“What I saw was so strong and so visceral that I was angry”: this masterpiece released 36 years ago

On the basis of a real story, even if the work is borrowed from historical and actual shortcuts that are sometimes unlikely, Mississippi Burning, which came out in 1989, is an extraordinary and very powerful film signed by the UK film director who was unfortunately left at the age of 76.

The story takes place in 1964. Three activists of black civil rights disappear with mysterious. Two FBI agents are responsible for this case. Very quickly, the methods of intimidating Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson, in particular, Klu Klux Klan …

“There was still a time when we trusted filmmakers”

Commented on the Oscar for Best Actor and in 1989 a silver bear for the Best Actor in Berlinale, Jean Hakman is absolutely fabulous in his role as the FBI agent and the former sheriff in the United States.

Sometimes with a touch of humor and heat in a completely frozen and terrible context, it steals the show from the rest of the casting, which is, though far from Demeritis, its partner Willem Dafo, Francis McDormandand, Michael the Quarter, Brad Durif, and R. Among Le Erm, his role as a sadistic instructor in a full metal jacket.

“When we made a movie, there was still a time when we trust filmmakers.” Alan Parker comments in a retrospective interview; They were also told that they received – and the film’s filming group – barely shattered the dangers, and production posted its cameras in various films in Mississippi, as well as in the streets of Lafayette in Alabama.

Two southern states, known and unfortunately, are known for being the cradle of Ku Klux Klan and racial segregation. The subject, which has been resurrected in the eyes of some of the lights, has been still poorly extinct … Almost twenty -seven years before the film, Governor George Wallace has been elected by ultra -segregation program. Her campaign slogan? “Break Negro, segregation yesterday, now and tomorrow” …

Sixteen years of investigation that causes the file to open

If Mississippi Burning moved to offspring, in the 80’s appeared in the ranks of wonderful films of American cinema, it is not just for artistic considerations. But for a historical reason. “The film will open an investigation twenty years later and people were found guilty” Told the co -founders of the film, Chris Gerolmo.

A slightly lapidary shortcut that deserves a small explanation that Alan Parker himself received On his blog, in this post, originally written in the Times in June 2005.

“Opening a file and a new trial is mainly due to a journalist’s work: Jerry Mitchell, from Clarion-Leader to Jackson.

Ironically, the specified journalist was so inspired by a film that, when he came out, was sent to so many experienced colleagues. As the village of the village also pointed out, “This is the dream of a white liberal: a single journalist catches bad guys and writes a story.”

Edgar Ray Kilen, nicknamed PreacherHe was at the head of the Ku Klux Klan antenna, which was installed in the District of Nash, Mississippi and played a leading and central role in the tragic events of June 1964. Already an octogenic, when he was denied in 2005, he was sentenced to sixty years of prison.

“What I saw was so strong and so visceral that I was angry”

In 2014, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell sent a very moving letter to Alan Parker as a result of this river inspection, which filmmaker reproducer on his blog.

“I will send you this letter of gratitude, for the delay of nine years, for an article published in the 2005 judgment of Edgar Ray Kilen, orchestras for the killing of three young people in 1964, now known as” Mississippi Burning “.

Your movie inspired me to make this trip. What I saw was such a strong and visceral that I was angry.

When KKK killed these young people, I was 5 years old, and I grew up in a Texas protected hometown, thousands of kilometers, with complete neglect of what was happening elsewhere in the south … and in my hometown.

I accidentally saw the film in January 1989, during the Mississippi Jackson, press -screening, at the company of two FBI agents (Roy Moore and Jim Ingram), who explored the case and a journalist (Bill Small), who wrote about the case and many more. After the film was over, these three old men destroyed the film, telling me the real events on which he was based and explained the details of the case.

What I was most scared was that more than 20 members of Ku Klux Klan were involved in the murder of these three young people, but that none of them had never punished the murder. This injustice has led me to develop sources that provide thousands of secret (and sealed) documents from the famous state segregation spy agency, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.

I just wanted to tell you how much thank you forever. Your movie has changed the course of my life and I will always be grateful to you. One of the best things that happened to me was to get to know each of these family with these terrible tragedies. I can tell you how grateful they were all that they attended the convicts, which they never thought they saw.

I want you to be in the courtroom to hear the judgment of all the crimes and see the tears that go through the faces of these families. Solomon was right when he said: “When justice arrives, it brings joy.”

We couldn’t pay more beautiful tribute to the filmmaker and his film than this amazing letter. In 2021, 57 years after the case, FBI destroyed all the archives of the Miburn file, the Mississippi burning code. Thousands of documents, FBI memories, photos that include a period of 1964-2007. Can see them If the heart tells you.