Sunday, June 20, 2010

Spirit of '67: Pictures at a Revolution (Part V)


In his review of Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, Charles Taylor conveys a description of the difference between racism in the North and racism in the South: "In the South...white people don't care how close black people get as long as they don't get too high; in the North it's just the opposite." This was still the case in the late-90s, at the time Altman's film was released. And it was certainly true in 1967, as Pictures at a Revolution makes clear, when a movie depicting a black detective from Philadelphia investigating a murder in Mississippi hit the sweet spot between popular success and Oscar contender.

In the Heat of the Night
  • Even in 1965, John Ball's mystery novel, In the Heat of the Night, didn't add anything revolutionary to what Mark Harris calls the subgenre of African-American mystery fiction. Authors like Donald McNutt Douglass, Ed Lacy, and Chester Himes had written award-winning novels featuring black detectives and police officers for years, yet "what made (their) novels strong on the page -- the specificity and 'blackness' of their worldview -- is exactly what kept filmmakers away." Nowadays, for all of Walter Mosley's success in the same genre (and Carl Franklin's superb adaptation of Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress, starring Denzel Washington, which sadly bombed at the box-office), it's apparent little has changed.
  • Ball's novel, however, was more accessible to Hollywood. The author, who was white, wrote in a sparse prose that didn't editorialize the relationship between the black detective and the white Southern sheriff who are forced to work together to solve a homicide; it merely presented events in the narrative as they unfolded.
  • Sidney Poitier, whose frustration at "becoming complicit in a fantasy designed to explain to white America that racism was wrong because it meant mistreating someone as free of human flaws and foibles" as he himself was purported to be was reaching a breaking point (cf. Tiger Woods), is surprisingly given little voice as to what he thought about playing Virgil Tibbs, the blank slate African-American policeman from the novel, other than Harris implies he signed on right away. Perhaps, having evaded disaster by being written out of Doctor Dolittle as Rex Harrison's native African sidekick, Poitier counted his blessings for becoming the first black actor to headline a detective movie. The search for a counterpart to play Chief Gillespie, the sheriff of the Mississippi town, would continue.
  • I've seen In the Heat of the Night maybe four or five times. It's a good movie, certainly not a great one; far more accurate than Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in its depiction of race relations, not a cinematic watershed the way Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate were in the same year. Yet I wonder if it wasn't a trailblazer, in its own understated way, as an interracial buddy movie and a fish-out-of-water film?
  • If so, much of the credit goes to screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, who fleshed out both Tibbs and Gillespie on the page. In the novel, Tibbs was from Pasadena; in Silliphant's original treatment, he was from Harlem; eventually, the compromise became Philly. Silliphant also made Tibbs more angry than he was in the book, and made the prejudices aimed at him -- toward his social standing --a more pervasive threat.
  • Virgil Tibbs became an interesting character for Poitier: in the wheelhouse of his previous cool-headed roles (like the line in Singin' in the Rain: "Dignity...always dignity"), yet with more rage coiled beneath the surface. As a related aside, it's amusing to see how the marketing of the character --
    -- has been altered in keeping with the times:
  • Norman Jewison, known at the time for directing The Cincinnati Kid with Steve McQueen and the out-of-nowhere Cold War comedy hit The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming with Alan Arkin, chose In the Heat of the Night as his next project (against the advice of his agent, who warned it was a small film). Jewison was, then and now, an intelligent and extremely affable filmmaker (see his engaging interview with Robert Osborne on TCM), not groundbreaking in terms of vision or technique, but unlike Stanley Kramer skilled enough to incorporate social issues at the service of a story.
  • For all his even temperament, Jewison also possessed reserves of steel and daring. He encouraged DP Haskell Wexler, fresh off his heated battles with Mike Nichols on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, to shoot In the Heat of the Night in color, then an unconventional choice for a "serious movie." Jewison also bucked the establishment by casting the blacklisted actress Lee Grant in a small but crucial part as the wife of the murder victim.
  • Jewison's most important collaborator on In the Heat of the Night was none other than Hal Ashby, credited as the editor of the film (as well as Cincinnati Kid and The Russians Are Coming) yet highly active in all facets of production. I enjoyed Harris's description of Ashby as "a rarity in mid-1960s Hollywood: a day-in, day-out pothead who was also a workaholic"...and "whose commitment to recreational drugs didn't seem to impede his skill as a superb detail man, to take care of every loose end.
  • Ashby, of course, would go on to direct a remarkable string of essential American films in the 1970s (The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, Being There) and whose body of work is enjoying a renaissance today.
  • Rod Steiger, who was enjoying an amazing run of his own as an untamable, chamelon-like Method actor (a Holocaust survivor in The Pawnbroker, a gay mortician in The Loved One, a Russian aristocrat in Dr. Zhivago), signed on to play Chief Gillespie after George C. Scott turned it down. Steiger, who would emerge late in life as a relatively more stable version of his On the Waterfront costar Marlon Brando, has a lively interview of his own that pops up from time to time on TCM, where he discusses his preparation for the role.
  • According to Steiger, he had trouble relating to the racist Gillespie and needed something physical as a gate of entry. After dismissing Jewison's suggestion that he smoke a cigar, he took the director's idea that he instead chew gum and ran with it.
  • Steiger is a lot of fun to watch in the movie: the way he slows down or accelerates the gum-chewing to convey Gillespie's thought processes; his growing frustration at how every well-meaning overture toward Tibbs gets interpreted (correctly) as bigotry.
  • Poitier "was unprepared for the Method-driven intensity that Steiger was bringing" to the movie -- remaining in character off-camera as well as on- -- and rose to the challenge by pushing himself farther than he had ever gone as an actor. Harris cites the key moment as the excellent scene where Gillespie and Tibbs appear on the verge of bonding over a drink, only to have Gillespie abruptly rebuff Tibbs' empathy.
  • In the Heat of the Night was shot almost entirely in Sparta, Illinois, to meet Poitier's understandable condition that the production stay above the Mason-Dixon line. Nevertheless, Jewison did manage to persuade him to film the pivotal sequence where Tibbs squares off with a plantation owner in rural Tennessee. For two sleepless nights, Poitier holed up in his hotel room with a gun under his pillow. Jewison worked fast during the day and got Poitier back to Illinois as soon as possible.
  • Although the above scene, with its famous exchange of slaps between the plantation owner and Tibbs, is still compelling to watch, it caused audible gasps among both white and black moviegoers back then. Initially Jewison was disturbed that their sneak-preview audience in San Francisco laughed throughout the film, but the tuned-in hippie Ashby explained that they were just grooving on the subject of "a smart black cop waiting with ever-decreasing patience for a backward southern sheriff to drag his carcass into the modern world." He assured Jewison, "'They were enjoying the film. They were into it. They get it.'"
  • In the Heat of the Night received generally positive reviews, yet many critics "treated the movie as if it had been hatched overnight" in response to the ugly racial clashes of the previous summer. Pauline Kael seemed to understand the movie best, blasting her colleagues for praising it "'as if it had been exactly the kind of picture that the audience was so relieved to discover it wasn't.'"
  • Yet In the Heat of the Night was exactly the kind of picture that often finds favor with Academy Awards voters: a box-office success, but not too successful; an espouser of socially liberal values without scaring the hell out of everyone. It tied The Graduate with seven nominations and won a surprising five, including Best Picture. Additionally, Steiger won Best Actor, Ashby for Best Editing, Silliphant for Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound.
  • Naturally, Haskell Wexler's groundbreaking cinematography was ignored by the voters. Wexler, however, would win in 1976 for Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory. Lee Grant, whose bit part helped to revive her career, went on to win Best Supporting Actress in 1975 for Ashby's Shampoo.
  • Norman Jewison also enjoyed a productive career, possibly best known for directing the original '68 Thomas Crown Affair starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway and the sparkling 1987 comedy Moonstruck.
  • Yet Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier, two of the most wildly successful actors of the 60s, would both flame out after In the Heat of the Night. Bizarrely, Steiger never gained traction after his Oscar win. After turning down Patton (which was then offered, appropriately, to George C. Scott), he spent years in the Hollywood wilderness before enjoying a mild Hollywood comeback as a supporting player late in his career.
  • Poitier's career downturn was due to more complex circumstances. The trap Hollywood and American culture had put him in as a faultless, sexless, raceless icon finally closed in; he made two failed attempts to reprise his most famous character (They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! and The Organization), turned to directing for a spell, then vanished as an actor for over a decade before a welcome if all-too-brief reappearance in the late-80s and 90s. I'm partial to Poitier's supporting performance in the lighthearted heist comedy Sneakers, the most at ease he's ever been onscreen.
  • Fittingly, Harris ends Pictures at a Revolution with Poitier's words: "'I guess I was born out of joint with the times. I have not made my peace with the times -- they are still out of kilter. But I have made my peace with myself.'"
Thanks for reading!

8 comments:

Ronak M Soni said...

An eminently fascinating and enjoyable series. So, you got any more of these up your sleeve?

Craig said...

Thanks very much, Ronak. No more extended series planned at present, but most of them come up spontaneously, so who knows!

Adam Zanzie said...

Absolutely stellar work here, Craig. I don't remember the last time anybody has tried to cover In the Heat of the Night this much on the Web. I have a lot of the affection for the film--it's not "great" in the traditional sense, mostly because it's not radical filmmaking on the lines of Bonnie and Clyde, but it's got its own pulpish way of delivering the goods. Not a movie that affects me much on an emotional level, but it's packed with so much action and humor (and racial politics) that it never fails to entertain.

On one day I might say that Bonnie and Clyde was the year's best film, on other days The Graduate. Some days I might be adventurous and say In the Heat of the Night truly WAS the year's best film, but that feeling always fades down, of course. Years ago I would have said Cool Hand Luke was my favorite of '67. An all-around fantastic year.

There's a story Jewison tells in his "This Terrible Business..." book about how he was sitting next to Bobby Kennedy at the hospital one day and was telling him all about In the Heat of the Night and how he couldn't shoot the movie in the Deep South. Then Kennedy said to him, "This could be a very important film, Norman." That's kind of why I like the movie so much; again, it doesn't move me emotionally, but it's the kind of movie that inspires you want to go off and join a political rally.

And thanks for linking that old Cincinatti Kid review of mine!

Craig said...

Thanks, Adam. You're right that In the Heat of the Night doesn't get a whole lot of attention, probably for a bunch of reasons. One being it doesn't have that "auteurish" thing going for it, but I've come to admire expert craftsmen like Jewison and wish we had more of them between the auteurs and the hacks.

One thing that keeps the movie from being a great film for me is, unfortunately, Poitier. He doesn't give a bad performance, not at all. In fact, I would say Tibbs is a two-dimensional character, as opposed to the usual one-dimension that Poitier was always forced to play. Poitier always had to play noble, and Tibbs is noble AND angry, and that makes him more compelling to watch. What he lacks, though, is that crucial third dimension that was always denied him, (and which was accorded to Steiger's character). After reading "Pictures," I'm curious now to explore the trajectory from the Sidney Poitier era to the blaxploitation films of the 70s, van Peebles, Grier, et al.

Jason Bellamy said...

Great notes, as usual.

A thought and a question ...

I've seen In the Heat of the Night maybe four or five times. It's a good movie, certainly not a great one; far more accurate than Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in its depiction of race relations, not a cinematic watershed the way Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate were in the same year. Yet I wonder if it wasn't a trailblazer, in its own understated way, as an interracial buddy movie and a fish-out-of-water film?

I think you might be right. Even more, I think Poitier's "dignity, always dignity" approach (that's the perfect encapsulation, by the way) was trailblazing. I don't pretend to be an expert on African-American (pop) culture, but it's hard for me to think of a black man before Poitier who walked with such certainty that he "belonged," not because he'd kick the shit out of you if you disagreed (which, sadly, is still the posture for so many supposedly "strong" black characters), but because he just had an innate confidence. ("They call me Mr. Tibbs." Indeed!) He seems confidently "black" and yet he's comfortable in a "white" world. Even now there's something about Poitier's strength that's fascinating. And, to be clear, it's not that he's just an impressive black man. It's that he's such an impressive, striking man period. Poitier, more than the design of the film itself, is why it was powerful and remains powerful, in stretches. That's my take.

Now my question ...

'"In the Heat of the Night received generally positive reviews, yet many critics "treated the movie as if it had been hatched overnight" in response to the ugly racial clashes of the previous summer. Pauline Kael seemed to understand the movie best, blasting her colleagues for praising it "'as if it had been exactly the kind of picture that the audience was so relieved to discover it wasn't.'"

Can you expand on that one a little more? I'm grasping the general spirit of Kael's comments, but I feel like I'm missing the harder meaning. Just curious.

Again, great notes!

Craig said...

Thanks, Jason.

Kael question first: I left out part of the quote. She was comparing "In the Heat of the Night" favorably to the films of Stanley Kramer, which were invariably "message movies" that were the source of much of Kael's disdain. Whereas Kramer made dull, worthy films about race (or other social issues), "In the Heat of the Night was, as Adam wrote, a pulpy, frequently funny film about race that still managed to be serious without beating you over the head. The understated way Gillespie helps Tibbs carry his bags to the train at the end says all that needs to be said.

I don't pretend to be an expert on African-American (pop) culture, but it's hard for me to think of a black man before Poitier who walked with such certainty that he "belonged," not because he'd kick the shit out of you if you disagreed (which, sadly, is still the posture for so many supposedly "strong" black characters), but because he just had an innate confidence. ("They call me Mr. Tibbs." Indeed!) He seems confidently "black" and yet he's comfortable in a "white" world.

That's an interesting take. Maybe I'm projecting the background info from Harris's book onto Poitier's performances, but I think I always had the sense that he never felt comfortable. Poitier had (and has) the good looks, posture and charisma of classical leading men, yet the fact that he was black created this often unspoken friction within his movies. (Co-stars like Kate Hepburn would make intended compliments on press junkets like, "I don't consider Sidney to be a Negro, or any color at all," which privately annoyed him to no end.) What makes "In the Heat of the Night" fascinating for me is his race is the subject, and becomes a dangerous thing for him in the southern white environment. His inner strength is overtly challenged, and he rises to the test. Yet at the same time I can't envision him settling down at the end, like Michael J. Fox in "Doc Hollywood." I suspect Tibbs can't wait to get the hell out of Dodge.

It's harder for me to comment on your remark about black actors before Poitier, since they were practically non-existent, used for backdrop or bit roles at best. Poitier's crossover success in the 60s was phenomenal, but Harris writes eloquently on how he also became a victim of it. Hollywood feared that white audiences wouldn't accept him in the kind of "flawed everyman" roles that led to the rise of Nicholson, Pacino, Hoffman, and De Niro in the 70s. And Poitier was devastated by the African-American community's growing criticism that he had sold out, that he had opened doors for nobody but himself.

Great topic. Would love to hear more thoughts on this if anybody has them.

Jason Bellamy said...

I have more thoughts. Does that count? (BTW: Thanks for the further detail on Kael.)

First of all, yes, I agree, Tibbs wasn't going to pull a Doc Hollywood or Groundhog Day and settle down. I didn't mean to imply that. But that almost underlines his strength: he's revolted by the area, and has good reason to be, but he walks around there as if he owns the place. That was the point I was trying to make.

And from a broader perspective, what I'm suggesting is that Tibbs is interesting (and thus makes the movie interesting) because Poitier is. I think that's what people responded to then. I think that's what we respond to now. I understand the criticisms (even if I don't agree with all of them). But I think all of us are drawn to people who have that inner something, who "carry the fire," as it goes in The Road. Poitier had that. And, yes, some of that was a direct result of cultural/racial/historical circumstances -- a strong, well-spoken black man at a time when white America didn't see many of them (leading to quotes like Hepburn's). But at the end of the day what we're responding to is that unusual poise or dignity, which I contend would make Poitier stand out even if he came along today, in the Obama era.

So drifting back to my original point, I guess it's this: Nothing against Steiger or Jewison, but I think Poitier is this film's core strength. And if it's a "trailblazing" film, it's because of its presentation of an unusually strong black man (even by today's standards) in an era when such figures went ignored and undepicted in cinema, and beyond.

Craig said...

That's a powerful argument, Jason. You've convinced me. It is a shame we've seen so little Poitier over the last decade or so, because I agree that his presence would still hold up.

I was just goofing about the Doc Hollywood reference. Then again, didn't the TV series version of "In the Heat of the Night" have Tibbs settle down in MS? That was one of those shows I always flipped past but never paused to watch.