Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning
Movie poster by Bill Gold
Directed by	Alan Parker
Produced by	Robert F. Colesberry Frederick Zollo
Written by	Chris Gerolmo Frederick Zollo
Starring	Gene Hackman Willem Dafoe Brad Dourif Frances McDormand
Music by	Trevor Jones
Cinematography	Peter Biziou
Editing by	Gerry Hambling
Distributed by	Orion Pictures
Release date(s)	December 9, 1988
Running time	128 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 crime drama film loosely based on the FBI investigation into the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The movie focuses on two fictional FBI agents (portrayed by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) who investigate the murders. Hackman's character (Agent Rupert Anderson) is loosely based on FBI agent John Proctor, and Dafoe's character (Agent Alan Ward) is very loosely based on agent Joseph Sullivan.

The film also stars Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif, R. Lee Ermey and Gailard Sartain, and was written by Chris Gerolmo and directed by Alan Parker. It won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Hackman), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (McDormand), Best Director, Best Film Editing (Gerry Hambling), Best Picture and Best Sound.

Plot

The story is loosely based on the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. After the three are reported missing, two FBI agents are sent to investigate the incident in rural Jessup County, Mississippi (modeled after Neshoba County where the real murders took place). The two agents take two completely different approaches: Agent Alan Ward (Dafoe), a northerner, takes a direct approach to the investigation. Agent Rupert Anderson (Hackman), a former Mississippi sheriff who understands the intricacies of race relations in the south, takes a more subtle tack. It is very hard for the two to work in the town, as the local police force run a major branch of the Ku Klux Klan, and the two agents cannot talk to the local African American community, due to their fear of Klan attacks. Slowly but steadily, relations between the FBI and the local Jessup County sheriff's office deteriorate, as do relations between the two FBI agents. Things boil over when the bodies are located and the Deputy Sheriff, Clinton Pell realizes that his wife gave their locations to Anderson and assaults her in a fit of anger. When Anderson sees her in the hospital, he storms off to confront the Deputy but is stopped by Ward. After a brief scuffle, the two agree that they will work together and bring down the Jessup County branch of the Ku Klux Klan using Anderson's as yet untried approach.

The new tactics begin when the mayor is abducted. He comes around in a remote shack, alone except for an African American male wearing a rudimentary mask, similar to those used by KKK members in the film. Relating a story of how a young black male was castrated by the KKK, he implies that the mayor will likewise be disfigured unless he talks, by wielding a razor blade while relating the tale. In reality, the abductor is an FBI operative specially flown in to intimidate the mayor. Though not admissible in court, what the mayor says gives investigators leads on pursuing the case.

Anderson sends fake invites to all the involved KKK parties who turn up but soon realize it's a set up and don't discuss the murders, they just leave. But not before the FBI, who are eavesdropping, have spotted Lester Cowans, a junior member of the outfit, as being particularly nervous and unable to stop talking. He's later picked up by the FBI and driven prominently around town as if he may be talking to them.

Anderson pays a visit to the barber shop where Deputy Clinton Pell is receiving a shave with a cut-throat razor. Anderson slips in the place of the barber allowing him to ensure Pell stays still whilst Anderson threatens him, nicking him with the razor. Anderson then administers a brutal beating on Pell, both for his role in the murders and his assault of his wife. Ward, waiting outside, can't stand hearing the beating and attempts to go in but is stopped by the other FBI men Anderson has called in to do things his way. Pell is left spinning round and round in a barber's chair as Anderson leaves.

A nervous Lestor Cowans is at home when his window is shot out. On the lawn outside is a burning cross. He tries to flee in his truck but is caught by three hooded men who then start to hang him. Just then, the FBI arrive at the scene, rescue Cowans, and chase the thugs to the sound of gunshots. Out of sight, the abductors take off their masks - they are also FBI agents. The ruse works. Cowans, thinking his life is in danger from his KKK co-conspirators who think he'll talk, does just that. The FBI now have evidence admissible in court and prosecute the culprits. They charge them with Civil Rights violations to ensure they will tried at the federal level; earlier four had been convicted in a state court of firebombing a black man's home, only to receive 5-year suspended sentences. Most are found guilty and receive sentences from three to ten years. Sheriff Stuckey is acquitted. The mayor, who wasn't charged, hangs himself.

Critics

The film has been criticized by many, including historian Howard Zinn, for its fictionalization of history. According to Zinn: while FBI agents are portrayed as heroes who descend upon the town by the hundreds, in reality the FBI and the Justice Department only reluctantly protected civil rights workers and protesters and reportedly witnessed beatings without intervening.^[1] It was also criticized due to its portrayal of southern African-Americans as passive victims. The image of African-Americans as being passive also shapes the film's reenactment of the assassinations;^[2] New York Times film reviewer wrote that the film's alleged distortions amounted to a "cinematic lynching" of history.

Ironically, according to the testimony of Colombo crime family contract killer Gregory S. Scarpa Jr. the cinematic version may have come closer to the truth than the official FBI story out of Washington, D.C.. His story has been supported in several news accounts by unnamed FBI agents purported to have worked on the MIBURN case and Scarpa's own FD-209 reports that were released and made public after his death. Gregory S. Scarpa Jr. has said that his father, Colombo crime family capo and Top Echelon FBI informant Gregory Scarpa Sr. offered his services in the case to his FBI handler, Anthony Villano. He made a three day trip to Mississippi, where posing as a member of the national Ku Klux Klan himself, he and an FBI helper kidnapped a local appliance salesman and Ku Klux Klan member who was viewed by the FBI as a potential weak link in the case. They took the man to a remote location, tied him to a chair, and interrogated him. The first two times he told the story, the agent and Scarpa believed that the man was lying. On the third try, Scarpa pulled his gun on the suspect. "He said he took a gun and put in the guy's mouth and said: For the last time, where are the bodies or I'll blow your head off", Gregory S. Scarpa Jr. testified. Events similar to Scarpa Jr.'s story are reenacted in the film. The KKK member finally confessed to the location of the bodies, Scarpa Jr. said.

One such report, written in January 1966, states that Scarpa was later used as a "special" — the FBI term for a nonagent working for the Bureau in the murder of Vernon Dahmer, the head of the NAACP office in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Dahmer's house was torched by the Ku Klux Klan, and the memo states that Scarpa Sr. was sent to Hattiesburg to work on the case. However, evidence from journalist Jerry Mitchell and Illinois high school teacher Barry Bradford, contradicts this account. They claim that the informant who revealed the location of the bodies was highway patrolman Maynard King, who gave the information willingly to FBI agent Joseph Sullivan.^[3] The similarity between Mr. Scarpa's account and the movie may be best explained by the fact that Mr. Scarpa's testimony was recorded some years after the movie was released. Both the Justice Department and the FBI have officially declined to comment on any role Gregory Scarpa Sr. may have played in the MIBURN. In Cartha DeLoach's account of the MIBURN case in his memoir, Hoover's FBI he does not mention Scarpa. It does say that a squad of COINTELPRO agents were sent to interview members of the Ku Klux Klan and that "many of them were big, bruising men, highly trained in the tactics of interrogation."

Cartha "Deke" DeLoach's official version is that the FBI paid for its first big break in the case, which was for 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 that the three civil rights workers had been buried under twelve feet of dirt in an earthen dam on a large farm located a few miles outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, but said that the FBI paid $30,000 for the piece of crucial information.

The quote said to the FBI agents by "Mayor Tilman" is paraphrased from a quote from U.S. Senator James Eastland who reportedly said when the three civil rights workers (Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman) went missing in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, "the incident is a hoax and there is no Ku Klux Klan in the state; the three have gone to Chicago" and that it was staged by the three young men to call attention to their cause. J. Edgar Hoover, who was being pressured by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was determined to break the case. He flew down to Mississippi just before the first anniversary of the disappearance, which was officially regarded as a "kidnapping" to justify the FBI's involvement.

Context

Mississippi Burning was preceded in 1975 by a television docudrama titled Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan, depicting many of the same events. Neither production gave the real names of the murderers, due to legal considerations, and Mississippi Burning does not mention the victims (who are referred to as "The Boys") by name in the film. In the film credits they are simply identified as "Goatee" based on Michael Schwerner played by Geoffrey Nauffts, "Passenger" based on Andrew Goodman played by Rick Zieff and "Black Passenger" based on James Chaney played by Christopher White. The film presents the policeman's wife as the informant. The identity of the real informant, known in history as "Mr. X.", was a closely held secret for forty years. In the process of reopening the case, journalist Jerry Mitchell and teacher Barry Bradford discovered his real name.^[3] The mysterious black associate of Rupert Anderson who threatens to castrate the mayor while he is bound to the chair is based on Colombo crime family capo and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa Sr. The character "Frank Bailey" played by Michael Rooker is based on Alton Wayne Roberts, Stephen Tobolowsky as "Clayton Townley" based on Samuel Bowers and Pruitt Taylor Vince as "Lester Cowans" based on Edgar Ray Killen.

Inaccuracies

The film's version of the assassinations, including most of the dialogue, did not occur as in the real event; in the film, "Goatee" is shot in the head, then the scene goes to a "blackout," where sounds of additional gun shots are heard in rapid succession. In reality, the victims were stopped, pulled from the station wagon, and forced to get into the backseat of Deputy Sherriff Cecil Price's car. Upon arrival at "Rock Cut Road," Michael Schwerner (the film's "Goatee") was pulled from the car, onto his feet by Alton Wayne Roberts and shot. Roberts then pulled Goodman from the car, shooting him to death. James Chaney was the last to die, but unlike the film, was beaten and shot several feet away from Price's car—not in the station wagon backseat—as depicted in the movie.**

Awards

• 1989: Academy Award for Best Cinematography:Peter Biziou
• 1989: BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography: Peter Biziou
• 1989: Berlin International Film Festival: Best Actor: Gene Hackman
• 1989: BAFTA Award for Best Editing: Gerry Hambling
• 1989: BAFTA Award for Best Sound: Bill Phillips, Danny Michael, Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline
• 1989: British Society of Cinematographers: Best Cinematography Award: Peter Biziou
• 1988: National Board of Review Awards
  • Best Film
  • Best Actor: Gene Hackman
  • Best Director: Alan Parker
  • Best Supporting Actress: Frances McDormand

Nominations

• 1988: Academy Awards
  • Best Picture
  • Best Actor: Gene Hackman
  • Best Supporting Actress: Frances McDormand
  • Best Director: Alan Parker
  • Best Editing: Gerry Hambling
  • Best Sound: Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline, Danny Michael
• 1989: Berlin International Film Festival
  • Golden Bear (Best Motion Picture)
• 1989: BAFTA Awards
  • Best Direction: Alan Parker
  • Best Film Music: Trevor Jones
• 1988: Golden Globe Award
  • Best Motion Picture — Drama
  • Best Director — Motion Picture: Alan Parker
  • Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama: Gene Hackman
  • Best Screenplay: Chris Gerolmo^[4]

On the set

Scenes in and around the sheriff's office and all courtroom scenes were filmed in the old Carroll County Courthouse in Vaiden. It was a dilapidated, early-20th century (1905) structure, and falling brickwork threatened principals, crew and extras. The courthouse was demolished a few years later in 1989. Lawyer/actor Thomas Mason played the judge in the courtroom scenes.

Many scenes were also shot on location in LaFayette, Alabama. Prominently featured in the movie is Chambers County Courthouse & courthouse square.

Two extras hired to play naval reservist searchers were nearly killed in Bovina, Mississippi, when they wandered from a temporary holding area onto a high-arch railroad bridge over the Big Black River. When a freight train came along, they escaped injury by huddling on a small pedestal on the edge of the bridge.

Native American extras were hired from the Choctaw reservation near Philadelphia.

When filming began, some Mississippians were excited to know that Gene Hackman would be doing for Mississippi what he did for Indiana with his 1986 film, "Hoosiers."

References

• Deadly Alliance: The FBI's Secret Partnership with the Mob by Ralph Ranalli
• **Cagin & Dray, We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988. Pages 289, 290, 294 & 295. ISBN 0-02-520260-X.
• **David Spain, M.D. Mississippi Autopsy, Ramparts magazine. Pages 43 – 49, 1965.

External links

• Mississippi Burning at the Internet Movie Database
• Mississippi Burning at Allmovie
• Information About The Real Life Case And How It Was Resolved
• Biography of Sam Bowers