blacks that had been historically disenfranchised. The three missing boys (two white, one black) received much attention during that summer from a Federal standpoint. This is a fact. Yet the reason for governmental interest in the murder of these boys exemplifies the attitudes of the era. Historically, murdered civil rights workers did not garner much attention. Yet because this case involved two northern whites, suddenly The FBI took interest. This is the reason for FBI involvement in the story. The fact that blacks are shown quite often as scared and unwilling to cause a stir in this film also is historically accurate. While there were many blacks that made great inroads and took huge risks to their personal well-being, the citizenry of blacks in this film is an accurate portrayal of the times. How many of us today would be willing to talk, inform, and be seen attempting to use our constitutional rights if we knew that such actions might get us killed? The seeming disinterest of blacks in this film is a result of years of Jim Crow legislation, of lynch law, and of outright terror tactics brought upon the black population by racist whites.It is a picture of a population that wants to stand up and scream, but is reluctant for very justifiable reasons. To stay alive often meant keeping your mouth shut. To make a film in which all black citizens of Philadelphia, Mississippi stood collectively against the perpetrators of these murders would be historically incongruent. Try to look past the overriding white involvement in this film and understand that this is the way the events unfurled. Perhaps it is a sad commentary on white involvement in Civil rights that was too little, too late. It took the death of two whites to spark interest in the events in Phil. Mississippi. This much is obvious. But as the search for these boys made headlines daily, just remember that many blacks were pulled from rivers that summer, in the search for the three civil rights workers. Unfortunately, these discoveries never made the headlines. A murdered white was cause for alarm. But a lynched black pulled from a swamp was merely accepted. Take this film as a lesson, and be glad that many things have changed since 1964.