Dish of the Day

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Today’s “Dish of the Day” has a brief review of mine that was inspired by a post in one of the film related Facebook chat rooms. This includes the Cinema Cafe group (all readers are encouraged to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/902349343110685). Once again, my views seem to be with a minority of dissenters.

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Mississippi Burning is an important film about human injustice and unspeakable tragedy that, nevertheless, seems preoccupied with beating the drum awfully loud for FBI saviourhood. Then again, complexity, subtlety and a propensity for exploring deeper, less programmable issues are sadly not this director’s (Alan Parker) strengths. The two primary agents, rendered conspicuously by Gene Hackman (Anderson) and Willem Dafoe (Ward), are looking into the real life disappearance of three civil rights workers. Their continued arguments over how to handle an inquiry that is going badly and respond to retaliatory acts of intimidation is where the most credible and engaging dramatic exposition lies. Practically all of the other confrontations and characters bask in a familiar fusion of Southern/Hollywood melodrama shared by countless films of the past concerning racially motivated violence taking place in the American South. Anderson in particular, when the going gets tough, gets even tougher and smarter about how to get results. Most of the audience will cheer on Gene Hackman’s emotional outrage (especially since this expression is the actor’s forte) and semi-drastic tactical measures that lead to the pair’s investigative success but devastating discovery. For some, Mississippi Burning has happily succeeded in making heroes out of horror. For others, the set-up for Anderson’s white-knight heroics can be easily observed in the scenes preceding them. A sense of natural interplay between characters would seem almost as out of place as a black man jumping out from behind a rock yelling 'where’re the white women at?!' * Wannabe, or up and coming, filmmakers impressed by this type of dramatic legerdemain should be compelled to watch numerous documentaries on social injustice before embarking on their films of a similar nature to get a proper sense of what real fear, violent hatred, institutional corruption, tyranny and on the other side, thoughtfulness, empathy and courage look like. This is because that kind of aforementioned reality is practically in absentia throughout artificially constructed for maximum dramatic payoff period films such as Mississippi Burning and the next decade’s The Shawshank Redemption. 

* A notable exception, i.e. scenes of natural interaction (although they too have results that are telegraphed in advance) are those between Gene Hackman and Frances McDormand, the latter who plays the conscience-stricken wife of a KKK member Deputy Sheriff.

All responses are not only welcomed but encouraged in the comments section below.

Hope to see you tomorrow.

A.G.