Mississippi Burning
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Movie Reviews of Mississippi Burning
Movie Review: 1960
Summary: 5 Stars
Awesome plot, vulgar language may be excessive, not recommended for young viewers. Strong adult content.Movie Review: Mississippi Burning
Summary: 5 Stars
Wonderful movie depicting the oppression of blacks and the tyranny of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960's..Movie Review: HISTORY
Summary: 5 Stars
JUST CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW AWFUL PEOPLE CAN BE TO ONE ANOTHER.I HAVE IT ON VHS AND JUST GOT IT ON DVDMovie Review: Great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
if I picked one movie from the 80's to be my favorite, it would be this one, it's great.Movie Review: Mississippi Burning
Summary: 4 Stars
I have read reviews of Mississippi Burning that range from waxing poetic about its power to those that despise its use of disturbing images to elicite an "autonomic response" of disgust and anger from the audience. Having viewed the movie several times, I realize that the latter's claims are not entirely without merit. That being said, Mississippi Burning is one of my favorite movies. I don't know much about the situation in the South before the present day. For that matter, I don't know much about it now. I have no idea if things were as bad as they were portrayed in the movie. Having seen pictures of lynchings, though, as well as the festival-like atmosphere that accompanied them, I can't imagine that the film was too far off base. The atmosphere of fear and hate that pervades the film is almost visible. It's hard to imagine anyone being able to survive it with their humanity intact.
Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as the two FBI agents are an interesting study in contrasts. Hackman, as a former Good Ol' Boy sheriff, sees stublety and patience as the necessary tools to solve the three civil rights workers' disappearances. Dafoe, as a Kennedy recruit from the Justice Department, sees an intense show of federal strength and sheer investigative force as the way to go. Dafoe is an idealist, Hackman is a realist. The one thing they have in common is a disgust for the way blacks are treated in the South. I must admit I found Hackman's performance more convincing than Dafoe's, perhaps because his was a more complex character. A product of two worlds, one of racism and one of unity, his must not have been an easy life. And of course, Frances McDormand is brilliant as the long-suffering wife of a Klan member/Sheriff's deputy. She is disgusted with what's going on with blacks in her town, but cannot do anything about it. Her sense of fear and entrapment in a prison of hate have a claustrophobic feel to them that is palpable.
I do wish the movie hadn't used quite so many stereotypes in its potrayals of secondary characters, particularly blacks. I don't think there was a single scene in the movie that didn't show blacks as being the victims of some hate crime or other. It got so bad I couldn't see a black face without getting nervous for his or her continued good health. Surely *someone* in the black community decided to say "enough is enough"?
Also, the idea that everyone in Mississippi was (a) in the KKK, (b) black, or (c) a passive, approving bystander is an injustice to human nature. Situations are always more complex than they seem, and this one was no different, I'm sure. Oh well, it's not entirely the director's fault. He only had two hours.
This movie understands racism, is able to dig into the wellspring of hatred and sniveling and air it to the world. I've never been able to completely comprehend racism on anything other than an intellectual level. That it existed, I never had any doubt, but it's one thing to know it, but it's something else to really *know* it. And once you do know it, it's like staring in a funhouse mirror. You can see the image, but you're unable to force the shape you see into the shape you *think* should be there. This movie provides you with that gut abilty.