Norman Jewison, director of Fiddler on the Roof and Moonstruck, dies at 97

But throughout his career, Jewison was repeatedly drawn to more serious films, in films like “FIST” (1978), a labor union drama starring Sylvester Stallone; “In the Country” (1989), about the daughter of a Vietnam War victim; His last film, “The Manifesto” (2003), is the story of a former Nazi collaborator, played by Michael Caine.

In the post-civil rights era, Jewison remained interested in race, specifically racial injustice. In 1984, he directed A Soldier's Story, an adaptation of Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Soldier, which, like In the Heat of the Night, tells the story of a murder investigation in the Deep South, this time. On a military base in Louisiana during the World War II era. The film was praised by critics and earned Mr. Jewison a nomination for Best Other Picture.

But when it was announced a few years later that Mr. Jewison would direct a film about the life of Malcolm Director Spike Lee, who had long wanted to make such a film himself, was the most vocal critic of this choice, asserting that a white director could not do justice to the story of a major black political activist.

Mr. Jewison eventually left the project, although he denied that his departure was a response to the protest. Mr. Lee himself directed “Malcolm

In 1999, Jewison directed The Hurricane, about Rubin Carter, an African-American boxer whose career was cut short by a murder conviction and who was imprisoned for nearly 20 years before the charges against him were dropped. Denzel Washington (who had one of his first film roles in “A Soldier's Story,” and who also starred in “Malcolm “). But the film was criticized by many for taking liberties in depicting Mr. Carter's life and legal battles.