Mississippi Burning

This article is about the film. For the FBI case file this film was based on, see Mississippi civil rights workers' murders.

Mississippi Burning
File:Mississippi Burning.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alan Parker
Produced by	Frederick Zollo Robert F. Colesberry
Written by	Chris Gerolmo
Starring	Gene Hackman Willem Dafoe
Music by	Trevor Jones
Cinematography	Peter Biziou
Edited by	Gerry Hambling
Distributed by	Orion Pictures
Release dates	December 9, 1988 (1988-12-09)
Running time	128 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$34.6 million

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker and written by Chris Gerolmo. It was loosely based on the FBI investigation into the murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The film focuses on the professional relationship between two FBI agents portrayed by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe who investigate the murders.

Hackman's character of agent Rupert Anderson, and Dafoe's part of agent Alan Ward, are loosely based on the partnership of FBI agents John Proctor and Joseph Sullivan. The film also features Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif, R. Lee Ermey, and Gailard Sartain in supporting roles.

It won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and was nominated in a number of other categories including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Filming locations included a number of locales in central Mississippi and LaFayette, Alabama.

Plot

In 1964, three civil rights workers who organize a voter registry for minorities in Jessup County Mississippi, go missing. The FBI sends two agents, Rupert Anderson (Hackman) and Alan Ward (Dafoe) to investigate. The pair find it difficult to conduct interviews with the local townspeople, as Sheriff Stuckey (Sartain) and his deputies exert influence over the public and are linked to a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

The burning of a cross, similar to scenes depicted in the film.

The wife (McDormand) of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell (Dourif), reveals to Anderson in a discreet conversation that the missing civil rights trio have been murdered, with their bodies buried in an earthen dam. Sheriff Stuckey deduces her confession to the FBI and informs Sheriff Pell, who beats her in retribution. Anderson and Ward devise a plan to indict members of the Klan for the murders.

They arrange for a kidnapping of mayor Tilman (Ermey), taking him to a remote shack. There, he is left with a black man (Djola) who threatens to castrate him unless he talks. The abductor is an FBI operative utilized to intimidate the mayor. The mayor gives the operative a full description of the killings, including the names of those involved. Although his statement isn't admissible in court due to coercion, his information proves valuable to the investigators.

Anderson and Ward exploit the new information to concoct a plan, luring identified KKK collaborators to a bogus meeting. The Klan members soon realize it's a set up, and leave without discussing the murders. The FBI who are eavesdropping, concentrate on Lester Cowens (Vince), a Klansman of interest who exhibits a nervous demeanor which the agents believe might yield a confession. The FBI pick him up and interrogate him. Later, Cowens is at home when his window is blown out. He looks out to see a burning cross on the lawn. Cowens tries to flee in his truck but is caught by a number of hooded men, who begin to hang him. The FBI developed the ruse, arriving to rescue Cowens, while pretending to chase away the hooded men who are in fact other FBI agents.

Cowens, believing that his KKK henchmen have threatened his life due to his admissions with the FBI, speaks to the agents and incriminates his accomplices. They charge the Klansmen with civil rights violations to gain prosecution at the federal level. Most of the perpetrators are found guilty and receive sentences ranging from three to ten years in prison. Mayor Tilman is later found dead by the FBI in an apparent suicide.

Cast

Actor Willem Dafoe who portrayed FBI agent Alan Ward.

• Gene Hackman as Agent Rupert Anderson
• Willem Dafoe as Agent Alan Ward
• Frances McDormand as Mrs. Pell
• Brad Dourif as Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell
• Gailard Sartain as Sheriff Ray Stuckey
• R. Lee Ermey as Mayor Tilman
• Stephen Tobolowsky as Clayton Townley
• Michael Rooker as Frank Bailey
• Pruitt Taylor Vince as Lester Cowens
• Badja Djola as Agent Monk
• Kevin Dunn as Agent Bird
• Tobin Bell as Agent Stokes

Production

Background

File:FBI Poster of Missing Civil Rights Workers.jpg

Missing persons poster created by the FBI in 1964, showing the photographs of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, whom the film story is based on.

Mississippi Burning was based on the historical events related to the murders of three Mississippi civil rights workers, the investigation into their disappearance, and the prosecution of suspects. The production does not give the real names of the murderers, due to legal considerations. Mississippi Burning does not name the victims who are referred to as "the Boys" in the film. In the film credits, they are identified as "Goatee", based on Michael Schwerner played by Geoffrey Nauffts; "Passenger", based on Andrew Goodman portrayed by Rick Zieff; and "Black Passenger", based on James Chaney depicted by Christopher White.

The film presents Clinton Pell's wife as the informant. However, the identity of the historic informant, known as "Mr. X.", was a closely held secret for 40 years. In the process of reopening the case, journalist Jerry Mitchell and teacher Barry Bradford discovered his real name. They claim the informant who revealed the location of the civil rights workers' bodies was highway patrolman Maynard King, who willingly told FBI agent Joseph Sullivan. According to Cartha DeLoach, the FBI paid for its first big break in the case, which was the location of the bodies. In his memoirs, he describes the men only as "a minister and a member of the highway patrol". DeLoach does not say how the two men knew the three civil rights workers had been buried under twelve feet of dirt in an earthen dam on a large farm a few miles outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, but he did say the FBI paid $30,000 for the piece of crucial information.

Release

Box office

Mississippi Burning opened modestly at the U.S. box office in fifth place, grossing $3,545,305 in its first wide weekend in release. It eventually went on to gross an estimated $34,603,943 in revenue domestically. For 1988 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 33.

Home media

The Region 1 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the U.S. on May 8, 2001. Special features for the DVD include; the director's audio commentary; an original theatrical trailer; English and French stereo surround options; along with French and Spanish subtitles. The film received a limited release of 3,000 Blu-ray Disc copies via Twilight Time on May 12, 2015. It was though released as a region B/2 Blu-ray on September 14, 2015 by the studio Second Sight. Currently, the film is also available by Video on demand through the cable channel MoviePlex.

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 18 reviews, with an average score of 6.4/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, Mississippi Burning received a score of 65 based on 11 reviews. The film has been criticized by some for its fictionalization of history. In Time magazine, author Jack E. White referred to the film as a "cinematic lynching of the truth". Parker defended his film by reminding critics that it was a dramatization, not a documentary. It was also criticized for its portrayal of southern African Americans as passive victims, which also shapes the film's reenactment of the assassinations.

Parker, the director, doesn’t use melodrama to show how terrified the local blacks are of reprisals; he uses realism. We see what can happen to people who are not “good nigras.” The Dafoe character approaches a black man in a segregated luncheonette and asks him questions. The black refuses to talk to him – and still gets beaten by the klan.

—Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

On his take of the film, noted film critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times 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." In positive acclaim, he declared the motion picture to be "the best American film of 1988". Columnist Desson Howe of The Washington Post believed the film "speeds down the complicated, painful path of civil rights in search of a good thriller. Surprisingly, it finds it". He felt the film was a "Hollywood-movie triumph that blacks could have used more of during – and since – that era." However, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Chicago Reader, lightly criticized director Parker, commenting that the film was "sordid fantasy" being "trained on the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964, and the feast for the self-righteous that emerges has little to do with history, sociology, or even common sense."

Accolades

The film was nominated and won several awards in 1989–90.

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
1989 61st Academy Awards	Best Picture	Frederick Zollo, Robert F. Colesberry	Nominated
	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actress	Frances McDormand	Nominated
	Best Director	Alan Parker	Nominated
	Best Sound Mixing	Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline, Danny Michael	Nominated
	Best Film Editing	Gerry Hambling	Nominated
	Best Cinematography	Peter Biziou	Won
1989 Annual ACE Eddie Awards	Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)	Gerry Hambling	Won
1989 Annual ASC Awards	Best Edited Feature Film	Gerry Hambling	Nominated
1989 39th Berlin International Film Festival	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Won
	Best Director	Alan Parker	Nominated
1990 43rd British Academy Film Awards	Sound	Bill Phillips, Danny Michael, Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline	Won
	Cinematography	Peter Biziou	Won
	Editing	Gerry Hambling	Won
	Direction	Alan Parker	Nominated
	Original Film Score	Trevor Jones	Nominated
British Society of Cinematographers	Best Cinematography	Peter Biziou	Won
Casting Society of America	Best Casting for a Drama Film	Howard Feuer, Juliet Taylor	Won
1989 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Picture	————	Won
	Best Supporting Actress	Frances McDormand	Won
	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actor	Brad Dourif	Nominated
David di Donatello Awards	Best Foreign Actor	Gene Hackman	Nominated
	Best Foreign Film	Alan Parker	Nominated
1989 Directors Guild of America Awards	Directorial Achievement	Alan Parker	Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards 1988	Best Supporting Actress	Frances McDormand	Won
1988 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Won
1989 46th Golden Globe Awards	Best Motion Picture Drama	————	Nominated
	Best Director	Alan Parker	Nominated
	Best Actor in a Drama	Gene Hackman	Nominated
	Best Screenplay	Chris Gerolmo	Nominated
National Board of Review Awards 1988	Best Film	————	Won
	Best Director	Alan Parker	Won
	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Won
	Best Supporting Actress	Frances McDormand	Won
	Top Ten Film	————	Won
1988 National Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Won
1988 New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Film	————	Nominated
	Best Actor	Gene Hackman	Nominated
1990 Political Film Society Awards	Human Rights	————	Won

See also

• 1988 in film
• African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)
• African-American Civil Rights Movement in popular culture
• White savior narrative in film

References

Footnotes

External links

• Official Website
• Mississippi Burning at IMDb
• Mississippi Burning at AllMovie
• Mississippi Burning at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mississippi Burning at Metacritic
• Mississippi Burning at Box Office Mojo
• Mississippi Burning at AlanParker.com