Historical dramas from US shores these days fall into two camps it seems. First off you have your Brit-bashing films, most of which aren't at all true (Braveheart), or rather twisted (The Patriot) and then you have your blatant historical thievery (U-571). For a country with as rich a modern history as the USA you'd think the opportunities to tell real stories would be undeniable, not so apparently. But then what is this? A film based on a true US story, featuring other nations (Britain included), and with a powerful and unpleasant moral to it, something that shames America to this day; Slavery. Given its legal setting, its strong black lead and its important historical basis you'd think it would have been treated more respectfully than it indeed was by the critics of the time. I can only assume that the lack of a truly heroic American and villainous foreigner put them off. Without these guides to the modern historical epic they must have been lost.
The story starts with a slave revolt in heavy seas of the ship 'La Amistad'. With most of the Portuguese crew butchered the two survivors secretly sail their new masters up the coast of America, knowing that these newly-free men and women will be rearrested and placed back under their control. Unsurprisingly events play out exactly like that and with the fate of the slaves hanging on a legal technicality the story opens up into one of the most dangerous threats to a pre-civil war United States. Four sides are drawn up; the Portuguese sailors who claim property rights over their slaves; the men who 'salvaged' the Amistad and who claim it all belongs to them; Isabella II, the 11 year-old Queen of Spain who threatens the President with all sorts of trade disputes; and the anti-slavery abolitionists Stellen Skarsg�rd and Morgan Freeman.
Hiring young lawyer Matthew McConaughey they want a clear moral stance to win the day but he proposes an alternative route involving property rights and the correst identification of where the slaves come from (at that time only people born to slaves could themselves become slaves, every other man was free). After winning their first trial it seems the slaves, including the upstanding and important Djimon Hounsou, are free to go but with an election coming up and the threat of the Southern states breaking away, US President Martin van Buren is advised to continue the legal process in an effort to work a situation more favourable to both his re-election and an avoidance of a civil war.
The story is a fascinating one, rich in legal terms and events but also in the stories of Hounsou and Royal Navy Captain Fitzgerald (Peter Firth). With a cast of actors as talented as Skarsg�rd, Freeman, McConaughey, Hounsou, Firth, Hopkins and also Pete Postlewhaite, Xander Berkeley, Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam, David Paymor and a still-young Anna Paquin as Queen Isabella II, director Steven Spielberg wisely keeps the camera on them for long periods, allowing them to swill the script around like fine wine and apply all their acting nouse to their roles. It's almost as if they wanted to do the script justice, as if the abhorrent idea of slavery suffused them so much that they threw their all into it.
Hopkins is superb, as he was in Meet Joe Black and as he is in everything. His portrayal of the aged firebrand and abolitionist ex-President John Quincy Adams is one of the powerhouse performances of the film. Given only a short screen time he gives his all and his wonderfully understated speech to the final trial judges is the product of one of the finest actors of the decade. Hounsou is also excellent, speaking practically nothing but Mende throughout his role holds the film together. Another director might have worked around his leading role and banished the slaves to the sidelines. Not so Spielberg. He refuses to tug at the heartstrings and shows the slaves as near savages, but he also points us towards their emotional side. Their fear of death and the courage and fortitude that they have to bear to have put up with such a horrible voyage. Hounsou's plea at the second trial of 'Give us free' is an indication that he is intelligent and wise, something proved later by his quick, but not whole, grasp of US law.
One of the best bits of the film to me though was the fair portrayal of the British throughout. Not merely content with having no fewer than 6 British actors (those listed above plus Ralph Brown of Waynes World 2 and Alien 3 fame) he also places Firth's Captain Fitzgerald in a prominent position as both a witness to the slavery still prevalent at the time off West Africa, and also as a proponent of Britain's policy on slavery at the time. You see, it was Britain that first properly outlawed slavery and with the Royal Navy commanding all the seas of the world was in a position to end it, which it eventually did. His sneering contempt for prosecuting lawyer Postlethwaite's belief that the slaves were Cuban (and therefore legally still slaves) was fantastic to watch and filled me with patriotic pride. I only wish that we had as mighty a film industry here. We could tell stories of our own, and we wouldn't have to change them to suit our own sense of national self-esteem. |
