Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: In the Heat of the Night (dir by Norman Jewison)

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1967 film, In the Heat of the Night, tells the story of two very different men.

Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) is the police chief of the small town of Sparta, Mississippi. In many ways, Gillespie appears to the epitome of the bigoted Southern cop. He’s overweight. He loses his temper easily. He chews a lot of gum. He knows everyone in town and automatically distrusts anyone who he hasn’t seen before, especially if that person happens to be a black man or from the north.

Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is a black man from the north. He’s a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department and he’s as cool and controlled as Gillespie is temperamental and uncouth. Tibbs has no patience for the casual racism that is epitomized by lawmen like Chief Gillespie. When Gillespie says that Virgil is a “fancy name” for a black and asks what people call Virgil in Philadelphia, Virgil declares, “They call me Mister Tibbs!,” with an authority that leaves no doubt that he expects Gillespie to do the same.

Together …. THEY SOLVE CRIMES!

For once, that old joke is correct. When a Chicago industrialist named Phillip Colbert is discover murdered in Sparta, Chief Gillespie heads up the investigation and, assuming that the murderer must be an outsider, orders Deputy Wood (Warren Oates) to check out the train station for any suspicious characters. When Wood arrives at the station, he discovers Virgil standing on the platform. Virgil is simply waiting for his train so that he can get back home to Philadelphia. However, Wood promptly arrests him. Gilespie accuses him of murdering Colbert, just to discover that Virgil’s a police detective from Philadelphia.

Though neither wants to work with the other, that’s exactly what Gillespie and Virgil are forced to do as they investigate Colbert’s murder. Colbert was planning on building a factory in Sparta and his wife (Lee Grant) makes it clear that, if Sparta wants the factory and the money that comes with it, Virgil must be kept on the case. Over the course of the investigation, Gillespie and Virgil come to a weary understanding as both of them are forced to confront their own preconceived notions about both the murder and life in Sparta. In the end, if it’s impossible for them to truly become friends, they do develop a weary respect for each other. That is perhaps the best that one could have hoped for in 1967.

I have to admit that it took me a few viewings before I really appreciated In the Heat of the Night. Though this film won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1967, it’s always suffered when compared to some of the films that it beat. One can certainly see that the film was superior to Doctor Dolittle and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. But was it a better film than The Graduate or Bonnie and Clyde? Did Rod Steiger really deserve to win Best Actor over Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty? (Amazingly, Poitier wasn’t even nominated.)

To be honest, I still feel that In The Heat of the Night was probably the 3rd best of the 5 films nominated that year, superior to the condescending Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner but nowhere near as groundbreaking as Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate. The first time I watched In the Heat of the Night, I thought Steiger blustered a bit too much and the film’s central mystery didn’t really hold together and, to a large extent, I still feel like that.

But, at the same time, there’s a lot to appreciate about In the Heat of the Night. On subsequent viewings, I came to better appreciate the way that director Norman Jewison, editor Hal Ashby, and cinematographer Haskwell Wexler created and maintained an atmosphere that was so thick that you can literally feel the Mississippi humidity while watching the film. I came to appreciate the supporting cast, especially Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Scott Wilson, Anthony James, and Larry Gates. (Gates especially makes an impression in his one scene, playing an outwardly genteel racist who nearly cries when Tibbs reacts to his slap by slapping him back.) I also came to appreciate the fact that, while the white cop/black cop partnership has subsequently become a bit of a cliche, it was new and even controversial concept in 1967.

And finally, I came to better appreciate Sidney Poitier’s performance as Virgil. Poitier underplays Virgil, giving a performance of tightly controlled rage. While Steiger yells his way through the film, Poitier emphasizes that Virgil is always thinking. As in the same year’s Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Poitier plays a dignified character but, here, that dignity is Virgil’s way of defying the demands and expectations of men like Gillespie. When Virgil does strike back, it’s a cathartic moment because we understand how many times he’s had to hold back.

In the Heat of the Night may not have been the best film of 1967 but it’s still one worth watching.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Bound for Glory (dir by Hal Ashby)

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of my favorite online film reviewers is Mitch Lovell of the Video Vacuum. The thing I like about Mitch is that he doesn’t worry about how many Oscars a film has been nominated for or whether or not a film’s politics are currently in fashion. Unlike a lot of online reviewers, he doesn’t worry about whether or not he’s going against the “accepted” views of the critical establishment. Instead, he’ll watch a film and tell you exactly how he felt about it.

For example, Mitch Lovell’s review of the otherwise critically acclaimed 1976 best picture nominee Bound for Glory can be summed up in three words: “boring as fuck.” Every other online review that I’ve found for Bound for Glory offers up polite but rarely inspiring praise for this rather lengthy film about the folk singer Woody Guthrie. Most of those reviews do acknowledge that the film moves at its own pace but we are told that we will be rewarded for being patient. If the review was written after 2010, you can be sure that the reviewer will be sure to say that Bound for Glory reminds us of why labor unions are still important and need to be protected from the Tea Party. (The idea apparently being that, if a film has the right politics, it doesn’t have to actually be all that interesting.) It’s all rather predictable and that’s why we’re lucky to have reviewers like Mitch Lovell around. Whether you agree with him or not, it’s good to have a reviewer who will go against the conventional wisdom.

I recently watched Bound for Glory as a part of TCM’s 31 Days of Oscars and, to a large extent, I have to agree with Mitch Lovell’s review. This is a movie that is not only long but which moves slowly as well. It’s not that the film has a deliberate pace. It’s just slow! (If you want to see a film that makes good use of a deliberate pace, check out Barry Lyndon.) David Carradine plays Woody Guthrie, a sign painter who, during the Great Depression, abandons his family in Texas and, by hopping trains, makes his way to California. He works with fruit pickers. He tries to convince his fellow workers to form a union. He gets beat up a lot.

And he plays his guitar.

If there’s anything that remains consistent about Bound for Glory, it’s that Woody is always playing his guitar and that every time he starts to play, something terrible either has happened or does happen. There’s a huge dust storm. Woody plays his guitar. A fight breaks out at a union meeting. Woody plays his guitar. A bunch of hoboes on a train get beat up. Woody plays his guitar. Woody shows up at a textile mill and starts to play his guitar. He gets beaten up by a bunch of thugs. Woody impresses Pauline (Gail Strickland) by playing his guitar and soon, he’s cheating on his wife. Woody partners up with another folk singer, Ozark Blue (Ronny Cox), and they get their own radio show where Woody plays guitar. Woody promptly gets fired.

It quickly became apparent to me that Woody Guthrie’s guitar was cursed. Whenever he played it, poor people ended up getting oppressed.

In many ways, Bound for Glory is a prototypical example of what it means to be an acclaimed-at-its-time-but-subsequently-forgotten best picture nominee. It’s a big epic film that tells a fictionalized account of a real person’s life story. Woody Guthrie is best known for writing This Land Is Your Land, which is a song that I mostly associate with pretentious super bowl commercials. As Bound for Glory details, Woody was also a union organizer and political activist but what’s odd is that the film keeps the exact details of what he believed rather vague. We’re given the general idea of what Woody believed but we’re not given any specifics. As a result, Woody just comes across like another part-time social protestor as opposed to being a true political thinker (much less a revolutionary).

On a positive note, Bound for Glory is impressive to look at. The film’s cinematographer was the famous Haskell Wexler (who also directed Medium Cool, a film that was as upfront about its politics as Bound for Glory is vague) and Wexler captures some hauntingly beautiful images of the American wilderness. The scene where a gigantic wall of dust crashes down onto a small Texas town is especially memorable.

Otherwise, though, Bound for Glory is pretty much a snoozefest. It was nominated for best picture of 1976 and, when you compare it to fellow nominees like All The President’s Men, Network, Taxi Driver, and even Rocky — Bound for Glory does feel a bit out of place.

Then when you consider some of the other films that came out in ’76 — Carrie, Face to Face, The Front, God Told Me To, Logan’s Run, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Marathon Man, The Omen, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Lipstick, Robin and Marian, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, and The Town That Dreaded Sundown — the nomination of Bound for Glory feels like even more of a mistake.

Oh well.

Occasionally, the Academy gets it wrong.

Shocking, I know.

Shattered Politics #27: Medium Cool (dir by Haskell Wexler)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past few days, I’ve been chronologically reviewing 94 films about politicians and, to a lesser extent, politics. Four days ago, I started in on the 60s by taking a look at Sunrise at Campobello, one of the most traditional-minded and pro-American movies ever made. And now, I’m closing out the decade by taking a look at 1969’s Medium Cool, a film that is — in style, ideology, and content — the exact opposite of Sunrise at Campobello.

I should admit that I’m cheating a bit by including Medium Cool in this series of reviews. When I first started Shattered Politics, I said that I would be reviewing films about politicians. While Medium Cool is a fiercely political film, there are few elected officials to be seen on screen. That said, it was shot during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention and, as such, the politicians are present regardless of whether or not they’re seen.

Plotwise, the film follows a news cameraman, John (Robert Forster), and his sound guy (Peter Bonerz) as they go around Chicago, searching for stories. Along the way, they interview the disturbingly cheerful owner of a gun club (played, in his film debut, by Peter Boyle), several people who volunteered on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and, in one of the film’s best and most awkward scenes, a group of Black Panthers.

Throughout the first half of the film, John remains detached from the stories that he covers. He’s more concerned with getting the footage and getting a good soundbite than in really listening to what anyone is saying. (In many ways, he’s like a less sociopathic version of the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler.) It’s not until John discovers that his station is sharing his footage with the FBI that John finally starts to show some political awareness. Unfortunately, he also shows some anger and ends up losing his job as a result.

Now unemployed, John meets Eileen (Verna Bloom), a single mother who has recently moved to Chicago from West Virginia. Now that he’s free from the detachment of his job, John actually starts to develop feelings for both Eileen and her son, Harold (Harold Blankenship). When Harold runs away, Eileen and John search Chicago for him. Unfortunately, their search happens at the same time as the 1968 Democratic Convention. While John and Eileen search, the Chicago police are busy beating protestors in the street.

(The video below is long, but worth watching, as is the entire film.)

Now, I know that, in the past, I’ve been critical of many of the counter culture films of the late 60s and early 70s, describing their politics as being shallow, trendy, and faux Leftist. (And if you doubt me, read my reviews of Getting Straight, Zabriskie Point, and R.P.M.) However, Medium Cool is an exception to those films, in that it actually works. Medium Cool was directed by famed cinematographer, Haskell Wexler. Wexler began his career shooting documentaries and, in many ways, that’s exactly what Medium Cool is. Though Robert Forster may be an actor, many of the people that he interviewed in the film were not. When he talks to the former Kennedy campaign workers, he’s talking to actual volunteers and getting their true feelings, as opposed to something written for them by an out-of-touch screenwriter. When we see John and Eileen trying to survive the violence outside the Democratic Convention, we’re also seeing Robert Forster and Verna Bloom attempting to do the same thing. The protestors being attacked were real. The cops doing the attacking were real. The violence was real.

And, considering that Medium Cool was released 46 years ago, the issues raised by the film are still real. When the Black Panthers suspiciously view John and his sound guy, we’re reminded of the protestors in Ferguson demanding that the national media get out of their way. When we see the protests outside the 1968 Democratic Convention, how can we not compare them to the protests that we still see every day? When the cops line up in military precision and we hear that orders must be followed, are we watching Medium Cool or are we watching CNN?

During one of Medium Cool‘s better known moments, an off-screen voice is heard to shout, “Look out, Haskell! It’s real!,” warning director Haskell Wexler that the violence he’s filming is actually happening. And that’s a warning that’s still appropriate and relevant today. We may be watching from the safety of our homes but it’s still real.

(Of course, it should be mentioned that, according to Wexler himself, “Look out, Haskell! It’s real!” was actually added to the scene in post production.)

It’s perhaps indicative of how much American culture changed in the 60s that a decade that started with Ralph Bellamy playing Franklin D. Roosevelt would end with Medium Cool. Fortunately, Medium Cool gives us plenty of evidence about how that change happened.