DVD Club
ThereÂs a brief scene in Norman JewisonÂs In the Heat of the Night that wonÂt send anyone scrambling for their film school textbook, but its quiet, gracious power never fails to move me. ItÂs not flashy, or inventive, or even startling, but its simplicity of tone and character reveals more in its few minutes than most movies over their entire running times. Southern Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Oscar-winner Rod Steiger) sits on the couch, while Northern Detective Virgil Tibbs (the always rock-like Sidney Poitier) sprawls out in a nearby chair. They have just finished dinner  most likely the only thing Gillespie could scrounge up from his bachelor refrigerator  and for the first time, they are engaged in conversation unrelated to the murder investigation that has forced them together. Both men are tentative and defiantly reserved  this is 1960s Mississippi, after all, and this is a black man sitting eye to eye with a white police officer  but nonetheless available to flirtations with openness. Gillespie offers a bleak summary of his life, reduced to Âno wife, no kids, and a town that donÂt want meÂ. In a tone slightly above a sigh, he even reveals that Virgil is in fact his first guest. HeÂs still part of a community that immediately assumes a black man is a guilty man  suit or not  but his fundamental loneliness keeps him from playing the role with any gusto. ItÂs not that heÂs a liberal saint among bigoted crackers, but unlike his brethren, he retreats to the mediocrity of the self rather than becoming the Bull Connor they all want. Even more, heÂs an odd duck not because he sees a black man as a confidant or potential ally, but because heÂs one of the few who stares blankly into his life and comes up empty. He has nothing left to give. HeÂs a man, not a symbol.
And yet, despite admitting his flaws and opening up to someone other than himself for what must be the first time, Gillespie canÂt quite escape the mandates of his time and place. Right at the moment when we think heÂs reaching out with something other than a bark or an unfair assumption, he pulls back, using a racial epithet to establish supremacy once again. ÂSee here, black boy, no pity, he spits, afraid of the vulnerability heÂs dared reveal to a man heÂs been taught to believe is less than human. The escape to prejudice is utterly heartbreaking, but not at all in a way we would first imagine. Still, it sets the tone for the entire picture, and elevates it beyond what weÂve always thought it was all these years. For many, cheapened by years of a less than stellar television show, In the Heat of the Night has been a hot, muggy murder mystery that throws in a bit of racial harmony by the closing credits. In fact, the Âplot is the least interesting thing about it; a forced, abrupt conclusion that leaves us wondering why they even bothered. The story darts around, offers up a few red herrings, and ends with a confession that seems tacked on as if they forgot what in the hell they were doing. And if youÂre one to look for Grisham-like twists in your tales of murder, the film will surely disappoint. Instead, one should look to atmosphere; the authentic creation of a community that makes us sweat with provincial limitations. As usual, itÂs a film made great by small moments often overlooked in the rush to solve the case.
And yes, racism is explored from numerous angles  even Virgil believes a particular white man is guilty of the crime because he fulfills the stereotype of the patronizing Âman on the hill so often found in Southern fiction  but the preferred position is inside his alienation, the true connection he shares with Gillespie. Rather then reduce the friendship of Virgil and Gillespie to a simplistic Âawakening that would insult anyone with a pulse, the film dares suggest that loneliness  as an affliction, a condition, an inescapable identity  is deeper than shared interests, political attitudes, or even race. We know where they stand, after all  arrogant, self-righteous Northerner; bigoted, equally self-righteous Southerner  so thereÂs no use playing the same record all over again. Each is a man out of step with his world, and by that turn, he usually reverts to comforting hatreds  race, gender, ethnicity  rather than face the fact that he canÂt function around anyone at all. Skin color truly is irrelevant for these two men, because each is just as awkward with what is always crassly referred to as Âhis own kind. Even when they end with a truce of sorts, the looks on their faces betray their newfound knowledge, even if, once again secure in their ascribed roles, they fall back on what they can utter aloud without being questioned further. And what a sad truth for us all, really  that when faced with racial hatred, violence, and division, we have an almost instinctive understanding of the terms involved. The language is readily available, it would seem. But alienation? Despair? Isolation? Even now, we canÂt quite find the words that grant them reality. And Tibbs and Gillespie wouldnÂt dare try.