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Mississippi Burning - Opening Sequence

Decent Essays

Describe the beginning of your visual text. Explain how visual and/or verbal features make the beginning effective.

“Hatred isn’t something you’re born with, it gets taught.” In the visual text Mississippi Burning these powerful words are reflected in the opening sequence. The opening sequence is made up of three key scenes, the drinking fountain scene, the burning church scene and the chase scene. These three scenes are effective because it establishes the central theme of the film. The director, Alan Parker, uses visual and verbal techniques such as symbolism, lighting and music to portray the idea of man’s inhumanity to man.

Mississippi Burning is set in Mississippi in 1964 when there was a lot of racial tension. This small town …show more content…

This reflects the society at the time because in the rest of the film we defiantly see the white man ruling over the black man. The pipe running down the wall divides the two sides in half. Parker has deliberately put this here to show us in a simplistic way that the society at the time was divided. The lighting is also effective in this shot. The only light in the frame is coming in from the side of the whites’ drinking fountain, which casts shadows on the coloured drinking fountain. This symbolizes the discrimination towards coloured people from the white people. Finally the gospel music in this scene engages the viewer’s emotion and makes the scene more meaningful. This scene is effective because it is packed of techniques that foreshadow what is to come in the film and makes us think about the main idea in this movie; man’s inhumanity to man.

The burning church scene is the next segment in this opening sequence. It is effective because it continues to show us the main idea in the film, man’s inhumanity to man. This scene is contrasted with the drinking fountain scene directly before. The running water and gospel music create a calm atmosphere in the drinking fountain scene then Parker shocks us with this intense flame that is destroying a church. These two scenes are effective together because the drinking fountain scene represents a calmer Mississippi before this racial tension and then the burning church scene represents

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