MISSISSIPPI BURNING: Blu-ray re-issue (Orion, 1988) Kino Lorber
The whirlwind of
controversy that has dogged Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988),
almost from the moment of its premiere continues to pale in comparison to the
stain of racial affliction it seeks to expose and excoriate. Indeed, former
Neshoba County Sheriff, Lawrence A. Rainey had, perhaps, seem enough of himself
in the thinly fictionalized reconstitution of Sheriff Ray Stuckey (Gailard
Sartain) in the movie to file a lawsuit against the picture’s distributor,
Orion, claiming defamation of character – that is, until the studio’s attorneys
countermanded to produce irrefutable evidence Rainey was indeed a ‘person of
interest’ in the June 21, 1964 murders of Civil Rights activists James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman, and, Michael Schwerner. I sincerely miss Alan Parker – and no –
I am not referring to the monstrous celebrity ‘death hoax’ earlier this year,
but the progressively motivated, forthright, and eclectic film-maker of such
offbeat classics and cult favs as Midnight Express (1978), Fame
(1980), Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), The Commitments (1991), Evita
(1996) and Angela’s Ashes (1999) – to name but a handful of stellar
examples from his body of work – who has not made another movie since 2003. Please,
Mr. Parker…come back. Mississippi Burning is in keeping with Parker’s
mantra for telling powerful stories about the human condition; on this
occasion, sordid and discolored by the events that lit the powder keg into a firestorm
for the Civil Rights Movement. The movie’s R-rated polemic indictment of the
all-pervasive anti-black sentiment brewing in these Southern backwaters was
rife for criticism in 1988, and, a good many of the cultural mandarins of their
time wasted none in discrediting Mississippi Burning as ‘the right
story’ with the ‘wrong hero’ – viewing Parker’s decision to
concentrate on the crime/thriller aspect of the story and a pair of white FBI
men (played with calculating honesty by seasoned pro, Gene Hackman and then relative
newbie, Wilem Dafoe) as a retread of the ‘white savior’ scenario Hollywood
frequently uses to address racial prejudice from a safe distance.
There is,
however, nothing safe about Chris Gerolmo’s superbly written screenplay that
pulls no punches and leaves no ‘wiggle room’ for the picture’s ominous
tone or R-rating. I suspect Mississippi Burning remains a difficult
movie for both whites and blacks to sit through, not the least for its
stunningly unvarnished representation of racial intolerance in the ‘new’ South that,
in 1964, made headlines around the world or, as the movie’s tagline accurately surmises,
1964 as the year America was at war with itself. To be clear, Mississippi
Burning is not directly meant to be the story of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
The truth of their disappearance, after being arrested by Philadelphia,
Mississippi Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price for attempting to organize a voter
registry for African Americans, would become headline news for weeks
thereafter. Price claimed to have ‘escorted’ the three activists to the outskirts
of his county. However, when Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner failed to turn up at
their base of operations in Meridian, FBI agent, John Proctor and ten other
agents descended on the small town to begin their investigation – code named,
MIBURN (short for ‘Mississippi Burning’). To virtually no one’s surprise, the bodies of
all three men were later discovered, having been executed then buried in an
earthen dam only a few miles outside of Philadelphia. However, of the 19
suspects indicted by the U.S. Justice Dept., only 9 were eventually convicted
of murder, sentenced to a measly 3 to 10 years for their heinous crimes. Nine
more were summarily acquitted of all charges, with a hung jury on 3 others. But
the postscript to this case would take another forty-plus-years to resolve.
There is no statute of limitations on murder. So, in 2002, Jerry Mitchell, an
enterprising reporter for The Clarion-Ledger began to unearth more evidence,
and, interview more witnesses, abetted by Stevenson High School teacher, Barry
Bradford and three of his students who had undertaken a ‘history project’ based
on the case. Their work succeeded, not only in identifying the anonymous
tipster, Maynard King – a highway patrolman in 1964, who directed from afar the
FBI to search the swampy spot where the burnt-out shell of Chaney’s station
wagon was later discovered, but also resulted in the successful arrest and
conviction of another perpetrator of the crime, Edgar Ray Killen, in 2005. Killen
died in prison in 2018, while serving his 60-year sentence for three counts of
manslaughter.
Much of the
criticism heaped upon Alan Parker in 1988 was telescopically focused on the
fact he and Gerolmo chose to change the names of the principles while transparently
sticking to – and dramatizing – the particulars of the case, as seen through
the eyes of a former ‘good ole boy’ come FBI man, Agent Rupert Anderson
(Hackman) and his directing agent, Alan Ward (Dafoe). While the outcome was
already well-known to many ticket buyers entering the theater, what Mississippi
Burning does spectacularly well is to underscore, with unflinching
frankness, the undercurrent in blind-sighted racial segregation that had eroded
the south. Mississippi Burning’s narrative is fueled by the antagonistic
buddy/buddy chemistry between Gene Hackman and Wilem Dafoe; the latter, nuanced
with tinges of wounded acquiescence, disgust, mistrust and ambiguity for the
future of race relations in the South; the former, approaching the seemingly
unconquerable malaise with an unapologetic and bitter realization that change –
while as imminent as the dawn – is slow and hard-won, with no clear end or
victory in sight. The other performance of merit yet to be discussed belongs to
Frances McDormand as the empathetic wife of unscrupulous Deputy Sheriff Clinton
Pell (Brad Dourif). McDormand’s unnamed ‘Mrs.’ is the moral conscience of this
piece – brutalized for revealing the whereabouts of the bodies to Anderson, and
ostracized by the community for defying ‘the law’ in these parts.
Parker and
Gerolmo are particular adept at illustrating the warped sense of entitlement
permeating racial attitudes circa 1964. As here is a portrait of the South that
was as yet unseen in the movies; middle-class whites, purse-lipped with eyes as
dead as a doll’s, offering their matter-of-fact commentary to the press; viewing
the deceased as fermenters of their own destiny, meddlesome and deserving of
their fate, merely for having placed their faith in humanity to do the right
thing. Perhaps even more so than the murders that kick start our story, or even
the grotesque outbursts and aftermath of cross-burning violence instigated by
the Klan to unsuccessfully intimidate Anderson and Ward, these casual accounts
of the social morays remain the most bone-chilling moments in Mississippi
Burning because they speak to an incalculable cruelty and insurmountable
cultural mindset that, despite these many years since, have remained very much
with us, and likely always to be a primitive part of the national fabric.
Hatred is self-serving and destructive, folks. It thrives in arrogance, ignorance
and prejudice. But it is also virtually impossible to break, even as an abomination
to common sense and moral decency. “With Mississippi Burning the
controversy got out of hand,” Alan Parker later reflected. Indeed, the families of Goodman, Chaney and
Schwerner were not impressed. Nor were the widows of Civil Rights activists,
Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta Scott King, in particular, used
the movie to criticize Hollywood in general for its lack of ‘integrity’ “…to
tell stories of some of the many thousands of black men, women and children who
put their lives on the line for equality.”
We should
address NAACP Executive Director, Benjamin Hooks’ claim that Mississippi
Burning ‘reeks with dishonesty, deception and fraud’ as it portrays
African-Americans as “cowed, submissive and blank-faced.” We should also
lay our comments herein on the outcries from Andrew Goodman’s mother and Ben
Chaney’s younger brother, James, who were ‘disturbed’ by the movie, but
believed Parker exploited the murders to resurrect the ‘white savoir’
narrative – sentiments echoed much later by film-maker, Spike Lee. Pointedly
put, the focus of Mississippi Burning is not the murders. Parker
is not interested in making a documentary on the lives of the activists. He is,
however, striving to create an entertainment – on this occasion, fraught with
sobering and unattractive truths that continue to wound the national psyche and
reputation of the Southern states that – let’s face it – have a good deal as
yet to apologize for and pay restitution. So, the murders herein serve as a
catalyst to launch the movie’s plot and illustrate the roadblocks encountered
by the FBI in conducting their investigation into this crime. But to suggest Alan
Parker has undermined the real victims’ plight or somehow skewed the
perspectives that were perpetuated as a certain moral consciousness in 1964,
merely to champion the FBI as its ‘white savior’ is not only a bit much,
but decisively untrue to Parker’s impetus for making the movie in the first
place. Parker’s own defense, that Mississippi Burning is a ‘fiction’ as
much as movies like Platoon (1986) or Apocalypse Now (1979) offer their own
variants on the Vietnam War, is well-intended, and even more well-placed contextually.
“I defend the right to change (history) in order to reach an audience who
knows nothing about the realities and certainly don't watch PBS documentaries.”
The plot to Mississippi
Burning begins on a humid night outside of Jessup County. A station wagon driven
by three Civil Rights workers - two Jewish, one black – is run off the road by
Frank Bailey (Michael Rooker), Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell and a small contingent
of Ku Klux Klan members. Without hesitation or cause, these workers (Geoffrey
Nauffts as ‘Goatee’, a.k.a. Michael Schwerner; Rick Zieff as ‘Passenger’ a.k.a.
Andrew Goodman; and Christopher White as ‘Black Passenger’, a.k.a. James Chaney)
are summarily executed; their seemingly unexplained disappearance brought into focus
by an FBI investigation, fronted by Agent Alan Ward and his second in command,
Agent Rupert Anderson. Anderson, who grew up in the South, knows far better
than Ward what they are up against. And, indeed, it does not take long for Ward
and Anderson’s search for the truth to run afoul of Sheriff Stuckey’s patience.
Undaunted by the Klan’s threats (they
shoot out the windows and light a cross in the forecourt of the motel where
Ward and Anderson are staying), Ward becomes entrenched in his investigation.
He commits a hundred agents, then a hundred more to the cause, buys out the
rent on an abandoned theater in the heart of town and sets up a command post –
bombarding the locals – black and white – with a litany of interrogations that
eventually lead to the discovery of the burnt out station wagon, half-submerged
in the swamp just outside of town. Dredging the area for bodies, but to no
avail, Ward is apoplectic, not only by his own lack of progress in the case,
but what he perceives as Anderson’s deliberate attempt to make him understand –
even empathize – with the skewed cultural mindset that balks his every move. In
fact, Anderson is just as disgusted by the backwoods’ semantics they are forced
to use to advance their cause. Neither whites nor blacks in these parts seem
committed to the truth; the former, for obvious reasons, the latter, terrified
of reprisals.
And, indeed, as
Ward hunkers down for the second round in his investigation, blacks in the area
come under siege from the Klan, torching their churches and homes, and engaged
in club-beating assaults to further silence their unlikely participation in solving
this crime. In town, local beautician
and Clinton’s wife, Mrs. Pell empathizes with the FBI’s stalemate. She is
particularly drawn to Anderson and he plays upon her level of trust to glean
valuable information regarding the whereabouts of the bodies, eventually
unearthed from the side of a dam. The excavation of these rotting remains
alerts Stuckey to the fact only one person, other than himself and Clinton
could have talked to the FBI. In reply, Clinton and a contingent of the Klan
brutally beat his wife to the point of hospitalization. Now, Ward’s
investigation turns on Clayton Townley (Stephen Tobolowsky) the Grand Wizard of
the Klan who conducts rallies in support of their terrorizing the black
community. Frustrated for having to ‘play’ by the rules, Ward agrees to allow
Anderson a certain latitude to do things ‘his way’ and, in response, Anderson
has Agent Monk (Badja Djola) pay a little house call on Mayor Tilman (R. Lee
Ermey). Tilman openly backs the Klan; that is, until Monk threatens to castrate
him at knife point. Tilman spills everything he knows about the murders. His
confession leads to the arrest of Clinton, Stuckey, Townley, and, Bailey, among
others. And although each is charged with the crime of manslaughter, Stuckey is
eventually exonerated; his cohorts, receiving varying sentences, ranging
between three and ten years. Attending the charred remains where once a black
church stood, with a small congregation holding their vigil, Ward and Anderson
conclude that while their work in Jessup is done the cultural mindset to have
allowed for such a terrible event to take place in the first place remains
unchanged.
At its core, Mississippi
Burning is a potent indictment of racial intolerance. Inspired by the real-life crime, screenwriter,
Chris Gerolmo has concocted a gripping drama that, in 1988, he sold almost
effortlessly to Orion Pictures. Initially, both Miloš Forman and John
Schlesinger were considered to helm the project. But in the end, Alan Parker
proved the best choice. Parker’s modus operandi here is not to document an era –
although, this he does with a level of scathing verisimilitude, not by
accident, but by amassing past collaborators to include cinematographer, Peter
Biziou, editor Gerry Hambling, costume designer Aude Bronson-Howard and
composer, Trevor Jones. Mississippi Burning just feels like a living time
capsule. But Parker is far more
interested in telling a good story. This too, is achieved. In the many drafts
Gerolmo went through to get the mood just right, Mississippi Burning
morphed from a violent detective story into an impassioned excavation of a
crime worthy of rediscovery. For legal reasons, Gerolmo altered several aspects
of the plot, most notably, the exclusion of the highway patrolman who was
instrumental in tipping off the FBI in their discovery of the bodies. During these
preliminary drafts, Gerolmo and Parker worked closely to reshape the story,
although, in the end, Parker clashed with his collaborator and was allowed, via
negotiations with Orion, to make further alterations on his own before shooting
began.
During the
screenwriting process, Parker scouted locations – 62, all told, travelling to
the spot where Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were murdered. He never dreamed he
would be allowed to shoot there. Instead, Parker found John Horne, head of
Mississippi's Film Commission, as well as Governor Ray Mabus, wholeheartedly
supportive of his movie. Although both Jackson and Canton were briefly
considered, Vaiden, Mississippi would stand in for much of the location work, with
Lafayette, Alabama playing host as the fictional town of Jessup. Budgeted at
$15 million, Mississippi Burning would go on to earn $34.6 million in
the US alone; its world premiere in Washington attended by politicians,
reporters and Senator Ted Kennedy who suggested, “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.” Viewed today, Mississippi Burning has lost none of its ability
to rivet an audience to their seats. It is a picture that, while painful in its
purpose, is nevertheless quite easy to digest as an entertainment with a
powerful message to deliver.
Kino Lorber’s
re-issue of Mississippi Burning on Blu-ray rectifies a myriad of sins
committed on its first release through Twilight Time several years ago. MGM, the
present custodians of the Orion back catalog, have gone back and remastered
this transfer in 4K from original elements and the results speak for
themselves; refined colors and flesh tones, excellent contrast, and,
beautifully realized detailing in 1080p. Film grain remains uneven. There are
scenes where it is so heavy it threatens to devour the image wholesale, while elsewhere
it is practically nonexistent. My recollections of seeing Mississippi
Burning theatrically are more than a little hazy. However, in projection at
home, this disc offers a reasonable film-like presentation with a few minor
caveats that do not distract from our overall appreciation. Best of all,
virtually all of the age-related artifacts that plagued the TT release have
been eradicated herein. The 2.0 DTS audio is adequate without being remarkable,
and, is augmented by an audio commentary featuring Alan Parker, recorded some
years ago. It would have been prudent of MGM and/or Kino to produce a
featurette to contextualize the movie, its controversy and pay homage to its
source material. Alas, a lot of great movies continue to get overlooked for
such treatment – Mississippi Burning among the lot. Bottom line: money
has been spent correctly to improve the image quality of this reissue. Mississippi
Burning is an important movie and one given its due here. A must-have for film
lovers.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
1
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