In The Heat Of The Night Essay

798 Words2 Pages

In the Heat of the Night, directed by Norman Jewison, was the third installment of five films that were voted for best picture and it won best picture. In the Heat of the Night took place in Sparta, Mississippi in 1967. The plot surrounded the murder of a high profile man, planning the opening of a factory in Sparta to employ the town, especially half the workforce being the African American population of Sparta. The main characters of the movie were Officer Virgil Tibbs played by Sidney Poitier and Sheriff Gillespie played by Rod Steiger. This movie was beneficial to the picture revolution (“New Hollywood”) happening in 1967. Racial issues, sex, violence, drugs, language, and war were the top topics of the New Hollywood. From this issues …show more content…

He then starts to patrol the town in his vehicle, while listening to the radio. He patrols a street and stops in front a house with some lights on. A woman is seen in the nude grabbing a drink from the fridge. The woman’s explicit parts of her body were not displayed, although the viewer could identify that she was naked. This scene tied in well with the swinging sixties. The sixties was a coming out party of sexuality. Director Jewison in my opinion wanted to display this. Nudity in films was very off-color and not taken well by the censorship committee during the sixties or Hays code. Director Jewison created the scene very tastefully and got his message across that times have begun to …show more content…

As learned in class, there was urban unrest in the sixties. There was no equal housing opportunities and police officers were prominently white. Police brutality against African Americans was not uncommon. In a scene in the film, police officer Wood found the dead body lying in the street and he went looking for a suspect. He patrolled the town and came upon a train depot. Officer Tibbs was sitting inside waiting for the train while reading a book. Officer Wood gave him no warning and took him into custody. When Tibbs was talking to Sheriff Gillespie, it is known Tibbs is a well-known homicide detective from Philadelphia and helps with the investigation with some convincing from Sheriff Gillespie. As the film goes on, officers find a suspect for the murder, however as Officer Tibbs does the autopsy, he debunks the new suspect as a murderer, he was just a thief. Sheriff Gillespie doesn’t believe him and wants to convict the suspect, based on little evidence of a wallet. The town’s police department just wanted to convict someone, no matter on the evidence they

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