Different works of art can portray ideas in a variety of ways. An example can be Alan Parker's crime thriller film 'Mississippi Burning' (1988), which explores the ideas of racial prejudice and bigotry’s effects on a vulnerable community. As well as the injustice of the legal system and the way that perpetrators are sentenced in biased ways. This is shown through the detective's investigation of a small 1964 Mississippi town Jessup County, where the disappearance of 3 civil rights workers is the center of attention, but stumble on a community rife with racial prejudice and bigotry, as well as a significantly unjust legal system.
In his film, Alan Parker portrays the effects that violence and intimidation have on a vulnerable community. While shaped by changing dynamics of relations between Whites and African Americans, the rise of segregated communities in the 1950s is the basis of Parker's exploration of the dangerous social impact of prejudice and racial division. Hence, his uses as his setting Jessup County in the 1960s when the Ku Klux Klan brutally attempted to deny African Americans the right to vote. Both the opening mise-en-scene of two drinking fountains labeled 'Whites' and 'Coloured' and the repeated motif of fires and burning crosses establish the fear and intimidation that African Americans experience when white Mississippians brutally oppress them. This brutality is emphasized in the panning shot of a dark deserted road on which a car is being tailgated by other vehicles, accompanied by the non-diegetic sound of the increasing intensity of a staccato drumbeat. Finally, as the car is forced off the road, Alan Parker cuts to a blank screen with the diegetic sound of gunshots and a voiceover, “At least I shot me a nigger”, revealing the violence that results from bigotry. While Lee makes us aware that experiences of such violence and bigotry have an entrenched effect on African Americans, Alan Parker confronts us with its destructive impact on a whole community. This is evident on the screen when detectives Anderson and Ward are confronted with the silence of a community that is too afraid of the Ku Klux Klan to provide evidence of the violence and brutality they have experienced.
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Summing up, Alan Parker in his famous film 'Mississippi Burning' explored the impact of racial prejudice/bigotry and legal injustice, and the impact these thematic issues had on demographics. And he presented his key ideas in his own specific way.
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Alan Parker’s Film ‘Mississippi Burning’ and the Ideas It Explores.
(2023, November 15). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 22, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/alan-parkers-film-mississippi-burning-and-the-ideas-it-explores-essay/
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2023 Nov 15 [cited 2024 Dec 22].
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