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In 1983, France's prodigious director (and film historian) Bertrand Tavernier, steeped in folklore and movies about the American South, felt impelled to make a pilgrimage. Luckily, he decided to film the trip and take along as his guide and co-director Southern-born Robert Parrish, the veteran film maker and one-time editor for John Ford.
The result is the laid-back, affectionately but astutely observed "Mississippi Blues," which begins a one-week Oscar-qualifying run at the Grande 4-plex (in the Sheraton Grande Hotel). Living up to its title, it concentrates on the region's music and its musicians, mainly blacks.
Tavernier and Parrish begin with the Oxford, Miss., home and burial place of William Faulkner, then move deeper into the Delta region. They go where...