Ellington

For filmmaker Tom Rice, patience is paying off. Rice, a Jackson native, began work on "The Rising Place," his feature film debut as a writer and director, in the late '90s. The film was finally released on DVD and video in late October. The film's roots date back to 1996 when Rice, now a Los Angeles resident, read a novella by Natchez native David Armstrong called "The Rising Place." Shortly thereafter, Rice acquired the rights to the book and penned a screenplay loosely based on the novella.

Rice was drawn to the story's treatment of race relations set in a small World War II-era Mississippi town. About films like "Mississippi Burning" and "A Time to Kill," the soft-spoken Rice said, "They were all about hatred and racism in the South." "The Rising Place" depicts the pre-civil rights period in Mississippi in a completely dissimilar manner. "It's the story of strong friendships that form between outcasts where race isn't an issue. Racial hatred is evident as far as they are in a town where it exists, but there is no focus on that. There are no riots. There's no Klan. There are no fires burning. There are no deaths."

What the movie does show is, as Rice states, "a young woman's passionate quest for self-awareness and acceptance in a time of social injustice and world war." That girl is Emily Hodge (Laurel Holloman), who mounts her journey of self-realization, primarily because of the encouragement she receives from her best friend, a black girl, Wilma Watson (Elise Neal) and their draft-dodger pal Will Bacon (Mark Webber).

The film, with its extremely hopeful and some would argue revisionist viewpoint, is one viewers tend to feel strongly about, one way or the other. Rice's approach to individual Southern race relations, where firm interracial friendships grow despite societal rules, came as a relief to some with its "complete lack of modern-day irony," as reviewer Edward Havens said on Filmjerk.com. And Spirituality and Health magazine saluted the "interracial friendship between two Southern women and the ways in which enthusiasm can be a life-saving gift in tough times."

Others found Rice's approach naïve, an unrealistic view of race relations and filmed through a white lens (also a criticism of "Mississippi Burning" and "A Time to Kill"). Ken Fox of TV Guide said that a "rosily myopic view of life in the WWII-era Mississippi Delta undermine this adaptation." Marcia Garcia of Film Journal International called the film "the worst kind of mythologizing, the kind that sacrifices real heroism and abject suffering for melodrama."

Because he had no studio to financially support the production of the film, Rice moved back to Jackson in 1998. He was able to raise nearly all of the funds needed to film the movie from local investors. The following year, production began, much of it in the Jackson area. In 2000, "The Rising Place" premiered, crisscrossing the country as the film made its way through the film festival circuit, including Jackson's own Crossroads Film Festival. The film earned 16 awards along the way, from best director to best feature.

Almost two years after it had premiered, the film attracted the attention of Warner Bros. studio. "When we won the 16th award at a festival, we were on the map," says Rice, a 1992 Jackson Prep alumnus. Warner Bros. took on the project, test marketing it in Jackson in April 2002 and releasing it theatrically in November 2002 in New York and Los Angeles. It eventually played several other major markets across the country. "A theatrical release is a big thing. To have the national press coverage like we had is something that every filmmaker dreams of," Rice says.

The DVD includes several extra features including an alternate ending that was cut after test screening, five deleted scenes, a Jennifer Holliday music video and various outtakes.

Meanwhile, Rice is holding down his day job—a writing gig at "American Idol"—while he explores options for his next feature, which he has already written and describes as "like 'Gosford Park" set in a Broadway theater. "I've got another feature film written [and] in the bag, and we are deciding if we want to finance it independently or look to a studio," Rice says. "Regardless of what happens with that film, I'm extremely excited about writing for 'American Idol.' I'm perfectly content writing for them. It's a job that I truly love."
Palmer Houchins is a journalism student at Ole Miss and a Jackson native.