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Mississippi is burning
Rozella 2021-12-08 08:01:49
"Mississippi is Burning" is a film filmed in 1988 about the human rights issues of black Americans in the 1960s, based on real historical events. In 1964, in a small town in the southern state of Mississippi, two Jewish boys and a black boy disappeared. They were both members of a human rights organization. Two FBI agents came to the town to investigate the case. What they see here is not a simple disappearance or murder, but a blazing flame of hatred. The first shot of the film is two drinking fountains, each with a sign, one with "white people" and the other with "colored people". In this small town where the apartheid system is still practiced, from the mayor to the police to many ordinary white citizens have extreme prejudice and even hatred towards black people. Where does this hatred come from? What kind of hatred can drive people to kill and set fire to destroy their homes without guilt or pity? The same hatred caused tens of millions of Jews to be massacred during World War II. The film does not seem to be able to answer this question well. The background of this film is exactly the climax of the black civil rights movement in the United States. The U.S. Congress passed three collectively known as the "Second Emancipation Proclamation" in 1964, 1965, and 1968. The Civil Rights Act of the People’s Republic of China completely ended the apartheid and racial discrimination system in law. The case in the film is a real case and is considered a landmark case in the civil rights movement. However, the film did not intend to be made into a documentary, especially the second half, which is simply a Hollywood-style justice-making film with a somewhat old-fashioned plot. I don't know if the film wants to satirize the FBI's ability to do things. In the film, those FBI agents are dressed in dark suits and look silly, and 200 FBI agents are recruited, but there is no progress. In the end, it was the old agent played by Gene Hackman who recruited his former sergeant's subordinates, and finally managed the murderers of the 3K Klan. The film's director Alan Parker once directed the famous British film Pink Floyd The Wall.
Extended Reading
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Anderson: Where does it come from? All this hatred?
Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule, 'cause his friends were always kidding him that they saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule, and Monroe was going to rent another field now he had a mule. One morning, that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn't any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time, we were driving down that road, and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something. I looked over at my daddy's face. I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he *was* ashamed. He looked at me and said, "If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?"
Ward: You think that's an excuse?
Anderson: No it's not an excuse. It's just a story about my daddy.
Ward: Where's that leave you?
Anderson: My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killin' him.
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Ward: Good morning. My name is Allen Ward. I'm with the FBI.
Deputy Pell: [mockingly] Oooh. The Federal Bureau of Integration? In that getup, you ain't exactly undercover, are ya?