IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)

Neha says

Winner of 5 Academy Awards, the 1967 In the Heat of the Night has Sidney Poitier’s Virgil Tibbs at the centre of two parallel stories that feed off and into each other like an uncontrollable, sinister, spreading viral attack. On the one hand his colored skin, fat wallet and presence in his Mississippi hometown make him a suspect of a murder mystery. But soon at the behest of the murder victim’s wife, Mrs. Colbert (Lee Grant) Tibbs, a police officer himself takes charge of the case which unfolds like a classic whodunit thriller. And while for a long time you sense that Tibbs is accumulating the isolated pieces of the puzzle that delight with their suspenseful overtones, the pay-off doesn’t quite do justice to the ride. The culmination of the investigation seems hurried and the dramatic promise threatens to waver as the motivations for the crime dangerously verge on the anti-climactic. While a representation of life with an inherent sense of realism intact, the drama in this storyline didn’t explode exponentially but suddenly felt like it came to an abrupt conclusion.

On the other hand, the more dynamic storyline, tracing the racial prejudice of the time has Tibbs dealing with the white man’s repressed and at times expressed anger. I like that Stirling Silliphant’s screenplay pencils in the varying degrees of racial archetypes capturing the extremists like a bunch of white town bullies who resort to West Side Story antics to scare, torment and drive Tibbs out of town. (Although their abrupt arrival in the climax did seem out of place.) From a diner attendant who refuses to serve Tibbs to the common white man who refuses to talk about his sister’s philandering ways in front of Tibbs to an upper class Mr. Endicott (Larry Gates) who wears a progressive mask to only slap Tibbs unexpectedly when Tibbs interrogates him to a cop Sam Wood (Warren Oates) who arrests Tibbs on account of his skin color…all these characters among others capture the atmosphere of the time and are varnished with grey tones that never reduce them to time bound stereotypes.

But the pulse of this story is the relationship between Tibbs and Police Chief, the gum chewing, robust Bill Gillespie played by Rod Steiger that adds an engaging, emotional complexity and depth to the proceedings. Their first, pressure cooker meeting is buzzing with racial overtones but in the first encounter itself we see the chief pragmatic enough to accept that Tibbs’s expertise as a “number one homicide expert” is more that valuable for a case that does seem way out of his depth. In many riveting moments we see the Chief fight the voices in his head one that wants to be ethically fair and the other that can’t help but succumb to an ingrained racial bias. In one such explosive episode the Chief goads Tibbs by asking him what he is called among his colleagues in Philadelphia and in a career-defining moment Tibbs responds doggedly, righteously and emphatically “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” (It’s what I call a pause, rewind and replay moment) As their relationship develops there comes a moment when Tibbs realizes that he too has his share of suppressed racial angst against the white man, a revelation that makes time stand still as we see Tibbs ever so gently process his own hypocrisy. But with this insight follows another insight that connects the two. Like Tibbs, the Chief too is alone, married to his work and an outsider in his land. You cannot doubt Newison’s dramatic direction in this scene as he first takes us down a road that could have easily hit the sentimental road block but just in time he takes a swift u-turn as the Chief rigidly draws boundary lines to shield his exposed vulnerability.

To watch two great actors Poitier and Steiger (who took home the Best Actor Oscar) at the top of their game, crossing swords with each other and absorbing each others energy to take the drama, moment and emotion to the next level is as exciting as it is rare. Also noteworthy is the brilliant musical score by Quincy Jones with Ray Charles’s title track setting the tone and mood for a rustic, small town setting. When we look back at this film it may seem outdated but it’s the personal individual struggle, the triumphant journey of this inter-racial friendship and the high-voltage, electrifying performances that hold, engage, thrill and suspend us in time.

Ira says
“ How’re you so sure?”
“Why do you doubt it?”

Questions, often unanswered, or answered with another, burn and simmer in the air like hot arrows, as they do in that moment above in the latter half of the film, as Poitier feels he has come close to finding the killer and Steiger challenges him. They stare at each other, eyes ablaze, the silence, quick but potent because what Poitier is really saying is “Do you think I’m wrong because I’m black?’ Murder becomes less important and race takes centre stage in this battle of wits (well Poitier’s intelligence and the startling foolhardiness, impulsiveness, prejudice, provinciality and flawed reasoning of Steiger and the people of Sparta), between two men Virgil Tibbs and Bill Gillespie, each standing their ground, firm and strong with Poitier and Steiger delivering two power house, completely on par and fiery performances.

In the heat of the Night, as the soulful voice of Ray Charles (ironic that decades later another fine African American Academy Award winning actor like Poitier, Jamie Foxx would play this very singer in a film named Ray and be the 3rd of only three African American men to take home an Oscar!) beats out his melody to dark opening credits, in the pitch black moonlit night of a small town named Sparta (a sparse yet deceptively powerful ring to it, much like the men who inhabit it), a man steps off a train, a cop, Officer Wood played by Warren Oates, with an aura of cockiness and self-importance takes a breather at a diner where the counterman, a strange, lanky BOO Radley-ish looking fellow named Ralph played by Anthony James, determinedly swats flies with an elastic rubber band. Within the first few minutes, Jewison creates an eerie and unnatural sense of foreboding. Ralph grins strangely at Wood as he leaves the diner after a gruff, but innocuous encounter and little do we know that murder, mystery, egos and racial tensions are about to collide, in a huge way.

In the Heat of the Night is a focused, gripping film that says a lot with economy and precision. Jewison (Cincinnati Kid, Moonstruck) an Academy Award winning filmmaker who’s equally adept at lighthearted comedy and powerful drama, uses extensive close-ups, moody and stark lighting, firm frames and wonderful grittiness in his storytelling to take us into the lives and minds of his characters. Rod Steiger plays Bill Gillespie Chief of Police to a group of small-town cops with pet names, private, inside jokes and a whole lot of prejudice against Negro boys. A sentiment that permeates the town’s very fabric and the landscape of Jewison’s narrative. Its in the attitudes of local people, the distances between characters in the frames, the underlying, always latent violence, the images of affluent white folks and their African American domestic help, of cotton pickers in a field and in the fierce contradictory nature of the films central relationship. Between Gillespie, a stocky white man of authority, a law enforcer and head of police whose errors in judgment are horrifyingly comical and who’s intelligence, blatantly less sharp and informed than his black counterpoint Virgil Tibbs.

When Tibbs (Poitier), colored cop from Philadelphia enters at the heels of the murder of Sparta’s most powerful and wealthy man, Mr. Colbert, he’s at first mistaken for his killer and brought in for interrogation by the slimy, eager to please Wood purely on the grounds of being a black boy sitting alone at a station in the heat and darkness of the night. In a brilliantly edited, tense scene at the station that follows, within seconds, tables turn and where Gillespie first taunts and mocks Tibbs, trying to size him up, Poitier glares at Steiger in a penetrative silence. As he flings his badge across to him moments later, an embarrassed Gillespie must turn from uncouth to civil. And Jewison kickstarts his film, pitting the white and the black of it, strongly against one another.

Tension is everywhere and underneath everything even while the narrative itself is simple in its structure, the mystery suspenseful but somehow, less and less important, as the arc of the plot becomes something quite else and sinister in its tone of prejudice and racial hatred. We feel for Mrs. Colbert who makes an impact in just one scene, we even feel for that poor young girl who gets knocked up by the wrong guy, but the concerns of a small town where nothing stays a secret and where murder becomes a community issue become secondary, and the presence of a ‘negro’ outsider, a smart homicide expert who is the only one who seems to be getting anywhere in the case and who seems more in control than anyone else, primary and overriding. Tension is in the atmosphere and how Jewison creates that from the word go. As Officer Wood, on his nightly patrol, drives through dark desolate streets, a peeping tom, watching a naked woman in the window, till he stops by a corner, noticing something in the alley. As he discovers the scene of crime, the color RED permeates Jewison’s mis en scene. The siren on the police car, the red wood on the outer façade of the corner store, the fire hydrant and the blood.

Blood never appears again in the film, and Jewison chooses muted shades instead throughout, enhancing his storytelling through a deliberately neutral palette, latent aggression and ordinary settings. Yet, using music, lighting and prison cells to create moments of darkness, real intrigue or suspense. I loved the grays and browns of the rest of the visual landscape. I loved Jewison’s camera work, which isn’t afraid to get close and often uncomfortably personal. I loved the short specificity of scenes, the crispness of the dialogues, the sharpness and flavor the characterizations provide, the skewed angles the camera takes at crucial points, there is a purpose to everything and a fascinating focus in the direction.

And I loved how Jewison creates moments that ring with subtext. The silences between Gillespie & Tibbs, Gillespie’s mistakes, the resounding two slaps and the car rides through the town trying to retrace the events of the night the murder took place. The reversal of roles, the malice of prejudice. All these themes are explored through vivid, insightful storytelling. There are images of these men, laughably pompous, frighteningly self-assured yet ignorant that stay with me even now. Whether its in a close-up of feet and dogs trying to clamber up rocky terrain to catch the first suspect Harvey and the way that cuts to a wide shot of Harvey escaping along a bridge, or in the final tableau-like confrontation when the murderer is finally discovered or in that quiet, moody scene where Gillespie lets Tibbs into his own, private space. The white man the weaker, the more vulnerable and the black one, impeccably clothes, somehow superior.

Even as the murder is solved the film leaves us with a vague incompleteness just as Jewison intends. The complexities of race, men, motivations, socio cultural relations, discrepancies of status, wealth, and human dignity remain unresolved and often inverted. Resolution, if of any deeper kind, occurs for me in a most poignant way at the very end. As two men, diametrically opposite in every way, forced to work together finally bid each other goodbye, Gillespie tells Tibbs to take care, and with that subtle semblance of mutual respect appearing quietly, the film at its close feels for the first time, humane.

FORREST GUMP (1994)

Neha says

If you put James Bond and Forrest Gump in a room together here’s how they would introduce themselves. “My name is Bond. James Bond”. In reply to which our simpleton, slow-witted, southern Forrest would say. “My name is Forrest. Forrest Gump…” What a fun movie that would make!!! But for now lets talk about Forrest Gump (1994), one of my favorite films of the 90’s that told us we can use special effects and CGI not just for sci fi and Bond movies but we can use it in sweeping character drama’s to place a fictional and memorable character like Gump in dialogue with Presidents, from Kennedy to Nixon and re-imagine history; we can use a character like Gump more effectively to represent how we as people manage to knowingly be witness to changing, turbulent and landmark political and cultural times but in hindsight we unknowingly impact and define history.

So when a younger Gump (Michael Conner Humphrey) meets a then unknown passerby Elvis Preston and innocently with his “magic legs” does a jig that later went on to become a part of Preston’s performance act, he accidentally contributed to the King’s brand equity. Or when an older Gump (Tom Hanks) meets Nixon as a ping pong champion to then later be the one to call the cops when the Watergate burglary was underway, he was the one to open the pandora’s box that led to Nixon’s fall from grace. None of these so called re-imaginations get heavy handed, political or over baked. Flashes of archival footage with effects seamlessly placing Gump in the action, television newsreel bulletins and finely used, suggestive voice over references all come together to recreate the period and space but they also give us just the right amount of fodder to connect Gump with these touchstone events. The comic value derived from having Gump shaking hands with Kennedy to only talk of how he wants to go to the toilet is precious and simply priceless.

But while inventively used historic context and special effects is part of the film’s recipe for success, the major contributive factor remains its evocative characterizations and through Gump and his interactions, experiences and relationships, director Robert Zemeckis celebrates life, destiny, universal moral values, triumphs and tragedies, love and death. The “Run Forrest Run” iconic scene rings dramatic and cinematic even today. The older Forrest Gump truly went on to run towards extraordinary times that made him in his own words “a football star, war hero, national celebrity and shrimp-boat captain” and the breaking of his leg braces which is simply a powerful metaphor for how he shatters his mental, inferiority shackles to embrace his destiny resonates through the subtext of the entire story. At one point Gump asks his mother (Sally Field) “What’s my destiny, Momma?” When his “best good friend” Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) lies wounded in Gump’s arms and says, “Why’d this have to happen?” and when his Lieutenant from Nam, Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise) cries in frustration,” I had a destiny. I was supposed to die in the field of honor.” or when Jenny’s life (Robin Wright Penn) takes a darker turn, Zemeckis along with the soul-stirring and rich writing from Eric Roth reminds us how “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what your gonna get” and with the poignant use of a wandering, CGI created white feather to show us how we drift through time guided by the invisible hand of destiny that eventually takes us just where we need to be, Forrest Gump as an experience is thoughtful, thematically pulpy, dramatic, occasionally peppered with tuned yet unexpected humor and filled with life essences that inspire, involve and assault our tear ducts.

The unassuming, real and heart warming performances do wonderful things to convert sentimentality into raw and reaching emotion. It’s really a master class in acting with Sally Field, Robin Wright Penn and Gary Sinise doing immense justice to their meaty roles but its Tom Hanks and his earnest Gump who we remember this film for. The way in which he understands this character’s big hearted spirit and goodwill, captures his humanity, enraptures us with an endearing empathy and innocence in his eyes and physical makeup, navigates gracefully through heartbreak, loss of loved ones and reunions with old mentors like Lt. Taylor and remains unscarred by the cynical balls that life throws his way just made me want to be a better person. Forrest Gump gave Hanks his second Oscar to decorate his cabinet (the first rewarded for his performance in Philadelphia). Gump’s the sort of underdog that only has a low IQ against him but can run as fast as Usain Bolt and his journey reminds us that the secret to success is not altitude but attitude and Gump has loads of that in a humble, earthy, pure, unruffled and optimistic sort of way that draws people to him, even passerby’s at a bus stop who take out time to hear his tales. I was also affected by the gentle, unconditional and bittersweet love story between Jenny and Gump. No matter where or what Gump is going through, he invariably thinks of Jenny and she becomes an omnipresent influence in his life, through the good and bad times. In fact come to think of it the love story is one of the most touching romances I’ve seen that gently glorifies the redemptive power of love.

With Zemeckis’s assured and mature direction, top-notch performances from Hank’s and the supporting cast, easy pacing and a lovingly calibrated narrative, Forrest Gump is not just another Oscar pleasing movie exercise. It did win 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture but its got soul and passion, insight and drama, universal appeal with many a memorable dialogue and moment that stays with you long after its curtain call.

Ira says

‘Life is like a box of chocolates’, the kind of boxes that don’t come with sophisticated leaflets telling you what shape is which flavor. The line that begins Forrest Gump, a movie that floated its way down into our consciousness in 1994 and swept 6 six Academy Awards (some well deserved but I still think Shawshank was shortchanged), is one of its most memorable and quoted to date. But to me, more special and more memorable is what Forrest, (a mesmerizing Hanks, the only actor the world can associate with the character even today and the only one in my eyes who could play him with that drawling, matter of fact poignancy and simplicity) says next, that really sticks. ‘Mamma always said you could tell a lot about people by their shoes. Where they’ve been and where they’re going’. Elegant, lucid and meaningful words, their significance made richer through the film from that unforgettable scene where he breaks his braces and Jenny urges him on to run to the final episode of his life, where for no particular reason, Forrest, just, runs.

Even though ‘Run Forrest, runnn’, is a line that’s been parodied, used affectionately or in jest ever since, (I found myself mimicking it again!) and though the moment, especially on a second or third viewing, has a ring of sentimental indulgence to it, I have to admit, I enjoyed Zemeckis’s inspiring, heartfelt fable, yet again. And that’s really what it is to me. More than an epic, more than a pop cultural trip down memory lane, its historical scope or its sprawling romance, it’s a fable about an extraordinary man.

Zemeckis, who’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit is still unsurpassed for its pioneering use of special effects, animation and live action and is a superb film if you haven’t seen it, of course brings his expertise in technology to the table here as well. But more than the special effects (think Gump meeting Nixon and the like) this time he gives you an uplifting and sweeping story in an uncommonly intimate way, because of its uncommon and wonderfully intimate hero, a man we grow to love.
The film spans thirty years of American history and political evolution, and Gump’s journey at times feel exaggerated, and the oddball, but delightful role of fate, coincidence and chance, gets repetitive (he meets Elvis, teaches him how to dance, he meets 3 American presidents, becomes a millionaire, becomes a billionaire investing in Apple, and goes from Football star to Vietnam soldier to Shrimp boat Caption with a blasé sense of normalcy). But even while the narrative does get too far fetched, the music too literal, and writing veers precariously towards the sentimental, GUMP, man more and movie, get you because Zemeckis keeps his touch focused and his characters rich and rounded.

Wonderfully edited with that difficult and famous crane shot following a feather floating down to Forrest’s feet, from the word go, we see it all through his perspective. That incredible voiceover narration of Hanks, who is Gump, iconically and consistently, is one of the best in any film I have seen in the voicing and in how Zemeckis weaves it into his storytelling. The feather lands gently and the camera moves up slowly to reveal a neatly dressed man, perhaps a little too neatly, dressed in comfortable, casual and perfectly aligned clothing, sitting with legs slightly apart and hands resting on his knees. There isn’t something completely quite right and yet Hanks makes Gump his very own imbuing him with the body language, mannerisms, voice, intonation and eyes of a truly endearing and remarkable hero. His name is Forrest. Forrest Gump. And he’s just as normal as everybody else.
Hanks is Gump. A character who’s not just ‘special’ or mentally challenged, but one who’s simple, childlike understanding of events, people, and the world around him, turn poetic, humorous, moving and surprising in delightfully unexpected ways. And magical realism, the impossible blend into his journey, because Hanks performance grounds them into a believable, plausible reality.

Fuelled by his love for JENNY, childhood sweetheart and one true friend, played with a gripping, vulnerable, spontaneous honesty by the always lovely ROBIN WRIGHT PENN, at one point Gump insists in a quiet, funny tantrum like moment that he ‘knows what love is’, that he understands that emotion. He may not be smart, he may not know what life’s box of chocolates will give him, but he goes where it takes him, always wary, wondering, protective of, and deeply attached to his Jenny.
Is this love, as we know it? Can it ever be? But does it really matter? ‘Have you ever been with a girl Forrest?’ Jenny asks proceeding to remove her top and place his hand on he breast. Gump is a boy, at the end of it all, and Hanks’ subtle squirm, eyes shifting downwards and up again, embarrassed, tell us more than enough to remind us of that. Part idolizing, part romanticizing, part forgiving, Jenny is mother and friend and the love of his life. Jenny is the thing that keeps him going, so it becomes that much more moving that the first time we see Hank cry, is not when his best good friend Bubba dies, or even when his mamma dies, its when Jenny dies, and a little before, when he first sees what Jenny gives him, his son, the smartest in his class, Little Forrest.

But even as the movie insists on celebrating Forrest, and his immunity to somehow be touched by darkness, you cannot help but think that therein lies the all too simple ideal of not having to comprehend, question or worry about that which lies beyond our realm of comprehension. War, money, health, love and pain are experienced by this character through a prism of free spirited openness, the ability to embrace life and what it has to offer. If you think about it, that worldview the film accepts seems simplistic but we have to take Gump for what it he is and what Zemeckis gives us. And to me, its because of the evenness of tone, an avoidance of melodrama, splashes of oddball wit, satire and irony, and the episodic landscape Zemeckis creates, that it works. The performances and his great cast too make this one stay rooted and devoid of caricatures. Be it Sally Field as Gump’s mamma or Gary Sinise as Lieutenant Dan, the much needed cynic who balances out and negates excessive mush.

Apart from the motif of running through the film (one of favorite images and metaphors especially in that final section), I like that Zemeckis allows for moments of real tension, of real pain, of real loss, in addition to the joy, humour and discovery. Jenny lingering at the edge of the top of a building, Lt. Dan crashing to the floor off his hospital bed and dragging Forrest down with him, or Jenny breaking down before her abusive fathers old house till she collapses and Forrest’s attempt to console her, the two sitting in silence on the ground as his voiceover explains, “sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks”. Sometimes, you just have to accept that Shit Happens. Which Gump has, abut his condition without self-pity and without shame. As he loses his mamma, friends, Jenny, finds himself alone, it is his eternal spirit of optimism, and his belief in keeping on going that takes this film floating like its final feather into a realm of universal, and life affirming hope. And that’s really all I have to say about that, for now.