[MISSISSIPPI BURNING got its general release on Martin Luther King's birthday weekend. This review is posted on Martin Luther King's birthday. Neither was accidental. -Moderator]
MISSISSIPPI BURNING
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Alan Parker (director of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, THE WALL, and ANGEL HEART) creates a well-detailed, though allegedly very fictionalized, account of the FBI investigation into the disappearance of three civil rights workers from Jessup, Mississippi in 1964. Gene Hackman's performance is complex in a film that is violent but rewarding. Rating: +3.
Two waterfountains, side-by-side. One has a sign saying it is for whites; one says it is for colored. "Separate but equal." Except the whites' fountain is a big, electrically cooled fountain; the blacks' fountain is a little white porcelain one like you would see in a grade school. With the very first shot of MISSISSIPPI BURNING Alan Parker sets the tone for what is to come and creates a feel for the South in 1964. And what is to come is the story of an FBI investigation into the deaths of three civil rights workers that turned into an all-out war between the FBI and the Ku Klux Klan.
Into Jessup, Mississippi come two FBI agents: Anderson (played by Gene Hackman) and Ward (played by Willem Dafoe). Ward is in command. Anderson knows the territory and how to get things done. As such they are roughly similar to the Sean Connery and Kevin Kostner characters in THE UNTOUCHABLES, but in this case neither is really fully right in his approach. The result is a (usually) quiet conflict between Anderson and Ward as they both fight the Klan and its sympathizers.
The script gives the greater acting opportunity to Hackman. His character seems at first to be jovial and friendly, almost a "good old boy," where Dafoe's character is flat and officious. Hackman's character and his performance operate at several levels at once. He has plans within plans and can be reckless and bloodthirsty in his attempts to get a job done. Brad Dourif, whose early career had him play mostly innocents in films like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and RAGTIME, these days usually plays vicious heavies in films like CHILD'S PLAY and MISSISSIPPI BURNING.
Stylistically MISSISSIPPI BURNING may well have been inspired by John Sayles' 1987 film MATEWAN. Like Sayles, Parker has created the feel of an epic inexpensively by careful choice of locale in which to shoot. As in MATEWAN, the story is a little too neat to be believed. Both stories have the feel of an anecdotal style for mood rather than that of a docu-drama--a style that undermines the realism. Even then the mood itself is damaged at the end by a small speech by Dafoe followed by the singing of a spiritual.
The photography, while at times atmospheric, in general is realistic and includes liberal (if that is the word) doses of violence realistic enough to bother some viewers. Parker (or screenwriter Chris Gerolmo) seems intentionally to put in disorienting scenes that do not immediately make sense, but which will fit into the puzzle in a few minutes.
In general MISSISSIPPI BURNING is a skillfully crafted piece of historical fiction just a little stronger in style than in credibility. Rate it a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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