Mississippi Burning **** (1988, Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif, R Lee Ermey) – Classic Movie Review 4,146

The burning 1988 thriller film Mississippi Burning stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as FBI agents investigating suspected Ku Klux Klan murders of three young civil rights activists in the American Deep South in 1964.

Director Alan Parker’s burning 1988 thriller film Mississippi Burning stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as FBI agents with greatly conflicting styles investigating suspected Ku Klux Klan murders of three young civil rights activists in the American Deep South in 1964. Oscar-nominated Hackman is splendid as the powerful former Mississippi sheriff Agent Rupert Anderson and the film’s core is his developing relationship with cold, idealistic, FBI-trained Agent Alan Ward (Dafoe) after they come to a small Southern town where segregation divides Black and white.

Parker turns an incendiary, harrowing and terrifying real-life-based thriller into one of his finest films, and does not falter in his handling of the race issues, though Black activists objected to the way the film casts the white FBI men as heroes and Blacks as one-dimensional victim figures.

There are two other outstanding performances, by Brad Dourif as the sadistic deputy sheriff Deputy Clinton Pell and Frances McDormand as his wife Mrs Pell, who gradually comes to trust Hackman and spill the beans on the Klan. Also impressing in the cast are R Lee Ermey as Mayor Tilman, Gailard Sartain as Sheriff Ray Stuckey, Stephen Tobolowsky, Michael Rooker, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Frankie Faison, Kevin Dunn and Park Overall.

Parker excludes the use of his trademark flashy visuals from his film this time, but the visuals still look great and Peter Biziou won an Oscar for best cinematography, the only one of the film’s seven Oscar nominations to win. They include Best Picture (Frederick Zollo and Robert F Colesberry), Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Supporting Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Director (Alan Parker), Best Cinematography (Peter Biziou), Best Film Editing (Gerry Hambling) and Best Sound (Robert J Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline and Danny Michael).

There were three British Academy Film Awards: Best Cinematography (Peter Biziou), Best Film Editing (Gerry Hambling) and Best Sound.

Trevor Jones provides a fine Bafta-nominated score and Chris Gerolmo provides what seems to be an impeccable screenplay, though it was criticised both by civil rights movement activists and real-life family members.

The 1964 FBI missing persons poster showing civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner.

Gerolmo researched the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and began writing the script in 1986, loosely based on the 1964 investigation into their deaths in Mississippi. In the fictionalised script, the two FBI agents Rupert Anderson (based on John Proctor) and Alan Ward (based on Joseph Sullivan) are investigating the disappearance of three civil rights workers in fictional Jessup County, Mississippi,

Their families of the murdered men criticised the film for its fictionalisation of events.

Gerolmo and producer Frederick Zollo presented the script to Orion Pictures, who hired Parker to direct. But Gerolmo and Parker had disputes over the script, and Orion agreed Parker’s uncredited rewrites.

The film was shot from March to May 1988 on locations in Mississippi and Alabama.

The film did well to gross $34.6 million in North America against a budget of $15 million.

Parker recalled: ‘The controversy got out of hand. It was impossible to turn on a TV without someone discussing the movie. In the beginning it was rather nice to have your film talked about but suddenly the tide turned and we were dogged by a lot of anger that the film generated.’

The cast

The cast are Gene Hackman as FBI Agent Rupert Anderson, Willem Dafoe as FBI Agent Alan Ward, Frances McDormand as Mrs Pell, Brad Dourif as Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell, R Lee Ermey as Mayor Tilman, Gailard Sartain as Ray Stuckey, Sheriff of Jessup County, Stephen Tobolowsky as Clayton Townley, Michael Rooker as Frank Bailey, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Lester Cowens, Stephen Bridgewater as Wesley Cooke, Badja Djola as FBI Agent Monk, Kevin Dunn as FBI Agent Bird, Frankie Faison as Eulogist, and Tobin Bell as FBI Agent Stokes.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,146

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