Steven Spielberg finally makes it to my watchlist with Amistad. Amistad is one of his less known movies and thus also his most underrated. It’s a high-stakes court drama, based on the story of the Spanish slaver Amistad. As in real life, the slaves on board manage to slaughter most of the crew. The two surviving Spaniards, however, don’t take them back to Africa, but land in Connecticut. With the slave trade legal for Spain, but not America, there is a long legal battle. President Martin van Buren, seeking reelection, is worried that if the slaves are freed he’ll lose the southern vote, so he twice has the trial done again in a higher court. He also has to deal with the Spanish government, which insists that the slaves are their property and should be punished for killing most of the slavers.
The movie is chockfull of real historical characters and follows the events closely for the most part. The main character is Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), a man kidnapped and sold into slavery. The real Cinque actually had a different name that was anglicized into his more familiar one, but the movie simplifies things. His defense lawyer is Roger Sherman Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey), who was a well established legal figure in real life, but is turned into an ambitious low-level one to give us more of an underdog story. The big hurdle for the defense team is the language barrier, but gradually this is overcome with the discovery of James Covey (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a sailor who was born in West Africa and knows some of the different tongues.
Among their allies are abolitionist
Lewis Tappan (Stellan Skarsgard) and Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), the
latter one of the few fictional characters. Many historians argued that a black
man with his prestige could not exist at the time, but others pointed out that
there were a few prominent black abolitionists so his existence isn’t a
stretch. Tappan gets hit with a bit of a villain upgrade when, after the trial
is revived for a third time, he gives up and suggests that letting the Amistad
slaves lose will make them effective martyrs. The real Tappan never would have
countenanced such a thing.
The defense team: Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman),James Covey
(Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey)
I also want to call some attention to
President Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne). For one thing, the movie has him
publicly campaigning. Back then this would have been considered absolutely
shameful and clownish, as presidents were expected to have a level of decorum
that would preclude making colorful promises and insulting their opponents (how
things have changed). On a second matter, the real van Buren was a tough and
effective politician who helped forge the American political party (it’s up to
you if this is a good or terrible thing). Here he’s easily pressured into doing
what others want from him, most notable when James Calhoun all but threatens
national disunion should the slaves be freed.
This ties into the biggest ahistorical
aspect of Amistad. Everybody is
talking about how a civil war is around the corner, that one wrong move on the
slavery issue will have Americans killing each other. Fear of such a sectional
bloodbath was not on the table in 1839, and only became a serious possibility
in the 1850s as the slave issue escalated and got tied into questions of western
expansion and increasing awareness of outsized southern influence.
Cinque (Center) and other slaves from the Amistad stand on trial (https://themindreels.com/2022/09/25/amistad-1997-steven-spielberg/)
Thanks to Spielberg’s excellent directorial skills, the courtroom scenes are almost as gripping as action sequences from his Indiana Jones flicks. We get to see Baldwin prove himself in the first trial, managing to win in spite of his inability to understand his clients. The second trial gets the most attention, as he has to go up against a heavily pressured judge and big shot lawyer William Holabird (Pete Postethwaite!). This trial also has my favorite minor character, British naval officer Charles Fitzgerald (Peter Firth). Fitzgerald exhibits traits usually associated with British villains, like disdain for Americans, but is actually a good guy who fights the slave trade. He gets to deliver an awesome brick joke, too. I really want to see a movie about him taking down slavers.
It’s here that we finally get Cinque’s
story, told through a long flashback. It’s a horrifying look at the Atlantic
Slave Trade. We see people get packed tightly and naked into dark ship holds.
We seem spend nearly all their time in chains. Cinque’s voyage had an
additional horror added on. Realizing they couldn’t feed all the slaves in the
time it took to get to the Americas, the crew chained a bunch of them together
to a heavy stone and then rolled them off the deck into the ocean. This one
sequence gives an R rating to a film that is otherwise pretty clean.
The third trial goes all the way to the
Supreme Court and here it’s time to talk about Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy
Adams. Famously Quincy Adams had already been president so he was expecting a
quiet retirement from political life. The people in his part of Massachusetts
had other ideas, however, and kept electing him to the House of
Representatives. Ironically, a man with an underwhelming presidency became a
great House Representative, and helped pave the way for future politicians to
fight slavery. He was also over seventy at the time of the Amistad case.
John Quincy Adams looks at a bust of his father while making his big speech (https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechamistadjqadams.html)
Hopkins is one of those actors that
can’t be bad, so it’s a joy watching him. It is a bit corny how every single
scene with him was noble Americana music in the background ala John Williams,
regardless of what he’s doing, but he is the most prominent historical figure
so there is some justification. He refuses the take the case for a while, but
is finally convinced for the Supreme Court. He delivers an awesome ten-minute
speech (here's a short bit) where he promotes the true ideal of America and even manages to weave in
some of the African beliefs of Cinque. Famously, Hopkins delivered the entire
speech in one take, awing Spielberg.
I should mention a few other aspects.
Since this is a Steven Spielberg film, John Williams is present to do the
music. Williams never really did anything with African music before, so he went
all in and created a great song for the end credits. I’m amused that in the end
montage explaining what happened to everybody, Spielberg felt the need to
organize a bunch of Civil War costumes, gear, and extras for a few seconds-clip
of the Battle of Atlanta.
Amistad is a great
movie that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves despite all the top-tier
talent involved. Spielberg treats the subject matter with the right gravitas
while still managing to end on an uplifting note.
Rating: 9/10
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