The Social Conscience of Norman Jewison

Considering the contributions Norman Jewison made to American cinema, it’s easy to forget that he was born, raised, attended university, and began his career in Toronto. The native Canadian’s work over his 50-year career in the film industry covered so many distinctly American subjects, that I have to admit, I thought right up to the moment I started writing this piece that Jewison was American. I suppose that’s because so many of his films showcased the people and the societal ills of our country with such a distinct eye that the assumption was natural. Perhaps it was that outsider’s view that made Jewison such a thoughtful filmmaker, and so able to critique American life. 

But there’s one more thing one must understand before talking about the many excellent films Jewison directed—his heart for social justice. An avowed liberal, many of Jewison’s films dealt with race, equality (or the lack thereof), the criminal justice system, and the politics of his day. His films were never just mere polemics though. Jewison knew how to entertain. He wrapped the issues his films covered in the cloak of oldschool, high-quality craft. His best films were so entertaining that they often served as a Trojan Horse—almost sneakily delivering the audience his perspective without hitting them over the head with it. Jewison may not have been the flashiest filmmaker, but he was certainly one of the most disciplined and, in his very particular way, quite artful. 

That’s not to say that every single film Jewison made was a “message movie.” But even in his lightest, least political films, you can pick up the beat of his humanist heart throughout. 

Jewison spent over a decade directing for television before taking to the big screen. He was a “director for hire” on much of his early work. His first four films (40 Pounds of Trouble, The Thrill of it All, Send Me No Flowers, and The Art of Love), were all light comedies that met with varying (if largely modest) degrees of critical and box office success.

It wasn’t until Jewison’s 1965 Steve McQueen starrer The Cincinnati Kid, that he started to come into his own as a director. Kid, a highly entertaining film about a poker player in 1930’s New Orleans facing off against a master player (Edward G. Robinson, in one of his last great roles), attempts to be the card player’s answer to The Hustler. And while it may not reach the dizzying heights of that great Paul Newman film, it’s still the best movie about the cut of the draw ever made (sorry, Rounders fans). 

Jewison followed up that success with the hysterical comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians are Coming in 1966. A light satire that played off the Cold War fears of the time, Russians was a huge hit and scored four Oscar nominations for best picture (Jewison’s first ever nomination came as the film’s producer), adapted screenplay, editing—the great Hal Ashby, and leading actor—an uproarious Alan Arkin). I suppose Russians is not as cutting as Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, but cue it up some night if you haven’t seen it. It surely still plays almost as well as it did at the time. 

Now, we get serious. After two terrifically entertaining films that put Jewison on the map as a major filmmaker, he delivered his first true masterpiece—In The Heat of the Night. Set in the summer swelter of Mississippi in the height of the Civil Rights movement, Heat presents itself as a murder mystery, mismatched “buddy movie” (before that was even a term), about a Black Philadelphia detective (Sidney Poitier) and a southern sheriff (Rod Steiger) co-investigating the death of a prominent businessman in Sparta, Mississippi. To be honest though, that plot line is just what Hitchcock called “the MacGuffin.” That is to say the thing you think the movie is about, but not what it’s really about. What In the Heat of the Night is really about is the racial divide (particularly in the Deep South) that existed at the time, and, if we are keeping score, still exists to this day. 

The most famous scene in the film can simply be described as “the slap.” While questioning an older, racist aristocrat (Larry Gates as the perfectly named Eric Endicott) in Sparta, Detective Virgil Tibbs (Poitier), is given a slap by Endicott for having the temerity of doing his job while Black. That moment may be shocking enough, but it’s the swift and sudden response of Tibbs that elevates the scene to legend. Almost as fast as the slap as delivered, Tibbs returns that violence with a slap of his own. 

You know, people talk about that slap, and they goddamn oughta should, but it’s not just that it happens, it’s the way that it happens. Poitier returns the slap back so fast as if to say, “I may have to live with Jim Crow, but I am no god damn victim of it.” It’s one of the most significant, and just as importantly, one of the best delivered scenes in the history of cinema. I wasn’t around in 1967 when the film was released, but even now, when I view In the Heat of the Night, I can still feel the reverberations. It’s like watching a revolution being delivered by that back of a hand. 

Part of the genius of that film is in the casting of Poitier. An actor whose natural charm, handsomeness, and charisma were always in evidence, but because of the strictures of the day, seldom married to anger–the righteous anger of a race of people who were expected to say “yes sir, no sir,” to any white man they encountered. Had the slap been delivered by almost any other actor, it might not have been as culturally effective as it was. Poitier was the accepted Black man in our society at the time, and if he, Sidney Poitier, found this man worthy of a smack, well, I suspect many of us, across racial lines, did too. 

In the Heat of the Night works more than well enough as a potboiler, but as a statement on race in America, it was more than “well enough,” it was visceral and profound. The film scored seven Oscar nominations (including one for best director for Jewison), and won five—including best picture. Oddly, Poitier was not given a nomination while Steiger’s passively racist, yet somehow slightly progressive sheriff, was not only nominated, but awarded the statue for best actor (no slight intended towards Steiger—he’s great in the film).  Even “progressive” Hollywood was incapable of fully recognizing what Poitier and Jewison had achieved.  They had shifted the paradigm. Black suffering might have been somewhat welcome on screen, but In the Heat of the Night made room for righteous indignation too. In the Heat of the Night is more than a great film, it is a benchmark in the history of cinema and American society.

After the intensity of In the Heat of the Night, Jewison followed up that masterwork with one of the more delightfully enjoyable heist films/romantic dramas of his era—The Thomas Crown Affair. Reteaming with his Cincinnati Kid star Steve McQueen as the thief in question, and matched up against the impossibly sexy Faye Dunaway as an insurance investigator, Jewison once again showed a flair for a light touch and commercial instincts. The chess scene between McQueen and Dunaway was so hot, you might be surprised that the pawns and other pieces didn’t melt at the touch of the stars that moved them across the board.

Gaily, Gaily, Jewison’s next film scored three Oscar nominations in technical categories, but is largely forgotten now. However, Jewison’s next two films, the musicals Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar, arrived at a time when the box office power of the musical was waning. Both films defied the genre’s decline, becoming well-loved movies that are perhaps the final touchstones of the grand era of the classic musical. Worthy of note in both films is the focus on ethnicity in both movies. Fiddler is a very Jewish story, and Superstar casts Carl Anderson, a Black man, as Judas Iscariot—a notion that was somehow not all that controversial at the time. Superstar may be one of Jewison’s more dated films, but the performance by Anderson isn’t just the best in the film, it’s also the one that holds up the best upon reflection. Considering Jewison’s personal beliefs, which played out on screen in ways both subtle and less so, it’s impossible to think that Anderson’s casting was an oddity or an accident. It was a statement.

After the success of those two films, Jewison’s films became more hit and miss. 1975’s Rollerball, starring James Caan, was a slightly futuristic statement on sports, violence, and our society’s desire for the combination of the two. Despite being a critical and commercial disappointment upon release, Rollerball has since earned a solid cult following, and the last shot is a merciless statement on the lust for blood of sports fans. 

His next film, F.I.S.T, a union drama with veiled Jimmy Hoffa references, failed to take advantage of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky fame, although I recall liking it quite a bit when I first saw it. Stallone revealed in his recent documentary Sly, that he took issue with his character’s grim ending in the film. One suspects there was more than a little bit of tension between Jewison and Hollywood’s newest king of the mountain. Whatever Stallone’s thoughts on the film and its conclusion, he gives one of his best performances in F.I.S.T.

Closing the fabled film decade of the ‘70s with the highly emotional and satirical courtroom drama (written by Barry Levinson)…And Justice For All, Jewison really swung for the fences once again. The film was a sizable success at the box office and earned its star (Al Pacino) a best actor nomination from the Academy (as well as a screenplay nomination for Levinson and co-writer Valerie Curtis), but was met with mixed reviews at the time. I find it to be a vastly underrated film that was far ahead of its time on issues of feminism, transgender, and our system of justice. And anyone who denies Pacino’s remarkable “You’re out of order” courtroom climax has taken complete leave of their senses. 

Best Friends, Jewison’s first film of the new decade, a romantic comedy starring Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn was received as an amiable mediocrity, and that critique remains unchanged to this day. Much better was Jewison’s take on the play A Soldier’s Story, starring Howard E. Rollins Jr. (who would ironically go on to play Virgil Tibbs in a TV series version of In the Heat of the Night), Adolph Caesar, David Allen Grier, Robert Townsend, and a pre-massive fame Denzel Washington. Like In the Heat of the Night, A Soldier’s Story (set in 1944 on an all-Black army base), uses its procedural narrative to expose issues of race within our society, and within our institutions (the military in this case). The film was a solid success at the turnstiles, and received three Oscar nominations (best picture, screenplay, and best supporting actor for Caesar). I still remember seeing it in my early teens and thinking, through Caesar, that it was a compelling portrait of self-loathing, and what racism does to the souls of Black men.

Jewison’s next film, Agnes of God, was a bold exploration of Catholicism and religion in general, once again, wrapped up in the mystery genre. Starring Oscar nominees Jane Fonda (as an investigator) and Meg Tilly (as a young novitiate found with a dead newborn), Agnes of God explored the heady subjects of faith, belief, and the tenets of religion. Much like …And Justice for All, the film was a box office success with Oscar nominations that was met with a polarizing reaction among critics. Agnes, like Justice, is a strong and bold film that deserves a reputation greater than the one it currently holds. 

With Moonstruck, Jewison had perhaps his greatest unqualified success. Starring Cher in ultra-Italian New Yorker mode, Moonstruck was a massive success with critics and audiences alike. On the surface, the film is a very ethnic romantic comedy with a light (and delightful) touch. But the characters are so keenly observed, so human, and so very eccentric, that it’s impossible not to fall in love with all of them. Moonstruck won an Oscar for Cher as best actress (a crazy thought at the time), Olympia Dukakis for best supporting actress, and John Patrick Shanley for original screenplay. Jewison himself was awarded nominations as producer and director. 

Moonstruck may have been Jewison’s greatest moment (along with In the Heat of the Night), but the films he made after that instant classic are notable for a variety of reasons. In Country, is a fine post-Vietnam character study that includes one of Bruce Willis’ finest performances, even if few saw it. Other People’s Money (starring Danny DeVito) questioned the ethics of a corporate raider and deserved a better fate with critics and audiences. And the romantic comedy Only You with Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. has a surprising number of apostles, but the last film that Jewison made that had a sizable impact in the world of cinema was his 1999 boxing/social justice drama, The Hurricane.

In telling the true story of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, a championship contender in the world of boxing who was railroaded into prison for a murder he did not commit (serving decades in prison), all of Jewison’s values were on display. Issues of race, inequality, and the criminal justice system are all at the forefront. Denzel gives one of his greatest performances, and it must be said, my god, what he did to his body to get into shape is absolutely staggering. The factual use of a group of Canadians to help bring justice to Carter is a quietly lovely nod to his home country, and a cameo by Rod Steiger as the judge who saw through the state’s case to reach a far too delayed, but just, opinion is a lovely connection to In the Heat of the Night. The Hurricane is not a perfect film (there are some unnecessary fictionalizations that chip away at the film’s otherwise sturdy armor), but it does serve as a statement of what Jewison, as a filmmaker, was all about.

It’s not sexy to be a do-gooder. But Jewison done good. Real, real good over the course of his career. He was an unostentatious director who made more good and great films than many better known directors. He sought to expose, enlighten, and lift us to a higher level of consciousness as a human race through film. 

By and large, he succeeded more times than not. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s what you call a legacy. 

Norman Jewison died on January 20, 2024. He was 97 years old.