Submitted by LoneWolfInCyberia t3_10q35jt in movies
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Mississippi Burning, based on the real life incident of 3 Civil rights workers murdered in Miss, during 1964, and the subsequent FBI investigation into it. Essentially a good cop-bad cop thriller with racism and the civil rights angle as the backdrop. The movie does quite well in exploring the racism prevalent in the Deep South, the deep rooted prejudices, the influence of the KKK.
Where director Alan Parker does well is in capturing the spirit of a Southern town, you feel that sticky atmosphere, the narrow minded attitudes of the townsfolk, right from the corrupt, racist, wife beating Dy.Sheriff, played by Brad Dourif, to the town Mayor, hectoring against outsiders interfering in the town's affairs.
In the courts of Mississippi, they have been reminded, that they cannot, by force, turn our communities into replicas of their communities... communities in which negroes run riot, unrestrained and unpunished, as they do this summer in the streets of Harlem, or they do in the streets of Oakland, or they do in the STREETS OF CHICAGO!
Or the scene where the Dy.Sheriff's much abused wife, explains how racism is inbred.
It's ugly. This whole thing is so ugly. Have you any idea what it's like to live with all this? People look at us and only see bigots and racists. Hatred isn't something you're born with. It gets taught. At school, they said segregation what's said in the Bible... Genesis 9, Verse 27. At 7 years of age, you get told it enough times, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live it... you breathe it. You marry it.
The Mayor clearly telling Anderson( Gene Hackmann), the FED agent who knows the South like the back of his hand, and believes in unconventional tactics, that it has always been this way down South, and Missisippi does not give a jack shit about Rest of America.
I told you, I'm a businessman. I'm also a Mississippian, and an American! And I'm getting SICK and TIRED of the way us Mississippians are getting our views distorted by you newsmen and on the TV. So let's get this straight. We do NOT accept Jews, because they REJECT Christ! And their control over the International Banking Cartels are at he root of what we call Communism today. We do not accept Papists, because they bow to a Roman dictator! We do not accept Turk, Mongrels, Tartars, Orientals nor Negroes because we are here to protect Anglo-Saxon Democracy, and the American way!
The movie at the same time has a fast,gripping pace, not meandering much, sticking to the subject. The good cop-bad cop clash between Anderson and Ward( Wilelm Dafoe), Anderson's rough and ready methods of investigation, the hostility of the town folk, the helplessness of the well meaning people in the town, all quite well captured.
Gene Hackmann owns the movie, not many do the bad ass act as well as he does, without overdoing it. My favorite scene, is where he confronts the Dy.Sheriff at the bar, and grabs the b**s, of one of the guys who tries to act a bit too smart. You just feel his intimidating presence, especially the way he looks, phew. Or the scene where he thrashes the Sheriff in the salon.
Wilelm Dafoe, actually has a more subdued role, playing the straight by the book agent, and he holds his own against Hackmann, conveying the helplessness, angst well.
Brad Dourif is equally good as the slimy Dy.Sheriff, making you detest him.
One of those movies I can watch anytime, just for the performances and writing.
mickeyflinn t1_j6nm981 wrote
This movie is one of the greatest of all time.