Amistad (1997)
Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, Djimon Hounsou, Nigel Hawthorne, David Paymer, Pete Posthelwaite, Stellan Skarsgard, Anna Paquin Rated R: Violence and brutality
by Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
Spielberg's Amistad begins with a spellbinding scene. On board the Spanish slave ship Amistad, an African slave named Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) escapes and frees all of his brothers, leading a violent mutiny against the overseers on the ship. The opening shot is dark, and it takes a few seconds to understand what we're looking at--the shot changes from a close-up of a pair of straining eyes down to raw, bloody fingers removing a nail from a piece of wood. The man pulls the nail out after what we expect was an extremely long time, and looks at it in wonder for only a second before standing to help his fellow captives. The ensuing moments are violent and horrifying, as Cinque and the others, enraged, murder the ship's crew.
The slaves keep two of the seamen alive to navigate the ship; these two men take the ship to America (the slaves thought they were going home to Africa) and the entire group of slaves is arrested for murder. Much of the film involves the trial, in which a young activist lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) defends the group. Later in the film, he enlists the help of John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins).
Amistad is the latest Important film this fall. The hype on this one is intense, mostly because audiences are expecting a film with similar impact of Schindler's List. Amistad, arguably in the same technical realm as Schindler's List, never reaches the emotional level of the latter. Of course, to base my criticism on a comparison between the two is unfair: it is unlikely Spielberg intended to make something that would be as powerful as Schindler's List. Amistad's subject matter is one to which most individuals in this time period have very little exposure, and is immediately limited because of this. Spielberg, however, has done a spectacular job of recreating the values of the time period and educating viewers as to what went on in the mid 1800s. His work is so successful in this respect that I was truly moved by the end of this film.
As a whole, however, the film's progression and the script don't quite live up to Spielberg's potential. My biggest problem is with the length. Many of the scenes went for far too long; towards the end of the film, Hopkins gives a speech to the US Supreme Court. The speech lasts roughly 15 minutes, but it seems to go on forever. Hopkins' delivery is nice, and the speech is well-written, but it meanders, and despite its meaning, I was tempted to tune it out. Many of the scenes have this quality, where the development isn't always apparent and the point of each scene isn't totally obvious. Scenes between McConaughey and Hounsou, which should be magical and energetic, often come across as dull and obligatory. The performances are all very good, but the characters don't feel like they're interacting with one another--it seems like they're always talking to the audience, almost knowing of the fact that they're in a film meant to teach us something.
Morgan Freeman, who is top-billed for some strange reason, is mostly wasted in this role as anti-slavery activist Theodore Joadson. He has almost no lines, and is given basically no time to create a character. The prize of this film is newcomer Hounsou, who is charismatic and powerful as the leader of the slaves. McConaughey is also good (and I found it ironic that he actually toned down his Southern accent for this role), and Hopkins gives an authentic portrayal of Adams (and he maintains a better accent than he did in Nixon). Pete Posthelwaite, another British actor covering up his accent, delivers a cold and balanced performance as the prosecuting lawyer Holabird.
Although Amistad has some significant problems with pacing and character interaction, the mood is perfect. The experience wasn't always engaging, but the parts that worked really worked. The best scene in the film is a flashback to a horrible moment during which a group of slaves are tied to a bundle of rocks and thrown off the ship because there wasn't enough food. Spielberg doesn't pull any punches here; just as he did in Schindler's List, he allows the material to speak for itself, and the result is pure and painful to watch. Cinque's character, as well, is an enticing individual, even though he doesn't speak a word of English. His struggles are easily accessible to the audience, and understanding him is almost too easy a task.
I found great satisfaction from the last fifteen minutes of the film; two of the scenes nearly brought me to tears. The way Spielberg ends the film--almost as a hollow victory--seems so appropriate for the subject of slavery. I went into Amistad not knowing much about what I was going to see, and, despite its problems, I left the theater with something new and tangible to think about.
>From 0-10: 7 Grade: B
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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