Rosenbaum’s a Perversion of the Past (Mississippi Burning)

Oleh Jonathan Rosenbaums critique of the 1988 film Mississippi longing draws much of its intellectual adn ruttish response to the film from Rosenbaums personal pictures as a participant in the polite rights movement of the 1960s. The name which casts the movie Mississippi Burning in a pretty much unfavorable light due to what Rosenbaum feels is a deliberate series of distortions of historic feature recounts in equal portions, Rosenbaums direct experiences of the era and the experience of the era as it is presented by the movies director, Alan Parker, who Rosenbaum immediately identifies as a former advertising director.Rosenbaum also remarks that Parkers earlier films all reek of advertisings overheated style (Rosenbaum, 119). and Rosenbaum also makes it clear that he is not, himself, an impersonal interpretor of the era of the civil rights movement that Parkers movie attempts to cover. Rosenbaums article appeared in a book-length collection of his essays entitled Movies as Politics produce in 1997.The book contains numerous essays on Hollywood films and attempts to shed light on the political repercussions of the all-too-routine historical inaccuracies and poetic license which is deeply embedded in contemporary commercial films. Rosenbaums thesis, relative to Mississippi Burning is that damage to American culture is, indeed, done by the making of a movie which focuses on piddling imagery churches burning, people being beaten, etc and in fact distorts the truth of factual occurrences in order to match the attributes of a successful commercial film.Rosenbaum claims that Mississippi Burning is a dangerous re-visioning of history for many reasons, world-class among them the fact that the film features two white protagonists, both of whom are federal agents, plus the undeniable fact that Parker in shaping his protagonists as unambiguously moral agents with no trace of personal racism or fear of racists, completely distorts the historical truths behi nd the events of the film. For example, Rosenbaum remarks that in his personal experience, no agency or positive bureau seemed the least bit interested in helping civil rights activists the answer was no-one.Certainly not the local police or the FBI as I quickly learned (Rosenbaum, 119) and his conclusion that Parker has not scarce re-envisioned, but wilfully perverted the historical facts behind the event of Mississippi Burning to create a to a greater extent salable film are rational and just in my opinion. Within the format of the essay, which is more conversational in tone than scholarly, Rosenbaum relies primarily upon anecdotal remembrances and personal experiences than on solidly researched historical take the stand or upon sociological references of any kind.His assertions are certainly emotionally convincing because it doesnt take much bm to persuade me, or probably many other people, that a big-money director of commercial films would distort or change whatever was nec essary in order to make a successful film in economic terms. If it were not so, then said director would still be directing TV commercials. This seems to be the most onerous flaw in Rosenbaums thesis, as I am not entirely convince that Parker or anyone else associated with Hollywood movies ever intended to make anything other than a piece of entertainment pose as drama with a more or less obvious historical hook. However, the use of proficient cultural issues for the purpose of making money is usually referred to as exploitation and I think Rosenbaum does a quite convincing job of painting Parker as an exploitative director bent first on making money and success and only secondarily, if at all, interested in the issues of substantive historical script of the events the movie ostensibly was meant to cover.