Amistad (1997)
courtroom drama
directed
by : Steven Spielberg
featuring
: Morgan Freeman - Anthony Hopkins - Matthew McConaughey - Nigel Hawthorne
running
time : 2 hour 32 minutes
This
Steven Spielberg-directed exploration
into a long-ago episode in African-American history recounts the trial
that followed the 1839 rebellion aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad
and captures the complex political maneuverings set in motion by the event.
Filmed in New England and Puerto Rico, the 152-minute drama opens with
a pre-credit sequence showing Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) and the other Africans
in a violent takeover of the Amistad. Captured, they are imprisoned in
New England where former slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), viewing
the rebels as "freedom fighters," approaches property lawyer Baldwin (Matthew
McConaughey), who attempts to prove the Africans were "stolen goods" because
they were kidnapped. Running for re-election, President Martin Van Buren
(Nigel Hawthorne) overturns the lower court's decision in favor of the
Africans. Former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) is reluctant
to become involved, but when the case moves on to the Supreme Court, Adams
stirs emotions with a powerful defense. The storyline occasionally cuts
away to Spain where the young Queen Isabella (Anna Paquin) plays with dolls;
she later debated the Amistad case with seven U.S. presidents. The character
portrayed by Freeman is a fictional composite of several historical figures.
For authentic speech, the Africans speak the Mende language, subtitled
during some scenes but not others.
Like Martin Scorsese, Spielberg
spent the 1990s alternating between highly commercial projects such as
Jurassic
Park and more personal ventures such as Schnidler's List, both released
in 1993. As List did with Park, Amistad arrived the winter following The
Lost World, and used an extraordinary historical incident to address a
larger topic, in this instance slavery rather than the Holocaust. Opening
with a remarkable sequence portraying the slave revolt, Amistad, however,
quickly devolves into a big-budget classroom instructional film, albeit
a fairly gripping one. Handsomely mounted, beautifully filmed, and well-acted
(particularly by Hounsou and Hopkins), Spielberg's film loses momentum
each time he halts for scenes of courtroom speechifying framed against
a billowing American flag in a window. Harrowing flashbacks to life aboard
the Amistad and the slowly-developing respect between Hounsou and McConaughey's
characters suggest the filmmaker in Spielberg chomping at the bit to do
more. In its best moments, Amistad reveals Spielberg as the artist/entertainer
he's striven to become since 1986's The Color Purple; in its worst moments,
the film reveals a director whose earnestness outstrips his command of
the material.