Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 21, No.

1, 2001

Amistad (1997): Steven Spielbergs true story

JULIE ROY JEFFREY, Goucher College

In December, 1997, Steven Spielbergs lm about the 1839 mutiny aboard a Cuban slave trading vessel was released. Those who were involved in making the movie had high expectations about its impact. Right from the start there was a sense we were doing something that could change the world, claimed script writer, David Franzoni, or at least make very serious ripples. For co-producer, Debbie Allen, the lm had the possibility of demonstrating that a lm about African captives and slavery could be mainstream and protable. Spielberg wanted Amistad to accomplish for the American experience of slavery what Schindlers List did for the Holocaust. Not only had Schlinders List won box ofce, critical success, and seven Academy Awards, but it had also succeeded, Spielberg felt, in reecting the truth about the Holocaust for an audience that had, by and large, no longer its own memories of that event. The story of the Amistad mutiny and the subsequent court battles over the fate of the Africans was even less familiar to the public than the Holocaust. Spielberg himself had known nothing about the Amistad until 1994. When he learned about it, he felt it was an extremely important lm to do [1]. Even before the movie was released in December 1997, a heated debate about the lm and its use of the past erupted. Novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud initiated a lawsuit against DreamWorks Studio claiming that the lm had plagiarized parts of Echo of Lions, her 1989 novel about the mutiny. While part of her case of copyright violation rested on her accusation that DreamWorks had borrowed ctional characters as well as fabricated events from her book, she also charged that the lm had based its depiction of the mutinys actual leader, Cinque, on her portrayel of him in Echo of Lions [2]. Lawyers for DreamWorks appealed to the historical record in their efforts to refute Chase-Ribouds charges. Arguing that any similarities between Chase-Ribouds novel and Amistad came from grounding in the same historical incident, they claimed that no one could own a copyright to mere fact. All parts of Echo of Lions that were based on the historical record could not belong to Chase-Riboud, and DreamWorks had every right to use them freely. As for the character of Cinque, the lm faithfully presented him as he existed in history [3]. Chase-Riboud lost the rst round when the US District Court of California judge refused to issue an injunction to delay the movies release. While the Court found that Chase-Ribouds suit had raised serious questions, the judge concluded that her case had not established a probability of success. Chase-Riboud vowed to continue her legal battle but subsequently settled with DreamWorks for an undisclosed amount of money [4]. The settlement left the questions about the lms relationship to history and ction unresolved. But the lawyers for DreamWorks had already publicly stated that Amistad is entirely based upon history. As far as Spielberg was concerned, the suit had diverted attention away from the [all-important] content of the Amistad, and he was
ISSN 0143-9685 print/ISSN 1465-3451 online/01/010077-20 2001 IAMHIST & Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/01439680020030905

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doubtless relieved when the case was settled [5]. But the case and the inated claims made for the lm even before it opened (a trailer for the lm had as its last title, A True Story) initiated a debate over the lms use of history. As the lm began its run in movie theaters, the discussion expanded beyond the question of how lmmakers utilized history to other issues like audience tolerance of disturbing historical material. This examination of the lms reception, its development, and its representation of the Amistad affair reveals how complicated and elusive the relationship between lm and history can be [6]. The discussion about Steven Spielbergs lm that the lawsuit had initiated involved both scholars who evaluated his handling of history and those regarding it primarily as entertainment. In the popular media, the lm received mixed reviews. Some regarded the key courtroom scenes as incredibly moving drama, an enlightening view of a courtroom system where liberty goes to the highest bidder. Others, including commentators for newspapers as different as the London Times and the Boston Phoenix, found in the climactic presentation of the case before Supreme Court a tiresome Adams delivering a platitudinous speech [7]. There was more agreement that many characters were one-dimensional. Most critics excluded Anthony Hopkins John Quincy Adams and the Djimon Honsous African leader, Cinque, from this judgment. Yet, despite the agreement that the portrayal of Cinque was powerful and convincing, differences of opinion about the representation of the Africans emerged. The Miami New Times regarded Cinque and the captives as representatives of a more wholly spiritual and evolved human beings, but, to a Syracuse reviewer, they were just footnotes in Spielbergs earnest history lesson. Some critics contended that that lm presented captives as exotic other[s]. The camera was fascinated with Cinques powerful physique, observed a reviewer for the London Times, who felt that the obsession with his naked body had turned history into a black porno ick [8]. While reviewers obviously realized the need for artistic license, many assumed that in some fundamental way, the lm offered an acceptable historical explanation of the incidents and characters that were at the heart of the story. Whether seeing the lm as successful or not, many reviewers in the popular media agreed that the lm represented the true story of the incidents surrounding the mutiny. Steven Spielberg, as the Boston Phoenix pointed out, knows his way around the nightmare of history. The lm was, another reviewer judged, a superb history lesson [9]. Indeed, for some, this was exactly the movies problem. Stephen Brown suggested that the lm was too much like a stodgy history lesson instead of an explanation of transcendent themes. Another reviewer likened it to a superduper high school curriculum teaching aid [10]. Such comments reveal a popular suspicion that history is the dreary discipline. One underlying message from much of the media discussion of the lm was that too much history (a term rarely dened) resulted in a problematic lm. This was a position that Spielberg would eventually adopt himself in regard to this particular movie. Although lms can be packed with good history and fail dramatically, historians, of course, have often taken the position that its not too much history but too little that makes a lm mediocre [11]. Yet, a good historical lm strikes a balance between art and history. As Robert Rosenstone and others make clear, lm history and written history are different ways of interpreting the past and use different means to achieve their goals. Filmmakers must invent scenes, dialogues, and even characters in order to tell their stories, and if done properly, these inventions play an historical role when they add to the audiences understanding of the past. Furthermore, the presence of small inaccuracies may not seriously mar the overall interpretation and should not be the

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major reason for labeling a lm ahistorical. Certainly, this lm, like most historical lms, has its share of minor errors. President Van Buren is shown out campaigning and kissing babies in a time when presidents did not campaign. A man appears on a bicycle. Characters lapse occasionally into modern colloquial English. These errors are relatively unimportant in the lm as a whole [12]. Before the movies release, some historians were hopeful that Spielberg was making a very good historical lm indeed. Both Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who was listed as a consultant for the lm, and Howard Jones, the author of a book about the Amistad, who visited the set during lming, thought the lms potential was great. Gates pointed out the unusual character of the lm. Its rare when you see black people participate in violence to defend themselves, be vindicated by the American legal system, and be recognized as the true patriots they are, like Patrick Henry. Jones, despite not being a consultant nor having his book used as the basis for the lm, welcomed it because it dealt with the long-standing struggle between human and property rights, and presented a view of American abolitionists, the evils of slavery, and the slave trade. He felt condent that Spielberg would maintain [the storys] factual basis and recognized that the lmmaker had an opportunity to blend history with artistry, bridging the gulf between historians and the general reader by making history both interesting and accessible on a wide scale. Like Gates, Howard welcomed the opportunity to expose people to the only instance in history in which captives from Africa actually won their freedom and made it back home [13]. If some historians hoped that the lm might offer an illuminating insight into the past, these views were in line with the broad objectives held by director Spielberg and co-producer, Debbie Allen. And if some critics thought that the lm offered a history lesson Spielberg and Allen thought they were providing one. Robert Rosenstone suggests that lm is history as a vision [14]. The original vision for this lm was Debbie Allens. Allen, who is African American, had enjoyed a varied career as dancer, choreographer, actress and TV director. In 1978, she came across an account of the Amistad mutiny at the Howard University Bookstore. How was it possible that I had never heard of this epic moment in history? she wondered. Who had cheated me? Her exposure to the story was emotional and personal. She recalled, That was the rst time I learned about it. I was crying, and I had this whole range of emotion, including anger. She decided that this was a true story that the world needed to hear and in 1984 optioned rights to William Owens novel, Black Mutiny [15]. Allen found it difcult to persuade directors to undertake the project she thought so important. She lacked credentials as a producer, and the subject did not seem particularly compelling to those she approached. Audiences did not want to see some slaves, she was told. Even black directors were not interested in a lm which they believed would fail at the box ofce. Look at Gloryit barely made its money back, noted Keenen Ivory Wyatts. As a black director you cant afford that. Failed box ofce is a strike against us. Allen was shocked to be so blatantly rejected across the board by everyone, since she remained convinced, that despite the reluctance to invest in the story, there was an audience for this [16]. After seeing Schindlers List, Allen felt that Spielberg was the director who could and should make the lm. After talking to the co-presidents of DreamWorks feature lm division in 1994, she was able to get a meeting with Spielberg. Allen captured Spielbergs interest by her vivid presentation of the Amistad incidents. In a meeting that Allen recalled as going on and on and on, Spielberg asked her about every angle and all the historical aspects, and what I wanted in the movie. He was impressed and

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inspired by her passion for the story. She had a remarkable ability to make me see it through her eyes. When the meeting had ended, Allen felt there had been a true meeting of minds, hearts and souls and was convinced that the movie would be made. Spielberg wanted to get a writer started on developing a script, and David Franzoni was hired. He did not make the nal decision to direct the lm until he had a script that grabbed enough of me to want to tell the story immediately [17]. Both Spielberg and Allen, who became Amistads coproducer, had personal and political goals that shaped their broad but little-examined commitment to the historical record. Allen saw powerful links between the black rebels and her personal and racial identity. The leader Cinque was not only the heartbeat of the Amistad story but also the heartbeat of the story of all African Americans. When I look at him, Allen explained, I think about my grandfather, the men of my familyFive generations back, my family disappears into the plantation. Cinque embodies the spirit of millions of Africans who were stolenthe many that lived, the many that died. The depiction of a deant and heroic Cinque represented a powerful way of destroying what Allen called the sambo view of blacks who acquiesced to slavery [18]. Her negative comments about older studies of slavery do not fully capture Allens anger at historians and their treatment of slavery. While much of what Allen said in interviews suggested respect for professional historians, she admitted that she had taken it personally that the story of the Amistad revolt had been snatched out of the history books. In a revealing statement made before the lm was nished, she said that Amistad would create a dialogue about the very nature of history, the way in which people are taught. Allen believed that the real history has just been castratedleft outand great historians have done it. Its beyond racism, I think. Its just one culture wanting to be dominant, and not really acknowledging the contribution of a culture that was far and beyond and centuries ahead [19]. While it is hard to square this accusation with scholarship on slavery in last 20 or 30 years, it is clear that Allen saw the lm as revising a awed or missing historical record. When the lm was nished, she described it as the movie I always wanted to make and declared that it turned out the way I always envisioned it [20]. In interviews published in the New York Times, Spielberg explained that he was interested in making serious lms about the growing pains of America. The strife and conict. There were also personal reasons why Spielberg felt a responsibility to put out stories that have some sort of redeeming value. As a family man and father of two adopted African American children, he was struck by the importance of the Amistad incidents which none of his children had heard about. When Debbie Allen made her spirited presentation, Spielberg claimed to have been immediately struck by the thought that this was something I would be pretty proud to make, simply to say to my son, Look this is about you [21]. Interest both had in telling the story highlighting power and nobility of the black captives was seen as compatible with what lmmakers regarded as historical truth. Both claimed that historical truth was important. Allen, throughout the project, played a key role, as the co-president of DreamWorks feature lm division explained, in keeping the historical perspective accurate. Although Spielbergs pace of work could not leave much time for reading, he told the New York Times that he enjoyed history, especially books about war and important historical gures like Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. I am interested in history, he declared. When I see movies I just dont want to see fantasy [22]. Unlike some postmodern lms like Walker (1987), neither Amistad nor Spielbergs

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other historical lms attempt to explore the uncertain nature of history. Rather they are illusionists narrative(s) and, as was the case with Amistad, also represent an effort to revise the lm record, to show the way it really was and not the way Hollywood has been portraying these events for 50 years. This interest in revealing things as they were, however, apparently did not mean that historians would play any major role in making Amistad. While various historians were invited to the set during the lming and would be listed in the lms credits, historian Howard Jones, like Lerone Bennett, author of Before the Mayower, and an executive editor of Ebony, agreed that their presence was window dressing. Spielberg wanted historians around to add authenticity to the production [23]. Of course, both Allen and Spielberg well understood the need for artistic invention. As Allen pointed out, What weve done is create history through art, the art of lmmaking. But little consideration appears to have been given to the balance between art and history and the ways in which the lm might convey the spirit of existing historical scholarship by telling a even-handed racial story of the Amistad incident [24]. Key decisions owed from the basic commitment to presenting the story of the black captives in a way that moved beyond Hollywood norms. Spielberg and Allen discussed the treatment with writer David Franzoni. All agreed that the story would be presented from the perspective of the Africans. As Franzoni explained, Most movies that deal with slavery are unintentionally racist because inevitably the whites waged the good ght to liberate the black man. In this lm, that scenario would be reversed. It would be the Africans who would free the Americans [25]. Spielberg gave Franzoni carte blanche to write [the script] balls-out. In the year and a half that it took to get an outline and a draft of the script written, Debbie Allen was a powerful inspiration. Although from time to time Franzoni and Allen discussed the draft with Spielberg to get his reaction, Allen, as, Franzoni acknowledged, was the scripts co-creator. Without her assistance, Franzoni said, he could never have written it. Discussions with her helped give him the key to John Quincy Adams speech to the Supreme Court. She also helped Franzoni see the drama of the mutiny and the middle passage through African American eyes. When I wrote the mutiny on board Amistad, Franzoni recalled, it was Debbie who led me to the vision of a violence so brutal and genuine that the act embodied with a single roar the timeless black American rage. When Debbie and I deliberated the middle passage scene, she reached down into the freezing Atlantic and from the muck and centuries resurrected for me the thousands and thousands of African souls who had perhaps until this lm been lying unheralded and even unknown in anonymous graves [26]. How much historical research Franzoni or anyone else actually did is unclear. Eleven scholars are thanked in the credits which also list ve researchers, only one of whom, Clifton Johnson, founder and former director of the Amistad Research Center, holds a doctorate. Historian Howard Jones, one of those acknowledged with appreciation, recalls receiving several phone calls for additional information on various aspects of the Amistad incidents. The ofcial book about the making of the lm suggests the importance of Allens point of view, her working library, and her extensive background research. She and her research materials not only helped Franzoni but also production designer, Rick Carter. During the summer of 1996, before casting or lming had even begun, Allen was working with Carter. We talked about everything I saw in the movie, Allen later remembered, things that werent even necessarily in the script. So we had all these great drawings completed and put together four books of research so by the time Steven was ready, we were totally prepared [27].

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The perceived gaps in the research were in the areas of African history and culture. To Franzoni, lling in these gaps was most challenging part of the research. The trick was, no one really knew what the Africans were thinking, and thats what the movies about. So I read everything I could nd that dealt with that culture. The best stuff came from articles specic to Mende culture [28]. On the African American side of the story, a ctional black character, Theodore Joadson, was created. Whose idea Joadson was is not clear. (Chase-Riboud claimed that the character had been lifted from her book). Since Franzoni declared that the most important issue for me was that this is a movie about black Americans, such a character was necessary in a lm that would primarily focus on Africans. The inclusion of Joadson also made the point that abolitionism was a biracial reform movement. It seems likely that Allen played an important role in shaping, if not inspiring, the depiction of Joadson. Born as a slave in Georgia, Joadson is portrayed as a black abolitionist who has somehow acquired freedom, riches, and social acceptance by the time the story begins. For Allen, who called Joadson fact-tional, the character stood for the successful and even rich African Americans in the antebellum period. Furthermore, he embodied the AfricanAmerican abolitionist movement of the day and illuminated the nature of abolitionism in general. As Allen pointed out the character allows us to see how black people were at the core of these movements [29]. While the introduction of ctional characters is commonplace in historical lms and certainly helpful if the invented characters embody some larger historical truth, the Joadson character fails in this respect. While there were some wealthy well-educated blacks in the North, to whom the lmmakers pointed as their model for Joadson, most northern free blacks were struggling with poverty and discrimination. Neither ordinary free blacks nor members of the black elite played any signicant role during the Amistad crisis itself. And although black men and women participated in the abolitionist movement and had helped to inspire William Lloyd Garrison to adopt immediate emancipation as an abolitionist goal in the early 1830s, it is arguable whether free blacks were, as Allen was suggesting, leading the way in much of what was happening in the abolitionist movement. Allens statement that black people were at the core of abolitionism suggests the desire to create strong and purposeful black characters was more important than providing a nuanced understanding of the part both blacks and whites played in abolitionism. The easy way in which Joadsons social world merges with that of his white colleagues also minimizes the signicance of northern racism and represents wishful thinking rather than racial realities in the past [30]. The script that Franzoni with Allens help produced struck Spielberg as a championship job of telling the story, but did not impress enough to make him feel he must direct the lm. When Steven Zallian, the writer for Schindlers List, did a rewrite, however, Spielberg was more enthusiastic about directing the lm. Still, he was hesitant because of criticism he had received in 1985 for The Color Purple. As a white director, he told Allen that he didnt feel comfortable in telling the story. Once again, her passion proved effective in persuading Spielberg to undertake the lm himself. She was very compelling in her arguments to convince me to look beyond color and race, Spielberg acknowledged. If I was interested in telling this story, nothing should stop me from telling it [31]. From this point on, the pace quickened. Spielberg decided to make the movie himself on 6 November 1996. Shooting the lm was sandwiched between The Lost World and Saving Private Ryan, and began on 17 February 1997. The lming was completed in 60 working days, ending in May. During the summer Spielberg and Michael Kahn

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edited the lm in London while Spielberg was shooting Private Ryan. The music, nal editing, and credits were nished only 3 weeks before the lm opened in December 1997 [32]. Casting the lm was a critical step in creating the vision that Spielberg and Allen shared. Morgan Freeman signed on to play Theodore Joadson, Anthony Hopkins was secured for John Quincy Adams, Matthew McConaughey for the abolitionist lawyer, Roger Baldwin, and the Danish actor, Stellan Skarsgard, for white abolitionist Lewis Tappan. In keeping with their interest in the African side of the story, both Spielberg and Allen wanted the captives to be played by real Africans. I was not interested in casting professional, well-known black actors, Spielberg said, from South Coast Rep [33]. The search sought out rst-generation African actors in Europe and them moved on to Africa. I really wanted the Africans to be from Sierra Leone, Spielberg explained. Eventually, the cast included actors not only from Sierra Leone, but also from Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria [34]. The most important casting choice was that of the mutinys leader, Cinque. Months passed without nding anyone who seemed right for the role. Spielberg had seen hours and hours of videos and had become convinced we were not making the lm. Then he put a tape into his player and Djimon Hounsou came on. A native of West Africa, Hounsou had modelled, had a brief part in a music video, and not much acting experience. Nevertheless, his appearance was, as Spielberg put it, a wake-up call. The tape which Spielberg called overwhelming, conveyed the kind of power Spielberg and Allen were looking for. And Hounsous good looks and powerful physique exuded the nobility and physical presence that the real Cinque apparently possessed [35]. When Hounsou auditioned in person the very day Spielberg had viewed the video, the director asked him if I thought I would be able to learn another language. Hounsou, who was in the process of learning to speak English without an accent, was willing to give it a try, and, if he wanted to get the part, he would have little choice. Spielberg and Allen had already agreed that the Africans were to speak in the Mende language in the lm. The decision brought praise from Professor Henry Gates, who was pleased that the Africans would not speak in broken English, like, Hel-lo de white man, the way Hollywood typically does. But since few of the actors hired, including Hounsou, actually could speak Mende, the dialogue belonging to Africans had to be translated and then a training program to teach the actors their parts had to be set up. Dr. Arthur Abraham, a Sierra Leonian and an expert in Mende culture, was hired as the lms cultural advisor. His effort to teach the actors what was, for most of them, a foreign language was a challenge. When we began, Abraham said, half of the class was just not serious about it. Before long, he lost his temper and told them if they continued not to learn, he would single them out. His goal, as Hounsou understood it, was to have the actors speaking the language so well that no onenot even a Mendewould doubt they were from Sierra Leone. During the lming, Abraham continued to monitor the language, interrupting scenes and providing actors with remedial instruction when they made mistakes [36]. Although Debbie Allen was not a linguistic expert, she played an important role in creating the connections between the actors and African history and culture. She provided a two-week crash course on cultureincluding dance, music and improvisationto help [the actors] prepare for the emotionally and physically demanding scenes. The promotional lm entitled Making of Amistad even shows her beating the actors with a mock cudgel to suggest the violence involved with captivity. It was Allens

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task to gather every inkling of information to pull together the core of who these people needed to be. Then we went through every scene I challenged them to get into the mindset of what they were dealing with [37]. To ensure that the lm reected as authentic a view of the Africans experience as possible, the captives even wore real chains rather than, as Spielberg put it fake movie chains. This decision, along with Allens tutoring, seems to have created amongst the actors a powerful sense of connection with the past and also some psychological trauma. One of the actors, Razaaq Adoti, pointed out, When youre in chains, you really do get into the moment. It was only afterwards that it really hit me: we were recreating history and reliving history at the same time. Producer Colin Wilson recalled that there were several sequences where the visuals were so powerful that many cast and crew members were reduced to tears [38]. As Wilson explained, nding suitable sites for lming was also considered very important in terms of creating a sense of authenticity, for the right location could take us back to the 1840s, capturing the tone and texture of a period long past. Much of the lming was done in Newport, Rhode Island. Washington Square was transformed by concealing storefronts, removing street lights and other visual evidence of the 20th century and by bringing in more than 10,000 cubic feet of dirt. The square provided the backdrop for many street scenes while several of the courtroom scenes were shot inside the citys Colony House. Historic buildings in other locations including the Boston State House and El Morro, a fort in Puerto Rico, and Mystic Seaport, were chosen to give the look for which Spielberg and others were striving. Two historic schooners were used for action scenes of the Amistad at sea. For the nal drama at the Supreme Court, Spielberg had hoped to secure permission to use the Supreme Courts courtroom in the Capitol. He failed to obtain the permission (though he did convince former Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackman to play Justice Joseph Story). It was a disappointment, Carter said, because Steven had hoped that being in the actual place where it happened would help anchor him and the cast for the scene. But the set that Carter built in Connecticut was so accurate that Carter believed when Spielberg saw it and how close it was to the real thing, he felt the same kind of inspiration [39]. As the lm was being made, interviews and news articles raised expectations about it, that, in the opinion of Howard Jones, were extravagant. The studio also developed a lm kit, without assistance from historians, and sponsored two TV promotions. The latter efforts did have input from historians, one of them Jones. He found it all great fun but thought that the TV promotions were also a transparent effort to plant the image of scholarly respectability onto the lm [40]. The studio spent $70 million making and marketing the lm. In its rst 2 weeks, it made a respectable $9.7 million at the box ofce, but its extravaganza rival, Titanic, took in $28.6 million in its rst weekend. In the end, Amistad lost money at box ofce. Its performance was obviously a great disappointment for both Spielberg and Allen. Allen had commented months before the movie was nished that The bottom line is, the movie industry is still a business not a cultural foundation. As a business venture, the lm failed. Spielberg later ruminated on what went wrong. He, like some commentators in the media, reected that the lm had failed because it took history too seriously. With Amistad, he explained, I kind of dried it out, and it became too much of a history lesson [41]. Probably Spielberg was being too critical of himself, for the lm does provide a history lesson of sorts. It successfully brings to movie audiences an important event seen as thrilling and unprecedented at the time but one that was unfamiliar to modern

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audiences. Furthermore, it highlights the experience of those usually excluded from movie screens and gives a powerful voice to the voiceless [42]. The voices we hear, though we dont always understand them, are those of the Africans captured by slavers. The lm emphasizes their Africanness through the use of the Mende language and through vivid ashbacks to Africa. These ashbacks capture the viewers attention through their use of lush, brilliant colors which offer a startling contrast to subdued tones chosen for the rest of the lm. The lm makes the point that these blacks are people who come from a place with an authentic culture and way of life, that on lm, has an almost idyllic quality [43]. Beginning with the opening scene of the revolt on Amistad, it is clear that these people are no sambos. They do not passively accept servitude. The point made repeatedly is that these Africans want freedom. The lm shows them struggling when they are rst captured in Africa. One woman and her baby are shown slipping backwards over the rail during the middle passage, preferring death to slavery. Once in the United States, the lm captures their deant demeanor. The camera provides closeups of shaking sts and furious faces, and we hear the clamor of their loud and angry voices. The desire for freedom creates one of the climactic moments in the lm. In the middle of courtroom testimony, Cinque rises to his feet to speak for himself and the other captives. He declares at rst softly and then louder and louder We want free. At the lms end, the point is repeated when the British navy destroys the African fort where slaves were collected before being transported to the new world. The camera shows hundreds of Africans running from the fort, away from slavery and towards freedom. As Ira Berlin notes, this emphasis on resistance is part of a renascence in the scholarship on slavery [44]. None of these black people are American slaves. While the lm shows black footmen serving President Van Buren and his guests at a White House dinner, their status is unclear. Since there is also a black servant in the Adams household who is obviously free, it is impossible to know whether the White House blacks are slaves or freemen. The concentration on Africans rather than American slaves caused some critics to complain that the lm failed to make a case against American slavery. Even if the captives had lost their courtroom battles, they would not have been enslaved in the United States but returned to face trial in Cuba [45]. Such a critque seems unduly harsh. Certainly, the abolitionists who rallied to the cause in 1839 believed there was a connection between the Amistad captives and American slavery. For todays audience, it takes little effort to see the relationship between these captives nobility and desire for freedom and the longing of American slaves to escape bondage. As the abolitionist newspaper, the Herald of Freedom, pointed out in October 1839, Cinques nobility undermined the arguments of those who defended slavery. The paper bid pro-slavery look upon Cinque and behold in him the race we are. He is a sample. Like the reviewer for the Boston Pboenix, I believe that, although the lm focuses on the Amistad captives, it reopens the wound of the nations greatest shame [46]. Although Spielberg and Allen had hoped to avoid the kinds of responses Color Purple had elicited, Amistad did not escape complaints based on race. Some were vitriolic. It was outrageous that Spielbergs expensive pot boiler can be such a success when lms made by Africans with genuine African content are almost completely ignored, wrote one commentator. Spielberg was an outsider and, by moving beyond his own people, had trespassed on ground where he had no right to be. Others complained that the Amistad was just another lm in which whites rescued blacks, a view that

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Franzoni, Allen, and Spielberg had strenuously tried to avoid presenting. The lm was awed in its portrayal of blacks as helplessly dependent on the American system of justice [47]. Historian Jesse Lemisch raised related points. Agreeing with J. Hoberman of the Village Voice, that power in the lm resides with the white protagonist, he suggested that the lms history was seen not from the point of view of an alien oppressed them but rather mediated by a benevolent intervener who is more like usthe predominantly white audience. In Lemischs opinion, the lm had made a fatal error by beginning with the rebellion rather than with the planning that must have preceded it. The lm thus denied the intelligence behind the uprising, and instead focused on what appears to be instinctual and stereotypical animalistic behavior. The courtroom scenes were just confrontation[s] among whites [48]. Clearly, Lemisch would have had a different lm, one that ended with the rebellion and left out the subsequent court case altogether. While such comments suggest that there were many ways in which a lmmaker might present the Amistad incident, they point to a lm that would deny the historical role of white abolitionists in resolving the conict. These critics also exaggerate the lms racial dynamics. While it is true that the lm shows whites arguing the Amistad case in various courtrooms, it also highlights the ways in which blacks contribute to their own defense. Cinque feeds Adams intelligent questions as he prepares for his appearance before the Supreme Court. Eventually he suggests (though inadvertently) the strategy that Adams uses before the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the Africans deliver the critique of the American legal system which is one of the lms key points. Faced by a travesty of justice, Cinque shouts What kind of place is this? His lawyer has no convincing response, for there is none. And nally, while the lms opening begins with the revolt itself, the determined effort that we see Cinque making to free himself suggests that the mutiny is no spontaneous eruption. This point is reinforced by the rapid and stealthy way in which captives silently open crates of weapons before launching their attack on the Spanish crew. The lm makes a further contribution to the audiences understanding of the past by showing the horric nature of the middle passage, apparently never before depicted in a mainstream Hollywood movie. Occurring halfway through the lm, the scenes vividly convey the emotional agony and cruelty of the middle passage. The naked bodies crowded below deck, the frantic way in which the enslaved devour their meager rations, the businesslike refusal to feed a sick women who is no longer a good investment, the sickening sight of a chain of human beings being pushed off the deck to drownthese images along with the sounds that accompany them dramatically evoke the obscenity of history [49]. In a brilliant invention that historian Howard Jones saw Spielberg make on the spot, the director staged a scene in which the Africans, now in control of the vessel, witness an illuminated ship passing them in the darkness. On that ship (actually a wagon pulled by ropes past the Amistad replica), the lavishly attired guests eat, drink, laugh and talk to the accompaniment of a small orchestra playing classical music while the tattered, silent Africans gaze across the water at them. The scene has no dialogue and does not need any. Without a word being spoken it captures the stark contrast between two worlds, that of rich, comfortable, and indifferent whites and the perilous and comfortless world of the black Africans [50]. Yet other aspects of the lm partially undermine the powerful and sympathetic interpretation both Spielberg and Allen intended. The middle passage sequence that

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evokes horror, outrage, and sympathy occurs well into the lm. At the beginning of the lm, however, we rst see Cinque agonizingly picking a nail out of the wood that he can use to unlock his chains and then the mutiny itself. While the decision to begin with the mutiny immediately establishes a mood of emotional intensity, it also projects powerful negative and stereoypical images of blackness. A closeup view of a huge, coarse-grained, sweating black face, a mouth, and a bloody nger (accompanied by heavy breathing) is disorienting and menancing. As almost naked captives attack the white crew in the darkness and rain, there are no subtitles to convey what they are shouting to one another. Their intention is murder, but we understand little beyond that. We get a better idea of what the Spanish are doing, for they are clearly trying to defend themselves. As Cinque kills one of the crew members, the camera is positioned so that the viewer, like the dying Spaniard, looks up into Cinques terrifying face as pulls the sword out from the body. The second sequence, taking place during daylight, shows the captives noisily disagreeing among themselves. As Cinque speaks to one of the Spaniards who is apparently to navigate the vessel, subtitles appear for the Spanish, but still we can only guess at what the captives are saying. Later, when the captives are apprehended and put into a New Haven jail, there are still no subtitles. The shouting and the air of violence continue even as the captives are locked up. The presentation of the Africans in these early scenes and the cinematic techniques used make it difcult to align ourselves with them or their rebellion. The images and sounds suggest savage, violent, murderous, incomprehensible blacks and perpetuate the longlived stereotypes found not only in lm and literature but in many other forms of popular culture as well [51]. Spielberg later explained that he wanted the difculty of communication to be one of the lms themes. There was so much about this that really hit home, for me about whats happening today in this country, he declared. While failure of communication may be a relevant theme in the past and the present, the omission of subtitles for the Mende dialogue until well into the lm seems to undermine Spielbergs, Allens, and Franzonis desire to move beyond the usual Hollywood lm. Spielberg himself made no comment about this decision, and it seems likely that it was taken late in the production of the lm. Certainly Henry Gates, who in March 1997 praised the determination to use Mende with subtitles, does not seem to have known that there would be no subtitles during the rst parts of the movie [52]. Yet over the course of the lm, these negative images mostly fade away. The lm begins to provide subtitles, and, as was actually the case in 1839, an interpreter is found to translate what the captives are saying. Increasingly, the Africans emerge as rational, intelligent, and often perceptive. Their comments about the whites are humorous and insightful. Several key scenes establish Cinques superiority. First, in an interview in prison at night with no translator present, Cinque is able to understand what his lawyer is asking, and without any common language, can convey to him that the captives have all come from Africa not Cuba. Then, we discover that Cinque has killed a lion and was a hero in his African village. By the time he rises in court to say We want free, it is clear Cinque has taken on heroic stature in the lm. But Cinque is not the only one whose image improves. Another captive, given a bible which he cannot read, nonetheless is able to provide a moving interpretation of Christianity as he explains the illustrations to Cinque [53]. As the lm progresses, the Africans become less alien. They wear Western clothes, at least for their court appearances. They become more like us. Given the powerful initial depictions, this transformation may be necessary to engage the audiences sympathy.

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But the pattern of having black characters move from their savagery towards civilization to win audience approval is a familiar one [54]. Yet Cinque never becomes an insider. Indeed, his status as an outsider is what allows him to expose the shortcomings of the American system of justice which the white insiders accept. Thus the Africans deliver one of the lms central messages: American justice is awed [55]. The injustice of American justice seems proven until, at the very last minute, against all odds, the system nally works. The Supreme Court, at Adams urging, honors the countrys sacred documents, and the captives go free. While this conclusion could be seen as rendering meaningless Cinques indictment, the construction of multiple conclusions for the lm suggests that, at best, this triumph of justice is not conclusive. Scenes of the Civil War and text that informs the audience that Cinque returns to Africa to nd his country engulfed in civil war and family sold into slavery end the lm on a sober note. Nobody has really won the day. Given the commitment of both Spielberg and Allen to presenting both a powerful and compelling picture of the captives, it is ironic that black audiences apparently did not nd the lm very appealing. Of those who went to the movie during its rst 2 weeks, DreamWorks claimed that half were black. The Los Angeles Times discovered some enthusiasm. Said one elementary school teacher, Its a good lm It doesnt matter who made it Truth is truth. To think that Spielberg has done something wrong because he documented history, well, hes just reported it and directed it as hes seen t. But in the L.A. Weekly, critic Mahohla Dargis thought that such reactions were unusual. Black audiences were intensely negativethough not always in public [56]. Part of the problem, according to one studio market executive, was in the marketing campaign. Audiences were told that that like medicine Amistad was good for them. It makes no sense in a lm with entertainment value to sell the message rst [57]. How entertaining, however, could the subject matter be for a black middle-class audience? In one of the rst showings of the lm at the Magic Johnson theatre in Baldwin Hills, an African American woman became hysterical during the middle passage sequence and rushed from the theater. I felt like I was on the ship, and it was too much. I just really couldnt take it anymore, she told someone in the lobby. The historical authenticity that Spielberg, Allen and others had sought for the lm made some reluctant to see it at all. Thus, Greg Braxton, writing for the Los Angeles Times observed, the lm and others like Beloved reopened the delicate question of how black and white audiences will respond to realistic depictions of the slavery era. Stan Margulies, the producer for the television series Roots, noted that there had also been strong feelings against dealing with slavery on the part of some members of the black community and especially among black performers when Roots was being made. Although he felt that some of these feelings had moderated, he could understand that African Americans still dont want to be reminded of a time when their lives were not in their control. Actor Robert Guillaume bemoaned the tendency to avoid confrontations with the past. For us to continue to misunderstand attempts to explore the past is to suggest we are not mature enough. But president of the Black Filmmakers foundation, Warrington Hudlin disagreed, saying, Its no wonder black people dont want to go to these movies. Only a masochist would want to spend two hours watching themselves be degraded and dehumanized. A writer for the New York Times identied another reason for blacks failure to go the the movie: resentment. Black audiences were tired of seeing movieland blacks conned to shootouts or slave ships [58].

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African American radio personality, Tom Joyner, was one of many commentators who thought that both black and white audiences should see the lm whether they wanted to or not. But if many African Americans did not want to see abused blacks in rags, some suggested that white audiences were tired of the whole subject [59]. That whites might not like the lm is not entirely surprising given the interpretation the lm offers of white Americans, their motivations, and their values. Those in power, like president Van Buren, are venal and self interested. He and his aides try their best to rig the system just to ensure his reelection. Others, like John C. Calhoun, are willing to rip the country apart and announce the fact during a White House dinner party. Where are well-intentioned and honest white Americans? Where are those who strive to battle the injustices of their world? It is hard to nd them in this movie. The lm focuses its attention on a small group of whites who assist the captives. The most important are the white evangelical abolitionist Lewis Tappan, the abolitionists lawyer, Roger Baldwin, and former president and congressman, John Quincy Adams, who argues the case before the Supreme Court. Aligned with this group is the ctional character, Theodore Joadson. From the rst scene in which he appears, Joadson, played by Morgan Freeman, towers over his colleagues. His dignied appearance, serious expression, and educated northern accent suggest his highmindedness. The lm quickly establishes Joadson as the driving force behind the campaign to free fugitives. He reports having seen them on their way to jail and explains the situation to Lewis Tappan. Not only does he initiate the action to assist the Africans, he is the only one with admirable convictions from the start. The visual shots showing the proximity of the jail where the captives are incarcerated and the white steepled church subliminally readies us for the negative depiction of white abolitionists whose evangelical faith lies behind their antislavery convictions. The lm loses no time in providing insight into the various individuals identied with the abolitionist camp and in overturning any expectations that the audience might have that these are morally admirable people [60]. Roger Baldwin, played by Matthew McConaughey, appears rst in the back of the courtroom where the captives initially confront the justice system and introduces himself to Tappan and Joadson as they leave. It is clear that he wants the job of defending the captives and thinks that his qualications as a real estate lawyer are suitable. I deal with property, he explains. Although he is turned down and left standing in the street, the abolitionists fail to secure someone more suitable to represent the captives. The second time we see Baldwin, he is meeting with Joadson and Tappan. He is also eating, licking his ngers, pointing with his knife, and sucking on the bones of the sh he has just devoured. Obviously, Baldwin is self-seeking, pedestrain, vulgar, though shrewd. He is interested in he case for the nancial rewards it could bring. It is a case, he says, just like any other. Actor Stellan Skarsgards Lewis Tappan is wooden and glum. His shiftiness is suggested by his habit of whispering and the limitations of his convictions by exaggerated, abstract, and clumsy dialogue. He explains that the campaign to free the captives must be wage[d] on the battleeld of righteousness. It is our destiny to save these people, he says. Such statements not only fail to convince, they raise questions about Tappan. Could he really believe what he is saying? Is he interested in the captives as real people? This unsympathetic rendering never suggests that Tappan possesses any generosity of spirit, passion, or authentic conviction. Nor does the movie show him ever doing much to affect the situation of the captives. Aside from President Van Buren, John Quincy Adams is only gure of whom

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audiences might possibly have heard. He is quickly demystied. Our rst introduction to him shows him sleeping during a House session. Directly following this scene, he appears struggling down the stairs of the Capitol to meet with Tappan whom he claims not to know. His aide assures him that he has met Tappan before. Adams hardly pays attention to his visitors; he cannot cannot nd the rose garden only steps away. He refuses to help the abolitionists and repeats that refusal later in the lm. Perhaps he is not in full possession of his faculties. Spielbergs and Allens determination to create authentic Mende characters was obviously not paralleled by an interest in coaching white actors about the historic dimensions of the characters they were playing. Anthony Hopkins developed John Quincy Adams without much help from Spielberg and felt he had some latitude in working out his interpretation. In contrast to his portrayal of Nixon in Oliver Stones lm Nixon, when he had been concerned about capturing what Nixon looked and sounded like because I feared people would believe I was getting it wrong if I missed even a little thing. Hopkins did not have to worry about a knowing audience or apparently existing primary or secondary historical materials about Adams. He certainly did not mention Adams diary. Nobody knows what John Quincy Adams was likebeyond a few paintings, he said, so I was free to invent my own version of him. That allowed me to think about how he might have been and play with that a little. In response the interviewers comment that at rst were not sure just how senile Adams is, Hopkins explained, I wanted to give the appearance that he was a bit scattered in that rst scene. Spielberg encouraged Hopkins who appreciated having the time to let a character develop in front of you. The results pleased Spielberg who stated that all I could do was stand back and admire [61]. These men constitute a sorry band of defenders, and the captives have the greatest contempt for them. They label Baldwin a dung scraper and an idiot. During the rst courrtoom scene where Baldwin will defend them, one of them says, I have a horrible feeling he talks for us. But as the lm progresses, Baldwin and John Quincy Adams are transformed through their contact with Cinque. His moral excellence and intelligence ennoble them and inform them. The dewy-eyed glance that Baldwin exchanges with Cinque at the conclusion of the rst successful courtroom defenses suggest his emotional and moral progress. After the Supreme Court victory, with tears in his eyes, he clasps Cinques hand to his chest in a sign of friendship, and speaks in Mende. The case has long since ceased to be an issue about property. Adams, asked by Cinque what words he used to persuade the court, replies Yours. These transformations were critical to the structure of the lm, as Franzoni explained. The big issue was that Amistad was a lm about Blacks whoon the face of itowe their lives to a pair of white lawyers. My take, and the take that was followed, was that Cinque saves John Quincy Adams just as Adams saves him Cinque freed Adams by getting him to the Supreme Court where he could nally rage against slavery within government and so carry on the work of his father. In Allens view, The Africans uplift everyone. They uplift the Supreme Court, who were just about all pro-slavers, to make that decision. And they uplift the abolitionists, a disenfranchised group who then have an image to come together with [62]. The lms characterization of ordinary antislavery activists, who actually provided crucial support for the effort to free Amistad captives, is clear and uncomplicated and differs dramatically from what the historical sources suggest. As the campaign to end American slavery gained new life in early 1830s, abolitionists, both men and women, formed hundreds of societies, petitioned the government to abolish slavery, ooded the

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mail with antislavery propaganda, went door to door to gain support, and gave lectures to persuade others of the evils of slavery. The threat to the status quo that abolitionism presented so infuriated many northerners that violent mob actions aimed at abolitionists punctuated the decade. Yet, in the lm the abolitionists are not bravely opposing the northern white majority on the subject of slavery. Several brief scenes, with minimal dialogue, present an interpretation of abolitionists as ridiculous and pathetic without any real goal. In their rst brief appearance, a small group, dressed in drab colors, sing Amazing Grace. One singer is slightly off key. In the second, one of them thrusts an unwanted bible into the hands of one of the captives entering the courtroom and promises to pray for him. Our nal glimpse is of them praying and holding crosses in their hands. The comments the abolitionists provoke among the captives reinforce the basic visual message of the short tableaux. Why do they look so miserable? asks one captive while another observes that they look as though they are going to be sick. They are miserable people. Of the white reformers, the concerned abolitionists seem only silly and ineffectual. Baldwin and Adams are redeemed. What about the shadowy Tappan? After winning two rounds of the court battle, the case is appealed to the Supreme Court. In the last scene in which Tappan appears, in a gloomy darkened carriage, Tappan is transformed into a malignant gure whose fanaticism has resulted in evil. He suggests to a horried Joadson that the captives might do more good for the cause dead than alive. This negative depiction of Tappan, ironically, is not so different than that held by his opponents. If ever deeper malignity could be shown to the world than Lewis Tapan has now exemplied we should like to hear of it, declared the New York Morning News in 1838 [63]. This scene did provoke some criticism from Clifton Johnson, founder of Tulanes Amistad Research Center, who served as a consultant for the lm. Producer Debbie Allen, however, defended the key sentence. Clifton has a problem with one line. Tappans words, she suggested, do not make him evil, a rather unconvincing gloss on the scene. In any case, she continued, This is an artistic re-creation. None of us were there when the conversation was spoken [64]. While few would deny that a lm is an artistic re-creation, or that that lmmakers often must invent situations, dialogue, and even characters to tell their stories, the most rudimentary research into Tappans involvement in the case and his abolitionist commitment suggests that he would never have uttered such a statement. The lms negative presentation is distorted not to express what Rosenstone calls a metaphoric or symbolic historical truth but because the desire to give voice to the voiceless and to depict African captives as powerfully resisting the attempt to rob them of their freedom encouraged the lmmakers to adopt a binary structure. Contemptible and/or ridiculous whites primary function was to provide a vivid contrast to the noble captives. The basic vision for the movie led lmmakers to be confused and perhaps disinterested in what conventional history might suggest about white abolitionists. History would make their job harder. Even when when faced by criticism, Allen seemed to be insisting that the dialogue was somehow true in her comment that no one was present when the conversation took place. What for the lmmakers was the boundary between history and fantasy? Legitimate and inappropriate invention? Looking back at the development of the lm, it is hard to be sure. The lmmakers certainly seem to have been confused themselves by the end of the project. DreamWorks studio developed and distributed for classrom use a lm kit that made little effort to point out that the lm was not an accurate representation

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of historical reality. Students, for example, were encouraged to ll out a worksheet explaining the nature of Joadsons relationship with John Quincy Adams, a ctional character and a ctional relationship [65]. Writing in the New York Times in December 1997, Paul Nagel observed, for better or worse, the writers and producers of lms are fast becoming the most inuential chroniclers of the past because many Americans prefer re-enactments of history on a screen to the printed page. A little less kindly, the London Times suggested the American audience wants to know, they do not want to think [66]. If, as some have suggested, lms are chronicles of the past that offer a powerful way of revitalizing social memory, what kind of social memory does the lm offer [67]? Certainly, the notion that blacks resisted enslavement, the graphic view of the cruelties that were part and parcel of slavery and the African slave trade, the acknowledgement of the power of African culture, all enrich social memory, if at times so painfully that some choose to stay away. At the same time, the focus on the Amistad incident may also encourage simplistic connections. As one British journalist pointed out, Its fairly easy to leave Amistad under the mistaken impression that the case pretty much spearheaded the abolition of slavery and sparked off the American Civil War [68]. More problematic is the social memory of white Americans that the lm offers. The white friends of the captives are self-interested, fanatical, and in need of redemption. Evangelical Christians are either malignant or irrelevant. Politicians lack ideals and values and try to manipulate the system. These cynical views may reect what the lmmakers and movie audiences think about contemporary religious groups and politicians, but they do not capture the rhythms of the evangelicalism, reform, and politics of the 1830s. Signicantly, few except historians and members of the Church of Christ questionned the lms interpretation of antebellum reform [69]. In general, probably few Americans have cultural memories of the 1830s or 1840s [70]. While this lm does perform some parts of its role as historical interpretator successfully, and as Jan Lewis suggests, has been faithful to one of the most basic assumptions of the 19th century, that history was a struggle between freedom and oppression, it misses an opportunity to reveal some important aspects of the Amistad story and the period (that need not obscure the messages about the African captives and slavery). It is worth knowing that people, some ordinary and some more important, were prompted by their evangelical beliefs to battle against what they saw as a moral evil in their society. More specically, while their motivations were complex, Roger Baldwin and Lewis Tappan believed strongly enough in their cause that they devoted themselves to freeing the captives and then to raising the money needed to send them back to Africa, at some cost to themselves. As Bertram Wyatt-Brown points out, Tappans efforts coincided with a time of great personal distress. His store in New York was failing, and one of his daughters was suffering from tuberculosis. When she died, he felt obliged to attend a fundraiser for the Africans rather than to follow her cofn to the graveyard. John Quincy Adams recognized Tappans contribution to the successful resolution of the captives plight. The Captives are free! he wrote in a letter to Tappan, But thanks, thanks in the name of humanity and justice, to you [71]. Nor was Adams a reluctant member of the defense team. After the rst round of court battles, he wrote a letter to the New York Journal of Commerce commenting on the calamitous situation of captives and offering his services could I indulge for a moment the hope that any service of mine would save the lives of those most distressed and most injured fellowmen, and our country from the deep damnation of delivering them up to the merciless revenge of their oppressors. Such sentiments owed nothing to senility.

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Adams was playing a vigorous role in opposing the gag rule that tabled antislavery petitions in the House of Representatives. It was a sublime and glorious spectacle, to see that venerable old statesman thus hurl deance into the very teeth of a large majority of the body, in defending the right of petition, observed the Washington correspondent for the Colored American [72]. Robert Rosenstone sugests that there is no reason why lmmakers cannot make a lm about social movements that honors the spirit of the historical record. Amistad reveals some of the difculties of that task. As one documentary lmmaker has pointed out, our need to to believe what we want to believe is a lot stronger than our need to seek the truth. The desire to cast the Amistad events into a simple dramatic framework that highlighted black nobility and contrasted it to white self-interest and baseness discouraged lmmakers from exploring the character of white reformers or the society of which they were a part. The Amistad captives had many enemies in American society but, at best, they are only hinted at. Instead, the white reformers fall into the role of other, a role that also seemed appropriate based on the lmmakers view of the contemporary Christian right. However much Spielberg and others spoke about the past, they found it difcult to escape the present. The reform impulse has played an important part in American history, but apparently it is hard for producers and directors to perceive its importance or dramatic possibilities [73]. Correspondence: Professor Julie Roy Jeffrey, Department of History, Goucher College, 1021 Dulaney Valley Rd., Baltimore, MD 21204, USA. E-mail: riezler@aol.com NOTES
[1] Robert J. Esberg, E-mail interview with David Franzoni, no date. , http://www.wga.org/craft/ interviews/franzoni.html . (5 April 2000); Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1997; George Perry, Steven Spielberg: the making of his movies (London, 1998), pp. 89, 8390; London Times, 26 July 1998; Court considers move to block Amistad release, Jam, 7 December 1997. , http:// www.acmi.canoe.ca/JamMoviesFeaturesA/amistad 1.html . (1 January 2000). [2] United States District Court, Central District of California, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Plaintiff, vs. Dreamworks, Inc., et al. Defendants. , http:wwwsecure.law.cornell.edu/background/amistad/ ruling.html . (6 April 2000). [3] The second Amistad case: outright plagiarism or who owns history?: Chase-Riboud v. Dreamworks, Inc.; Janet Newell, Amistad: who owns history? , http://libarts.udmercy.edu/dep/his/ amistad/amistad/amistadlawsuit.html . (4 June 2000). Newell also discusses other aspects of Chase-Ribouds case which included her claim that her book had been sent to Spielbergs production company in 1988 with the suggestion that the company use the novel as the basis for a movie about the Amistad incident. [4] Ibid., Barbara Chase-Riboud, Plaintiff, vs. Dreamworks, Inc. [5] Jeff Gardinier, Mutiny and the bounty: a $10 million lawsuit over the roots of Amistad threatens Steven Spielbergs long-awaited slave ship drama, 1997. , http://www.ew.com/ew/features/ 971212/amistad/index.html . (5 April 2000); London Times, 26 July 1998. [6] Cary Phillips pointed out in the London Times, 28 February 1998, that the claim to tell the truth was a controversial part of the whole enterprise. The trailer is included on the 1999 DVD of the lm. [7] Bill Gallo, Captivating, Westword.com, 18 December 1997. , http://www- westword.com/1996/ 121897/lm2html . (18 January 2000): London Times, 1 March 1998; Peter Keough, Amistad, Boston Phoenix, 15 December 1997. One wonders how the negative critics would have responded had they been treated to Adams real speech that lasted for hours instead of one that took only a few minutes on screen. , http://www.lmvault.com/lmvault/boston/a/amistad1.html . (13 January 2000). [8] Peter Rainer, Slave to historical fashion, Miami Newtimes.Com., 11 December 1997. , http://

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www.miaminewtimes.com/1997/121197/lm1.html . (18 January 2000); Film review, Syracuse New Times, no date. , http://newtimes.rway.com/lms/amistad.htm . (18 January 2000); Noel Murray, Amistad, NashvilleScene, 22 December 1997. , http://www-lmvault.com/lmvault/nash/ a/amistad1.html . (13 January 2000); London Times, 28 February 1998. James Berardinelli, Amistad, Movie Link, 1997. , http://www.cinema1.com/movies97/ us2.html . (27 October 1999); Keough, Amistad; Where hot lunches Amistad, Gambit Weekly, 22 December 1997. , http://www.lmvault.com/lmvault/gambit/a/amistad2.html . (13 January 2000); Toronto Sun, 12 December 1997; William Stenzel, Amistad, The Anchorage Press, 18 December 1997. , http://document.cfm?issue 5 Dec%2E 1 18%2C 1 1997%2Djan%2e 1 7%2C 1 1998&id 5 607&CLAS . (18 May 2000). Stephen Brown, Block & shackle, Creative Loang, Online: Greenville/Spartanburg, 3 January 1998. , http://web.cln.com/archives/greenville/newsstand/archives/010398/movie2.htm . (18 January 2000). Rainer, Slave to historical fashion; Joe Baltake, Amistad is well-crafted, but passion is missing, Bee, 12 December 1997. , http://www.movieclub.com/reviews/archives/97amistad/ amistad.html . (18 May 2000). In his essay, Walker and Mississippi Burning, in Robert A. Rosenstone (ed.), Revisioning History: lm and the construction of a new past (Princeton, 1995), p. 198, Sumiko Higashi points out that reviewers and the public respond to lms on the basis of conventional views about history. Put simply, such views equate history with objective truth. See Jan Lewis discussion of historians and this lm in the Washington Post, 15 February 1998. Robert Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: the challenge of lm to an idea of history (Cambridge 1995), pp. 14, 31, 35, 67, 69, 126. See also Robert Brent Toplin, History by Hollywood: the use and abuse of the American past (Urbana, 1996). For a view of some of the small and not so small errors, see Eric McKitrick, JQA: for the defense, New York Review of Books, 23 April 1998. , http://www. nybooks.com/nyrev/wwwarchdisplay.dgi?1998042053R . (4 November 1999). Caryl Phillips made the observation about language in the London Times. 28 February 1998. Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1997; Howard Jones, A historian goes to Hollywood: the Spielberg touch, Perspectives Online, December, 1997. , http://chnm.gmu.edu/aha/persp/ advanced.taf?function 5 detail/Layout1 uidl 5 80 . (24 January 2000). Rosenstone, Visions of the Past, p. 14. Steven Spielberg, Maya Angelou and Debbie Allen, Amistad: give us free (New York, 1998), pp. 9, 14. Interview by Iain Blair, Producer Debbie Allen reects on Amistad, Short Takes, December 1997. , http://205.177-58.134/lm/lm december97/1297short.htm . (5 April 2000). Allen described her reaction to coming across the story in essentially the same terms many times. See, for example, Bruce Kirkland, La Amistad sails out of darkness, Toronto Sun, 7 December 1997. , http://www.acmi.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsS/spielberg.html . (18 January 2000). Spielberg, Allen, and even Franzoni discussed the lm at some length in a variety of interviews that I have drawn upon to reconstruct the creation of this lm. Ibid., Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free, p. 14; Joseph McBride, Free at last: with Spielbergs Amistad, Debbie Allens ship comes in, BoxOfce Online, 1999. , http://wwww.boxofce.com/ dec97story3.html . (15 April 2000) Gardinier, Mutiny and the bounty. Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free, p. 14; Los Angeles Times, 1 February 1998; Blair, Short takes; Dion M. Harris, Voted most likely Amistad, GambitWeekly, 8 December 1997. , http:// www.lmvault/gambit/a/amistadl.html . (13 January 2000); Gardinier, Mutiny and the Bounty. Harris, Voted most likely, New York Times, 20 December 1997; Howard, A historian goes to Hollywood. Kirkland, La Amistad sails out of darkness, Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1997. Harris, Voted most likely. New York Times, 7 September 1997; 14 February 1999. New York Times, 7 September 1996; Louis R. Hobson, Spielberg gets real: latest war epic no ight of fancy, Calgary Sun, 18 July 1998. , http://www.acmi.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsS/ spielberg.html . (18 January 2000). Los Angeles Times, 1 February 1998. Higashi, Walker and Mississippi Burning, in Rosenstone (ed.), Revisioning History, pp. 188189; Los Angeles Times, 1 February 1998: Howard Jones, A historian goes to Hollywood; and personal communication from Howard Jones to the author, 27 April 2000. Clifton Johnson, emeritus director of the Amistad Research Center, was one of the ofcial consultants for the project. Kirkland, La Amistad sails out of darkness. Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free p. 38; Elisberg (ed), E-mail interview with David Franzoni. Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free pp. 17, 39; Blair, Allen reects on Amistad; Los Angeles Times, 15 December 1997.

[9]

[10]

[11] [12]

[13]

[14] [15]

[16]

[17]

[18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

[23]

[24] [25] [26]

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[27] Personal communication from Howard Jones; Spielberg et al, Amistad: give us free, pp. 122123, 1718. Tellingly, the suggested reading list, p. 124, contains no work on abolitionism in general and only one book on any of the white characters, Paul Nagles biography of John Quincy Adams. McKitrick, in JQA: for the defense, suggested that Nagles interpretation was badly awed. Blair, Allen reects on Amistad. [28] Spielberg et al, Amistad: give us free, p. 39. [29] Elisberg (ed.) Interview with Franzoni; Harris, Voted most likely to succeed; Hollywood online: casting history, no date. , http://www.scrufes.net/spielberg/movies/amistad/amistad_ article_3.html . (13 January 2000). [30] Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free, p. 32; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Amistad, Journal of American History, 85 (December 1998), p. 1175; McKitrick, JQA: for the defense. [31] Gardinier, Mutiny and the bounty. [32] Blair, Allen reects; Harris, Voted most likely. [33] Ibid., Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free p. 47. [34] Gardinier, Mutiny and the bounty; Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free, p. 47; Culture clash, Hollywood Online, no date. , http://www.scrufes.net/spielberg/movies/amistad/smistad_article_4. html . (13 January 2000). [35] Los Angeles Times, 9 March 1998, Hollywood online: casting history. [36] Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1997; Washington Post, 10 December 1997. [37] Ibid., Making of the Amistad (1997), on Amistad DVD (1999). [38] Culture clash, Hollywood Online. Hounsou revealed that he felt humiliated the rst day he wore the chains and walked through the streets towards the jail. Making of Amistad, on Amistad DVD. [39] Resurrecting the past, Hollywood Online, no date. , http://www.scrufes.net/spielberg/movies/ amistad/amistad_article_5.html . (13 January 2000); Spielberg et al., Amistad: give us free, p. 63. [40] Personal communication from Howard Jones. It is not clear whether the short piece Making of Amistad included on the 1999 DVD is one of these promotions. One of its rst titles proclaims, A True Story Directed by Steven Spielberg. [41] John Horn, Judge refuses move to block release of Spielberg lm, JamMovies, 9 December 1997. , http://www.acmi.canoe.ca/JamMoviesFeaturesA/amistad_1.html . (18 January 2000), Los Angeles Times, 28 March, 1997; New York Times, 14 February 1999. [42] New York Commercial Advertiser, 16 June 1840. , http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/news/ nvca/1840.06.16.pealemusm.html . (24 January 2000); the phrase giving voice to the voiceless, is Rostenstones. Visions of the Past, p. 8. [43] New York Times, 10 December 1997; cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, explained his primary palette and his technique of using smoke between the lens and the actors to take out color in Resurrecting the Past. [44] Ira Berlin, Gone with the wind, Los Angeles Times, 4 July 1999. [45] See Ibrahim Sundiata, The Amistad: Spielberg, Jews, Blacks, and Latins, Dissonance, 1997. , http://www.way.net/dissonance/amistad.html . (5 May 2000). [46] Article from the Herald of Freedom reprinted in the Colored American, 19 October 1839. , http:// amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/news/col.am/1839.10.19.cinque.html . (24 January 2000). Keough, Amistad. [47] William P. and Joan M. Coleman, Amistad, Reviews and Reections, 5 March 14 May 1998. , http://www.wpcmath.com/lms/amistad/amistad2.html . (13 January 2000). New York Times, 14 February 1999. [48] Jesse Lemisch, Black agency in the Amistad uprising: or, youve taken our Cinque and gone, Souls: a critical journal of black politics, culture, and society, 1 (1999), pp. 57, 59. [49] Rainer, Slave to historical fashion. [50] Jones, A historian goes to Hollywood. [51] For much of the mutiny scene, the camera captures the scene from the vantage point of the Spaniards. Viewers along with the Spaniards see shadowy menacing gures approaching with the clear intent to kill. For stereotypes, see William L. Van Deburg, A popular culture prophecy: black American slavery in lm, in Robert Brent Toplin (ed.), Hollywood as Mirror: changing views of outsiders and enemies in American movies (Westport, 1993), pp. 21, 27; Wyatt-Brown, p. 1174, also noted that the audience was unlikely to identify with the captives in these opening scenes. [52] Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1997; Stephen Dubner reports Spielberg saying, The majority of my lms I have made to please people. New York Times, 14 February 1999.

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[53] In one version of the script, linked with Franzonis e-mail interview, the bible scene is included. In this scene, Cinque is critical of the other captives receptiveness to Christianity. This dialogue and scene does not appear in the lm. Perhaps Steve Zaillian cut it when he polished the script. Elisberg (ed.), interview with Franzoni. [54] Van Deburg, A popular culture prophecy, pp. 2122. [55] The murky interior of the jail and the courtrooms give visual expression to the theme of injustice. [56] Los Angeles Times, 25 December 1997. [57] Los Angeles Times, 29 October 1998. [58] Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1998; New York Times, 10 June 1999. [59] New York Times, 10 June 1999. [60] Toplin in History by Hollywood, p. 13, points out that one favorite Hollywood myth highlights the morally superior person who ghts for justice. While Spielberg rejects this myth, he relies on two others: suspicion of those in power and the struggle of the weak against the strong. [61] Patrick Stoner, Interview: Anthony Hopkins, Flicks, no date. 18 January 2000. , http:// www.whyy.org/icks/Hopkins_Amistad_interview.html . (18 January 2000). London Times, 14 February 1998. 1998. Hopkins performance was praised by Spielberg, who said that it made him feel like I was actually there back in time. Casting history, Hollywood on Line. Morgan Freeman described hs approach to playing the ctional Joadson in the following way: You dont have to get into any particular frame of mind. The frame of mind was not the 1830s but work. There are not tricks, no submersions, just put on the costume and learn the words. Washington Post, 10 December 1997. [62] Franzoni, Interview; McBride, Debbie Allens ship comes in. [63] New York Morning Herald, 18 October 1838, p. 2. , http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/ news/nymh/1839.10.18r.m.arrest.html . (24 January 2000). [64] Harris, Voted most likely. [65] Sundiata, Spielberg, Jews, Blacks, and Latins. [66] New York Times, 20 December 1997; London Times, 28 February 1998. [67] Burgoyne, Film Nation, p. 4. [68] London Times, 1 March 1998. [69] Besides for Wyatt-Brown, McKitrtrick, and Lemisch, already noted, Eric Foner in a letter to the New York Times, 20 December 1997 and Simon Schama in an article in the New Yorker, 19 January 1998, among others, discussed the movies inaccuracies. The negative picture of the abolitionists was criticized by Helen Halyard, Amistad: some historical considerations, World Socialist Web Site, February 1998. , http://www.wsws.org/arts/1998/feb1998/amist.shtml . (18 May 2000); and William C. Winslow, Movie Amistad fails to recognize religious role in story, UCC leader says, United Church of Christ News Releases, no date. , http://www.ucc.org/ headline/amirel2.htm . (24 January 2000). The American Historical Association featured a session on the lm at its 2000 annual meeting. [70] Ibid., p. 105. [71] Washington Post, 15 February 1998; Wyatt-Brown, Amistad, p. 1175. [72] New York Journal of Commerce, 25 December 1839; Colored American, 30 January 1841. [73] Rosenstone, Visions of the Past, p. 30; the documentary lmmaker is Errol Morris. Quoted in Jeanne Braham, Crucial Conversations: Interpreting Contemporary American Literary Autobiographies by Women (New York, 1995), p. 46. Julie Roy Jeffrey is Professor of History at Goucher College. Her most recent book is The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)