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Funding for the show announced and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.

Host Robert Lipsyte in the studio sitting at his desk introduces himself and welcomes viewers to the show. Movie poster for the crime thriller film, "Mississippi Burning" is seen on the wall behind him.

Close in shot of Lipsyte with Mississippi Burning movie poster next to him. Seen vaguely in the background is the movie poster for "All the President's Men

clip from the movie with commentary from the victim's mother, brother of another victim and the FBI agent in charge of the real case.

Original FBI poster of the three missing civil rights workers in 1964

B&W photo still of James Earl Chaney, murder victim depicted in the film.

B&W photo still of investigators combing the grassy area for clues at the scene of the real crime in 1964

Historical footage from early 1960's of Black Civil Rights Workers peacefully walking up the steps of government building, courtesy of the documentary series: "Eyes on the Prize"

Historical footage of the Ku Klux Klan taken from the documentary, "Eyes on the Prize"

More clips from "Mississippi Burning" as Chaney, Goodman and Sullivan narrate talking about the fallacies in the movie, fiction based on truth and the hope the movie continues to stimulate discussion.

b&w audience shot of young white people early 1960's, young people

INTERVIEW:

Robert Lipsyte:
economic and artistic decisions about just what the film would be. Could you talk about that for a moment?

Frederick Zollo
Well, the film took nearly five years to get to the screen. It's true, probably most films made with with large studios, but certainly films about any subject. That doesn't seem to be openly commercial. I mean, we weren't making twins. We weren't making an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. But it did remain very close to the film that you eventually we all eventually have seen when Chris Gerolmo first called me in October 1984 and said what about a movie about the investigation to the deaths of the three civil rights workers. And we thought that was a fascinating and exciting subject for a film. The film that's eventually emerged, the Alan Parker has made is, is very close to what we originally planned.

And you've made very clear that the film that you always planned was the aftermath of the death and investigation into the death, rather than into civil rights itself. Civil Rights was almost kind of a backdrop and scenery.

Well, in a sense, yes, it's it's one case in the civil rights movement. It is. It is not a film certainly about the civil rights movement. I hope there are lots of films about that it's not really a film about the lives. However, tragically brief, of Goodman Schwerner Cheney and I my hope is that there will be a Motion Picture Made about their lives. And certainly, I hope there'll be films made about several of the heroes and heroines black and white of the civil rights movement. But this film was very much about the investigation into the deaths of the three civil rights workers it always would begin with with the brutal murders.

Robert Lipsyte
Miss Miss Richarson, you were in Mississippi with snick and innocence, part of your life became the scenery and local color for this movie that doesn't sit so easy.

Judy Richarson
Well, for me, it's not so much that blacks are in the background. It is more that there is such gross distortion in terms of the FBI. I think for me it was Brent Stapleton in the New York Times talked about said Mississippi burnings distortion, gross distortion. crushes truth foot This story was savaged. That's how I feel about it. That the FBI was not only just sanguine when we were in Mississippi in 64, they were hostile. They were part of the problem. We had been trying to get the FBI to do something in Mississippi to protect workers since 1961. When Bob Moses went in for SNCC. You know, I mean, we're talking about even when the three become our come up missing. Bob Zellner goes and he's a SNCC work. He takes Mickey Schwerner in, they go into investigate the next day, and are chased by a mob in cars. They go up to where the FBI is, is in the motel, knock on the door, the FBI agent opens the door sees Zellner, says Zellner what are you going to do? What are you doing here? You're going to get us all killed. That was the FBI knew they would sit there in the middle of gross violations of federal law, and would do nothing.

Robert Lipsyte
These were not the heroes of your film that the FBI agents that Miss Richarson just described, were not the two cop buddies, who were the heroes.

Frederick Zollo
Well, the the the to Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman are an amalgam of a few characters, Proctor Sullivan, more. But I do think that it's important to say that the FBI in this particular case, and we're not commenting on the FBI who threatened Martin Luther King, who

Judy Richarson
tried to destroy the movement,

Frederick Zollo
who were certainly certainly working with with with their leader Hoover and against them. We're not talking about that particular FBI at the moment. For the moment, there weren't as many ways to FBI is here. The FBI who entered this case, right, who within a week found the car, who within six weeks found the bodies who for the first time in history, Mississippi, brought to justice, a white man for the murder of a black man,

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

Robert Lipsyte
that was about the passivity of the blacks. One thing that bothered me was the sense that starting with the three civil rights workers who looked very much like the real civil rights workers who were killed really gave a documentary feel to the beginning of the film? Had you started with, say, a woman and male civil rights worker who look nothing like those who were killed and then gone on with your movie in quite the same way it would have been, it would have diffused a lot of the criticism

Frederick Zollo
It is a drama. The movie is, is a story. It's powerful story. It uses elements from reality, and a good many elements from reality. But it is a drama. It is Shakespeare attack the story of Richard the third. Now, for us today, we think of Richard the third as this hunchbacked villain. That's perhaps not what Richard the third was like, but for many people in that time, they saw that and that was his view of history, as an accurate isn't may well be, we do have a dramatic license deep down perhaps. But it's question might lead people to, to view

Robert Lipsyte
Shakespear did distort reality. And I know that you're not making a parallel between your film.

Frederick Zollo
I mean, there are several motion motion pictures to do this. No, I don't I don't feel the distortion of reality.

Robert Lipsyte
Did you feel any responsibility to historical accuracy,

Frederick Zollo
there. There is a responsibility to historical accuracy. But the most important responsibility in this film was to dramatic intensity to art

Robert Lipsyte
rather than to precisely but the do does that. How do you feel

Judy Richarson
Thats fine for me? I think you can do that. But when when you also show a scene where you could just as easily in that church service has shown that it was a voter registration rally that there was a movement existed in Mississippi at the time. I'm not talking what

Robert Lipsyte
was the decision made?

Frederick Zollo
No I object notion that I object to this notion that they're not black heroes in the film, there were several important black characters in the film portrayed by important actors in the film. I mean, just to give you an example,

Robert Lipsyte
But people who were there who lived at that time, we're not satisfied with that portrayal. You were not

Frederick Zollo
there was no movement. Well, Judy may not be satisfied with that portrayal. But there were a number of blacks who lived in in that time, and in that place, who find the portrayal haunting and moving and very real. So I mean, there are people who

Robert Lipsyte
they were certainly provoked by the artistry of the movie, which is I mean, it's a thrilling movie,

Frederick Zollo
who when a man in the middle of the woods at night attack, his family attacked by the Klan, takes his rifle and goes out and said, I'm not going to take this no more is killing me the black I'm not going to sell more, but they were victims, in fact, is that's an act of great heroism. And it's portrayed in the movies as an act of great heroism.

Robert Lipsyte
I don't want to take your point of view.

Judy Richarson
So how am I have with it is that the blacks who are portrayed or are portrayed as victims only as victims so that you get the young boy who's beat over the head, you get the the one man who stands up and does fight back, which is the the image I had of most local Mississippians. I mean, I knew that when I went on, Mr. Steptoes land in southwest Mississippi, he had a 12 gauge shotgun, and he would shoot anybody who was who was trying to attack his land. But he stood up he kept standing up,

Frederick Zollo
you found an accuracy in the film didn't you?

Judy Richarson
No, because he kept he was not destroyed. You see what I object to? That you do joy, they'll move you I found the violence powerful, the level of violence you portrayed in the movie is correct. And the fact that it was coming from upstanding members, the community that is correct

Frederick Zollo
when the film ends at the grave of killed

Judy Richarson
in the in the ceremony? Oh, my goodness.

Frederick Zollo
So at the grave of the great, no, the very end of the film, you see what is in essence, James cheney's grave, destroyed, and the audience is quite moved, please, to all the audiences black and white that I've watched the film on. Are you moved? Do you want me to leave saying never again?

Judy Richarson
Well, I said that when I left Mississippi, but the problem is when I see the FBI agent, and in that crowd of marchers, they would not only would they not have March, I mean, they would not have done anything.

Frederick Zollo
identify the beginning of the film Judy as the Justice Department, official Justice Department would not have done it. katzenback would not have Marched

Robert Lipsyte
We will have to leave it there. Frederick Zollo, Judy Richarson, thank you very much for joining us.

Host Robert Lipsyte introduces next guest, Daniel Walkowitz, Professor NYU.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:
Daniel Walkowitz
Truth is elusive. There are truths to everyone. I think that there are a series of salient bits of factual information. But I would argue the centerpiece of that truth is the conception of the past. And it could have been done dramatically effectively, how

Robert Lipsyte
how could you evade an emotionally historically morally accurate film? Well, that we would still want to see,

Daniel Walkowitz
give me $15 million in five years and be better better equipped to answer that question, obviously, then, on the spur of the moment, I would say,

Robert Lipsyte
you may have just put your finger on it, maybe no one would give you $15 million in five years if you weren't promising to bring in a Dirty Harry buddy cop movie now? Well,

Daniel Walkowitz
I think dirty Harry's a very specific kind of political judgment that's being made today. It's really forcing people to make judgments about the Miranda decision. We also know that there are many other kinds of contemporary genres that Hollywood can use. Part of the difficulty is that Hollywood feels the need to fall back into these genres all the time. And I think that's a mistake. There are other kinds, or they need to take the time to rethink the conventional ways they might make a film about the past. They can use Rashomon techniques to try to privilege different points of view, they need to understand that the past or history isn't simply getting the shoes, right. It isn't simply making sure the food was accurate. It's really the conception of that person, I would argue that was intrinsically dramatic. There's as much drama into understanding that the FBI in this in the in the actual circumstances, were not such noble folks. And there's as much drama into understood that could be constructed an understanding of the role that the civil rights movement played. There are lots of dramas there. And indeed, as I think Mr. zollo pointed out, quite correctly, he fully expects in hopes that Hollywood will make some of those films but

Robert Lipsyte
he's not going to make it a parallel could be made between the way the blacks are portrayed and Mississippi Burning a passive and when they are heroes, they become victimized, and the way the FBI are heroes, with the way Indians and the cavalry are portrayed in the genre of the Western movie.

Daniel Walkowitz
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. right on target. There's, I think the other comparable kind of political and moral judgment that's raised by this film, would be to understand that the film wants you to side at the end with the FBI characters, and it does so by art. viewing and justifying it by letting us see the violence committed by the whites in the south very early in the film, it prejudices us to understanding that anything done to make sure that justice is served justice in this case not being civil rights of that someone is innocent until proven guilty. It's telling us they are guilty and therefore justifying their heads being beaten, irrespective of any trial. That's quite equivalent to the Goetz case today in its own way.

Robert Lipsyte
ultimately, last quick question in making you into historical movie reviewer. thumbs up thumbs down.

Daniel Walkowitz
Oh, I suppose as as drama, I would argue which thumbs up as history and historical drama as social commentary. It's thumbs down.

Robert Lipsyte
Professor Walker's Thank you very much. This is the 11th hour I'm Robert Lipsyte.

Show credits over clips from the movie, Mississippi Burning.

End Reel.