How accurate was this movie?
Hey how accurate was this movie? I think it's pretty accurate but are there any specific parts which demonstrate the historical accuracy of the film?
Thanks.
I havent watched it in a while, but I'm in Mississippi and worked as an extra on the film for about two days.
The men's room encounter with DeLaughter and Beckwith was fiction; made up for the film. It didn't happen. There was no way it was even going to be allowed to happen, in this case or any other case, for a prosecutor and a defendant to cross paths like that.
Even if someone elects to cite an example for real or in another movie, it won't make any difference. It didn't take place with this story.
I didn't pay alot of attention to the trial as it was going on, the 1990s one that is, the one that finally convicted Beckwith, but trust me, if Woods had portrayed Beckwith the way Beckwith spoke and behaved in those news interviews, movie critics would have torn Woods to pieces and said he was exaggerating.
Beckwith's statements and behavior in front of the cameras was laughable and really made people here lose interest in the trial. Either that, or we were like Myrlie, we would believe in some sort of victory when we saw it.
Again, I havent seen this movie in a while, but I don't think the actual house where Evers was killed was used in the film.
The exterior of the courthouse was real.
Death threats that DeLaughter may have received back then, they were met with proper procedure, bodyguards for his family and himself, but I think everyone pretty much knew they were nothing more than hollow taunts, to see if DeLaughter would wet his pants.
The main thing I recall after the movie was released was that Craig T. Nelson's character did the majority of the legwork depicted in the film as having been done by DeLaughter.
Seems like I recall a big to-do about that gun being found, but I just don't recall alot of it. I was dealing with other things back then.
'The Ghosts of Medgar Evers: A Tale of Race, Murder, Mississippi, and Hollywood' by Willie Morris is a really good behind the scenes look at the making of the film from a famous Mississippi author.
Morris describes the recreation of the assassination of Evers for the film and talks about how the actual house was used. The book contains all kinds of fascinating stories like that about the making of the movie. He also talks a bit about the various controversies after the film was released like the Craig T. Nelson character you mention.
Two good books on the actual trial and Evers' life are:
Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De LA Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South by Maryanne Vollers
Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers by Adam Nossiter
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