But as his career progressed, Mr. Jewison found himself drawn to more serious fare, in films such as “FIST” (1978), a union drama starring Sylvester Stallone; “In Country” (1989), about the daughter of a Vietnam War victim; and his last film, “The Statement” (2003), the story of a former Nazi collaborator played by Michael Caine.
Well into the post-civil rights era, Mr. Jewison remained interested in race, particularly racial injustice. In 1984, he directed “A Soldier's Story,” an adaptation of Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Soldier's Play,” which, like “In the Heat of the Night,” this time told the story of a murder investigation in the Deep South an army base in World War II-era Louisiana. The film was critically acclaimed and earned Mr. Jewison another Best Picture nomination.
But when it was announced a few years later that Mr. Jewison would make a film about the life of Malcolm X, he encountered resistance. Filmmaker Spike Lee, who had long wanted to make such a film himself, was the choice's harshest critic, claiming that a white director couldn't do justice to the story of a major black political activist.
Mr Jewison eventually left the project, although he denied that his departure was in response to the protest. Mr. Lee himself directed “Malcolm
In 1999, Mr. Jewison directed “The Hurricane,” about Rubin Carter, the African-American boxer whose career was cut short by a murder conviction and who served nearly 20 years in prison before the charges against him were dropped. Denzel Washington (who had one of his first film roles in A Soldier's Story and also in Malcolm's Amazing). But the film was criticized by many for taking too many liberties in its depiction of Mr. Carter's life and legal battles.