Ghosts of Mississippi Rating: Release Date: 18 January, 2000 Retail Price: $14.96 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.97! Cast: Alec Baldwin James Woods Whoopi Goldberg Alexa Vega Complete Cast (23 total)

Ghosts of Mississippi Reviews

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History portrayed responsibly.
Medgar Evers was a key person in the civil rights movement. Though as I remember it, we were not taught much about him during Black History Month.

I rember reading how he encouraged a reporter doing a story on him to focus on the Emmet Till story, because it was an example of the type of justice Black people received in Mississippi. So he was instrumental helping to shine a national spotlight on racism and the resulting violence against Black people including lynching.

His murder cut short his important work as civil rights leader at a time when he was needed most. The movie centers on the journey of his widow to gain justice for him, 30 years after his murder by Byron De La Beckwith. De La Beckwith was played chillingly by James Woods who gave an oscar worthy performance.

The movie from all the news accounts I read while following the case sticks close to what really happened. The performances were excellent especially Whoppi Goldberg and Alex Baldwin.

Baldwin's character is in some ways a metaphor for mainstream americans who, despite trying, are still unable to grasp that the Civil Rights movement was about much more than being able to eat in a white resturant.

I watched this with my mother, on DVD, and when Baldwin's character explains to his children why Evers fought for equality so "Black people could eat in the same reasturants" my mother said to the screen- " We fought to save our children from suffering the unjust fate of Emmet Till."

Baldwin convincingly portrays a person who because of his involvement with this case is forced to confront the overt racism he has always ignored in his family and in himself.

Goldberg portrays the manerisms of Myrlie Evers so perfectly, I had an opportunity to attend a speech she gave, and only then could I fully appreciate the subtle nuances of Goldberg's performance, which was also oscar worthy.

My only real critique was the casting of Yolanda King as Myrlie Evers' daughter. You just don't believe that Yolanda King and Whoppi Goldberg are mother and daughter. Yolanda King looks older than her in every scene. The director either did not try, or could not compensate using makeup, camera angles or digital effects.

I have not seen Yolanda King in anything else but next to Whoppi Goldberg she seems like a bad actress. It is not too bad for the film because she does not have many scenes.

I know from interviews including one he gave with Myrlie Evers on Oprah that for Rob Reiner this film was a labor of love, and this probaly influenced his decision to cast Yolanda King in this part. Many other young actresses could have done justice to this part and been believeable as Whoppi Goldberg's daughter Kimberly Elise comes to mind.

But this one mistake does not take away from the overall amazing quality of this movie - it is a must see.


singing to the ghosts
How many times have i heard the aphorism that justice is just us, meaning that justice is for the 'in group'. I had a lawyer, an expensive and successful lawyer tell me that juries were crapshoots and that since i was offered an alternative i ought to take it, even though i wanted to defend myself. For we all have the righteous indignation at justice denied.

This innate sense of justice is something we all seem to have, from the time our brothers get a little bit more than half of the candy bar, to the time we missed a B by just 1 point. When it comes to us, to our welfare, we have this developed sense of outrage, the sense of being unjustly accused.

But this childish sense of fairness, of dividing candy bars and slices of pie, of getting our fair share of whatever, is where most of our senses of justice stay, never growing, never really maturing to a stage of real justice, just kindof stunted. But it is a useful start and our jury system deeply relies on it and average common sense, despite the complexity and increasing technicality of the law and evidence. It is this innate sense of human justice that the movie builds on, and from what the authors desired for us to grow out of, to a more mature form.

His wife desired justice for him and his lost life, for his dreams that caused the bullet to fly, for the years his children lost their father and her his love.
Lots of people, not just the racist rightwing, but average, workaday people just want the evil of past days to go away, to get on with the rebuilding of a New South.
But a few, pitifully few, like the Asst. DA understand the higher definition of justice as more than a fair division of the spoils, a candy bar cut by one person and first choice to the other, more than material fairness. More than the personal, more than the selfish, more than the selfcentered me. The ADA grows into the role, he starts with a strong self identificationwith the victim, add to it the sense of the law developed as a lawyer and a good prosecutor. But something changed in the research, something was added to the mix, the racist murderer not just laughed at the law, not just flouted justice but he came to symbolize all the evil of the past that continued as remnants in the present. But he began to realize that ghosts need to be sung to sleep, and not just with the hymns to which armies marched, but with real songs of justice.

The Rwandan genocide trials, the South African committee on truth and reconciliation, the Serbian wartrials in the Hague. Why?
retribution? expiation of guilt? scapegoating? fixing the blame to absolve those who continue to do such things?
Justice needs a voice, the truth like debrising a wound hurts, but it cleanses. Why is this?
guilt, repentance, justice, payment, retribution, forgiveness. these are all loaded religious terms. but they are also terms for our social and legal system to use to right wrongs, exact punishment, and to set the record straight. The big reason is that if we can not trust the past to have been relatively just than we have no hope that if we are dragged to the bar that justice will be done then either.

This is the theme of the movie, the past failed many black victims of hate, of lynchings, of violence. Their names will never make it into books or movies, but a few, as examples of contrition, examples of a changing socio-political climate, examples of changing hearts, their names make it into our collective consciousnesses. These lend support to the hope that there is progress in racial relationships in this country, that the past can be with its ghosts- sung to sleep so that we can sleep at night without the Klan burning crosses down the block. Without police officers abusing their authority to murder, to profile -- driving while black, without the judges dealing out injustice and evil.

And that is the value of watching the movie. and the hope that justice left undone in this world will be rightfully applied in the next. which ought to leave us all a little concerned, for often we grabbed that larger piece, and not just as kids.

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