Mississippi Burning reminds me of an old Marty Robbins song.
'Ain't I right'.
It was this surprisingly good little country ballot talking about the fear and spread of Communism over the United States.
Overall the message was greatly exaggerated and for the most part incorrect. Especially given that it wanted to link socialism in with that too.
Essentially it was a piece of propaganda that could be used to really bad aim if put in the wrong spot. But despite all of that the song itself divorced of its subject matter is pretty good.
Marty is a good singer and his overall chorus is really quite enjoyable.
That's what 'Mississippi Burning' reminds me of.
Now I don't take it quite as far as that song. I don't think the message of the movie is all that bad.
It deals with civil rights issues and the horrible lack of isonomy between the people.
But there have been arguments by some that the film is mis-representative of its own story. That it shows the black people living in Mississippi as nothing more than timid disinterested folks who are either unwilling or wanting to change the situation they live in. Some would put it a white hero archetype.
The only person who can save the day for the desperate black man is the introduction of the good hearted white man.
I can get behind that to a degree. But if they did introduce a more solid black cast into the movie and have the more integrated with the investigation.
But I feel like you just end up with a different group of people (or even the same people) then complaining about that aspect of the movie. Claiming that they artificially enforced different characters to deal with the situation.
Especially towards the end when the FBI starts playing a bit dirty to combat the corruption of this horrible Mississippi town and it's overly destructive Sheriff's Department.
You'd have article after article of people complaining about a more dubious black community breaking the law to try and take down corruption. And I could easily see people then comparing it to some blaxploitation film or just dials back to African people committing crime to get their point across.
I don't know, this is one of those weird complex issues where no matter what you do somebody's going to complain at you and probably with a good reason.
After all at the end of the day bigotry and social standards aren't black and white issues. We Can't fixed it with after-school specials.
It takes years for the public perception on things like this to change.
Especially when there's a group of people at the top purposely keeping this deception high as to maintain some form of power within their local state.
Okay getting away from my ridiculous ramble about a subject that I'm nowhere near educated enough to properly discuss.
Let's talk about the movie.
It should go without saying that it's very good.
It's a Gene Hackman starring performance, he plays this former Mississippi Sheriff turned FBI agent who's now trying to discover the whereabouts of three missing civil rights students on the official reports they're just listed as missing but everybody involved in the case and living in the town knows otherwise. They're all guarantee that it's some point one of them's going to find a body.
Also Willem Dafoe is here as the fresh-faced young man who's running the operation. He keeps doing everything by The bureau's Official Guidelines where we just constantly brings in more and more men to get involved in the situation. It gets absolutely ludicrous at one stage and I think they're supposed to be some lesson in here about sometimes taking a more direct and in their case less legal approach. Which just seems a bit strange to me given that the FBI especially in the age of Hoover wasn't known for doing anything legally.
Anyways it doesn't matter. It's all just a setup for strange buddy cop scenario between Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. Both ultimately trying to do a good job at there investigation but going at it in such different ways and with such different ideas that they almost come off confrontational. That is until the end when they decide to say screw it this town has given us nothing but shit and it's full of absolutely horrible people let's go full Hoover on these idiots and just arrest them on anything we can get. Even if it involves manipulation and threats.
The pacing and cinematography of the film is all real top-notch. It has just enough tension to keep you invested but doesn't lean into it so much that you eventually become indifferent to the high-stakes action. It's a film that knows where to use its racial bigotry properly.
Although all that said the only point in the film when there was any real true tension was at the very beginning.
When we see the activist kids driving through the dead of night leaving Mississippi.
Then being confronted by this group of unknown men (one of which is brandishing a police badge) who then murdered them in Cold Blood. Calling them every horrible name you can think of for a black person or a Jewish person.
After that the tension goes down because you know that the FBI agents themselves really can't be hurt.
If you're looking for a good solid dramatic film that I'd recommend Mississippi Burning. If you're looking for something with more historical accuracy to the murders of these poor kids then you might want to look somewhere else.
The film's not completely fictional but it does feel like an ''alternate timeline'' if you wanted to go down that route.
Honestly I'd recommend this more to Gene Hackman fans than anyone else.
He gives a really good performance and he's kind of carefree but grim attitude mixed in with his Mississippi accent just makes for some really good storytelling.
I wish there was more of an interaction between Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. Especially because Willem Dafoe feels more like a prop in this movie than a proper character. There's one point where the two of them get in the confrontation and Defoe threatens to blow his head off that was really good.
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