in the heat of Night

In the Heat of the Night: A Masterpiece of Civil Rights Cinema

In the Heat of the Night is a fantastic movie directed by Norman Jewison starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Setiger, and others. Rod Setiger won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for this movie. The movie takes place in the mid-1960s at the heart of civil rights and racism in the South. It takes place in Sparta, Mississippi.

The Story

The storyline follows an African-American police officer from Philadelphia who gets arrested on no evidence for murder. But it turns out he's an expert in homicide for the Police Department in Philadelphia. Rod Setiger plays a very racist and misogynistic police captain in Mississippi, but shows himself not to be the most intelligent person. When he figures out that Sidney Poitier's character, who is Virgil Tibbs, they partner up in an unusual alliance to find the murderer.

Character Development That Amazed Me more info here

What I find most interesting is the character development of Rod Setiger's character who is at first a mean old man who is racist and hates black people, but he begins to respect Sidney Poitier's character when he proves to him that he's not just an idiot and that he's an educated person just because of the color of his skin.

There were times when Sidney Poitier's character, Virgil Tibbs, wanted to leave because he had had enough, but Rod Steger's character convinces him to stay, which would have been inconceivable at the beginning of the movie, where he was just a racist old man who hated African Americans. In the movie, he even stops and saves him from being beaten up by a bunch of Confederate sympathizers. And he doesn't want him to get hurt, so he tells him to leave, but then it's a total reversal because then Virgil Tibbs wants to stay.

Why This Movie Works

Just the storytelling and the dialogue in the movie are incredible, and how it depicts civil rights issues in a detective format, and it goes back to what we're talking about in class about civil rights struggles and what people had to go through, and they tied it into an entertainment movie with two very different individuals. It's just incredible storytelling, and I was blown away by how the movie was, because usually older movies have more dialogue, which makes it less entertaining for younger generations, but the movie did a great job of keeping us engaged.

Deeper Meaning a deeper meaning

Virgil Tibbs' character is interesting because there were so many African-Americans who were super brilliant but did not get opportunities in the South just because of the color of their skin in the South, being refused the same opportunities as white people. And a lot of their talent was never found within them because they weren't given a fair chance, and we talk about that a lot in class when we have our discussions.

Final Thoughts

The movie was just a brilliant piece of film, and how it depicted the period, and how all the characters relate to what we're talking about in class. I enjoyed watching the movie - it was my first time seeing it and I would watch it with other people and recommend it to others.