Historic Films Stock Footage Archive: NT-3118

00:01:21 8.09	Funding for the show announced and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.
00:01:31 18.01	The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener
00:01:51 38.29	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.
00:02:02 49.59	Host Lipsyte talks about the topic for today's show, the facts and fictions about the movie, "Mississippi Burning" and how it obscures the truth but revives the story.
00:02:02 49.6	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
00:02:30 77.27	zoom in on Mississippi Burning movie poster. Clip from the film, Mississippi Burning is shown.
00:02:49 96.25	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.
00:02:59 106.25	B&W photo still of Andy Goodman, one of the Civil Rights workers who was murdered and portrayed in the movie
00:03:05 111.88	Original FBI poster of the three missing civil rights workers in 1964
00:03:09 115.95	Dr. Carolyn Goodman, mother of victim Andy Goodman, talks with unseen interviewer about the movie and how it opened up discussion about the incident despite the fact the movie was mostly fictional.
00:04:16 182.98	B&W photo still of James Earl Chaney, murder victim depicted in the film.
00:04:34 200.97	More scenes from the film as victim's brother, Ben Chaney, narrates and talks about the movie "seriously distorted the truth", "it made black people and movement people appear to be indifferent and passive..."
00:05:09 236.06	B&W photo still of investigators combing the grassy area for clues at the scene of the real crime in 1964
00:05:18 244.83	Joseph Sullivan, retired FBI inspector, speaks with unseen interviewer about the real role of the blacks during the civil rights movement was in fighting for voting rights and that fact escapes the movie. The movie focuses instead on the murder.
00:05:31 258.59	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"
00:05:44 271.03	Back to Ben Chaney. He talks about the role of the FBI being distorted as more scenes from the movie are shown.
00:06:55 342.45	Historical footage of the Ku Klux Klan taken from the documentary, "Eyes on the Prize"
00:07:08 355.62	Scenes of a burning and lynching from Eyes on the Prize.
00:08:29 436.55	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.
00:08:34 441.58	b&w footage of civil rights workers going door to door shaking hands with black people sitting on their porches or at their front doors,.
00:08:39 446.65	b&w audience shot of young white people early 1960's, young people
00:08:47 454.66	Back to Host Robert Lipsyte in the studio. He introduces his first guest, Frederick Zollo (Producer Mississippi Burning), and Judy Richardson (Producer of "Eyes on the Prize" - about the civil rights movement).
00:09:05 472.27	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,
00:13:00 707.27	INTERVIEW CONTINUES: Robert Lipsyte Ms Richarson were there two FBIs Judy Richarson No, there was one FBI. I mean, because they were brought in kicking and screaming. One of the reasons we had the summer project in the first place was because we could not get any federal invention from that one FBI that we knew. I mean, the reason we had all that influx of white volunteers was because they would not protect the lives of black people, either civil rights workers, or local Mississippians. Frederick Zollo If I were to outline a scene, for example of when Martin Luther King visited Philadelphia for the first time, and in Roy Moore, one of the FBI agents on the scene with some of these. We said that didn't happen people are Robert Lipsyte in in terms of the criticism, people talk about historical truth versus emotional truth. And people who liked the movie a lot felt that there was an emotional truth in the movie that you caught a sense of the times, and a sense of the heroism of the FBI. Now, in terms of the violence and terror of the times, the movie did capture that Judy Richarson Well certainly. And what I liked seeing was that you you saw that it was regular people, the upstanding members of the community, of the white community, who were in fact, the foundation for all the racism and the the absolute violent brutality. But the problem is that overriding thing, it's as if for me, I was trying to figure out what an analogy would be as it's as if you were doing a movie about World War Two. And you show the Vichy government, which was collaborated with the Nazis, as freedom fighters as part of the underground. That to me is, is the similarity because the FBI were the enemies for us. They were the ones if you told them something, you knew that was probably getting back to the Klan. Robert Lipsyte Do you think there's an implicit racism in Mississippi Burning? Not so much in the intent of Mr. Zollo, but the fact that a movie portraying the FBI the way you saw the FBI and portraying black people as they were during that time, could not have been made? Judy Richarson See, I must have for me, it's what the the managers of the segregated lunch counters used to say they used to say, look, we are not racist ourselves. The problem is that our community just won't go for it. I happen to believe that you can make a movie that is dramatically wonderful. Robert Lipsyte Let me Stop you for just a moment. You're saying that you're equating MZollo's approach with the man how he was segregated? Judy Richarson No, because I think it's Hollywood's general approach, which is to say, we cannot do certain things because we think that the community will not stand for it, they will not support it. Robert Lipsyte It should be said that you know you are a producer on the first eyes on the prize and then you're working on the second eyes on the prize, and that you're a documentary filmmaker. Well, you can do draw also Mr. Zollo was not Judy Richarson There doesn't have to be there. There are scenes in there where the absence of the movement is absolutely reprehensible. For example, there's a scene a scene where black people are coming out of a church, and they seem to be having only a church service. In fact, they were having a mass meeting, they were talking about voter registration, so that even were so that when they come out, and they were beaten up very badly by a white mob that is waiting for them, it seems is that they're just having they're being beaten up because they are black people having a service
00:15:59 886.77	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.
00:20:20 1147.3	The Eleventh Hour graphic overlay on the studio.
00:20:24 1151.22	Host Robert Lipsyte introduces next guest, Daniel Walkowitz, Professor NYU.
00:20:39 1166.19	INTERVEIW: Daniel Walkowitz Well, nowadays, more and more students. Adults generally are getting all of their information, historical information, increasingly from media. They're not just getting it from textbooks. And you know, they leave school, hopefully at the age of 21, but many at the age of 18. And they rely really on that kind of information. And these were events that were historically loaded. They're very important for people to understand because they effectively involve whether or not we're going to respond to whether it's to contemporary police action. Is it legitimate to read people their rights, the Miranda act? Is it possible to simply ignore those kinds of things and willy nilly in the interests of civil rights, abuse people's civil rights. So these are contemporary political issues. They're being fought out in the, in the halls of the Supreme Court, you know, today, and as they have in the last 10 years, this isn't simply, in that sense a film about the past. It's a film that resonates in the present. And in fact, it's very much influenced by the present, I think I'd be inclined to argue that this is, in fact, a costume drama set in the 1960s. That is much a film about the 1980s, as it is about the 1960s. Robert Lipsyte In that sense, then if there's a danger to a film, we, for this kind of excitement and entertainment, we pay a price, we pay a price in terms of losing our history. And as you say, even more important, losing a sense of our our present. Daniel Walkowitz Alright, but I think that's right. I don't think that means that this film was not historical. I think that's really the issue at hand here. What is history? What is the history in the film? Frederick zollo has pointed out to me, and I think, quite correctly in a comment earlier, that one shouldn't have to worry about counting how many churches were burned? And I think he's absolutely right. The history isn't simply in the accumulation of facts. If that's not the issue, that's right. That isn't the issue. It's in the conception of that past. And in that case, I think Judith was quite on target in arguing we need to judge this film and evaluate it on its presentation about issues of the role, the role that black people played, whether they were simply passive victims, the role that the civil rights movement played in that history. Robert Lipsyte Okay so now what do you think? Daniel Walkowitz Well again, I'm something of a prejudice party, I would argue, however, we all are, I was a part of that movement, I was involved in some of the Civil Rights writer. That's right, albeit not in Mississippi. I think it's important to say right off, you know, from from the top on this, that I think the film is very good and evoking the climate of hostility that one encountered there racial hostility, in particular in the south. That's much of the dramatic power of the film, I'm inclined to agree with Judith, that it's not very good on the role of the role of the civil rights movement, the role that blacks play the role of the black movement played. And I think it's rather dreadful on the role that the FBI played. And I think those questions matter. But to be fair, I think the film really cease itself not so much about the civil rights movement, that it's setting its background, its backdrop. It's really a film about crime. In that sense, it's made a very particular kind of decision of the filmmakers did. And it's a decision that's really set in today's world. Robert Lipsyte But do you think it's a moral decision to make a basically, which is it's an economic decision, and it's an artistic decision, to use history to evoke emotions in the movie goer, rather than to give us the truth that we need?
00:23:51 1358.53	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.
00:26:59 1546.02	Interview concludes. Lipsyte thanks Walkowitz, introduces himself and the show.
00:27:03 1550.69	Show credits over clips from the movie, Mississippi Burning.
00:27:52 1599.48	Funding from charitable organization announced and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.
00:28:12 1619.05	End Reel.