Mississippi Burning Alan Parker

Critical response

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes sampled 28 reviews, and gave Mississippi Burning a score of 79%, with an average score of 6.8/10. 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."[46] 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".[47] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[48]

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".[49] 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."[50] Jonathan Rosenbaum lightly criticized Parker's direction, 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."[51] Rita Kempley, also writing for The Washington Post, criticized for viewing "the black struggle from an all-white perspective", and drew comparisons to Cry Freedom (1987), writing that both films had "the right story, but with the wrong heroes."[52] Pauline Kael, writing for The New Yorker, praised the acting, but described the film as being "morally repugnant".[53]

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."[54] 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."[55] 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.[56] On his year-end top ten films list, Ebert ranked Mississippi Burning the #1 movie of 1988.[57] 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".[58]

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."[59] 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."[60]

Controversy

"... with Mississippi Burning the controversy got out of hand. It was impossible to turn on a TV without someone discussing the movie – or using the movie to trigger the debate ... In the beginning it was rather nice to have your film talked about but suddenly the tide turned and although it did well at the box office, we were dogged by a lot of anger that the film generated."

—Parker reflecting on the film's controversy.[13]

Following its release, Mississippi Burning became embroiled in controversy over its fictionalization of events. Gerolmo and Parker have admitted taking artistic license with the source material describing it as essentially a ''work of fiction''. The killing itself, as portrayed in the film, differed from the actual events in several ways. In the film, during the car stop precipitating the murder, the driver is white (presumably either Andrew Goodman or Michael Schwerner), and the black civil rights volunteer (presumably James Chaney) is in the back seat. In reality, James Chaney drove the car because he was familiar with the area.[61] The film presents the murders as having been committed at the scene of the stop while the victims were in their car, beginning with Frank Bailey putting a revolver to the temple of the car's driver and shooting. In reality, all three victims were first taken to jail and were shot after their release. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were shot once in the heart, followed by James Chaney who was shot three times.[61] Much of the violence and intimidation of the black people in the film is drawn from events that occurred at the time, although not necessarily in relation to this investigation. The title itself comes from the FBI code name for the investigation and some of the dialog is drawn directly from their files. A lot of the fictional elements surround the actions of the two main FBI agents.[7]

Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., boycotted the film, stating, "How long will we have to wait before Hollywood finds the courage and the integrity to tell the stories of some of the many thousands of black men, women and children who put their lives on the line for equality?"[62] Myrlie Evers-Williams, the wife of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, said of the film, "It was unfortunate that it was so narrow in scope that it did not show one black role model that today's youth who look at the movie could remember."[63] Benjamin Hooks, the executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), stated that the film, in its fictionalization of historical events, "reeks with dishonesty, deception and fraud" and portrays African Americans as "cowed, submissive and blank-faced".[64]

Carolyn Goodman, mother of Andrew Goodman, and Ben Chaney Jr., the younger brother of James Chaney, expressed that they were both "disturbed" by the film.[65] Goodman felt that it "used the deaths of the boys as a means of solving the murders and the FBI being heroes."[65] Chaney stated, "... the image that younger people got (from the film) about the times, about Mississippi itself and about the people who participated in the movement being passive, was pretty negative and it didn't reflect the truth."[65] Stephen Schwerner, brother of Michael Schwerner, felt that the film was "terribly dishonest and very racist" and "[distorted] the realities of 1964".[64]

On a Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 16, 1989) episode of ABC's late-night news program Nightline, Julian Bond, a social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement, nicknamed the film "Rambo Meets the Klan"[66] and disapproved of its depiction of the FBI: "People are going to have a mistaken idea about that time ... It's just wrong. These guys were tapping our telephones, not looking into the murders of [Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner]."[66] When asked about the film at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Spike Lee criticized the lack of central African-American characters, believing the film was among several others that used a white savior narrative to exploit blacks in favor of depicting whites as heroes.[67]

In response to these criticisms, Parker defended the film, stating that it was "fiction in the same way that Platoon and Apocalypse Now are fictions of the Vietnam War. But the important thing is the heart of the truth, the spirit ... I defend the right to change it in order to reach an audience who knows nothing about the realities and certainly don't watch PBS documentaries."[7]

Legal dispute

On February 21, 1989, former Neshoba County sheriff Lawrence A. Rainey filed a lawsuit against Orion Pictures, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy. The lawsuit, filed at a United States district court in Meridian, Mississippi, asked for $8 million in damages.[22] Rainey, who was the county sheriff at the time of the 1964 murders, alleged that the filmmakers of Mississippi Burning portrayed him in an unfavorable light with the fictional character of Sheriff Ray Stuckey (Gailard Sartain). "Everybody all over the South knows the one they have playing the sheriff in that movie is referring to me," he stated. "What they said happened and what they did to me certainly wasn't right and something ought to be done about it."[22] Rainey's lawsuit was unsuccessful; he dropped the suit after Orion's team of lawyers threatened to prove that the film was based on fact, and that Rainey was indeed suspected in the 1964 murders.[68]

Accolades

Mississippi Burning received various awards and nominations in categories ranging from recognition of the film itself to its writing, direction, editing, sound and cinematography, to the performances of Gene Hackman and Frances McDormand. It was named one of the "Top 10 Films of 1988" by the National Board of Review. The organization also awarded the film top honors at the 60th National Board of Review Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.[69]

In January 1989, the film received four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Hackman),[70] though it failed to win any of the awards at the 46th Golden Globe Awards.[71] In February 1989, Mississippi Burning was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor; its closest rivals were Rain Man leading with eight nominations, and Dangerous Liaisons, which also received seven nominations.[72] On March 29, 1989, at the 61st Academy Awards, the film won only one of the seven awards for which it was nominated, Best Cinematography.[73] At the 43rd British Academy Film Awards, the film received five nominations, ultimately winning for Best Sound, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.[74]