In this article I will review the film Mississippi Burning (1988) by Alan Parker. I will argue that the most important element of the film is the Southern town in which it is set and the feeling of place and time (1964 in rural Mississippi) that this film so successfully portrays. It will be argued that this specific location and time period are extremely important to the film's theme of race relations in the United States. This is where three civil rights activists who were part of the civic voter registration drive were killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Generally speaking this film is probably a political thriller which also contains some elements of melodrama and imitation of a documentary. But its main theme is clearly Jim Crow segregation and racism in American society and the way it presents the extreme violence of that period is very naturalistic and convincing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay According to Roger Ebert, this case in which the discovered bodies of the three murdered workers serves as evidence against those officials who had attempted to present the case as a public relations ploy by Northern liberal politicians. This case is central to the history of the long struggle against racism and racial injustice in the United States, as were events such as Rosa Parks riding a whites-only bus and Martin Luther King's Montgomery March. One of the key points raised by the critic is that Mississippi Burning is not a documentary and obviously deviates from historical truth. The two FBI agents are the protagonists: Anderson (Gene Hackman) is an older man who once served as sheriff in a similar town, while Ward (Willem Dafoe) is a young intellectual from the 1960s. The two represent contrasting approaches: Anderson would like to keep a low profile while Ward aggressively attempts to resolve the workers' disappearance. Between the two protagonists there is a tension characteristic of intergenerational tensions in the public sphere of the time in American society. French argues in his review that it is crucial that, unlike many other American films about racism and the events of the early civil rights movements, the film does not aim to artificially diminish the pain of watching intolerable pain and extreme violence of the period that was inflicted on him. African Americans. The film builds on a tension that only increases; The director's mission is to keep these violent events alive for viewers for approximately 25 years. But today we know that the issues of racism and racial prejudice raised in the film still loom large in American societies as unarmed African Americans continue to be brutally murdered by police across the country by white law enforcement officers and other whites which sometimes aren't. punished for excessive use of force. On a similar note, Canby argues that the defining characteristic of Mississippi Burning is its appearance of authenticity and historical truth. It highlights the fact that the film was shot completely in the state of Mississippi as the governor of the state approved the filming. The critic observes that it is impossible and counterproductive to present his film as entertainment. Rather, it is a film about violence and cruelty depicted in every detail, with no intention of sugarcoating or downplaying it for viewers of the late '80s or today. Graphic scenes include brutal beatings of innocent people, burning of homes and other buildings, all the civil unrest and turmoil of the period. The spectators are.