Date: Fri 02-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Playing-Amistad-Spielberg

Full Text:

(rev "Amistad" for Now Playing)

"Amistad" Is A Strong Artistic Success For Director Spielberg

By Trey Paul Alexander III

It begins, a moment obscured in disorienting darkness. Something glistens in

the midst of a midnight dim and unclear. Could it be a man? If so, what is he

doing? He appears to be clawing at something, but what?

Before long into Steven Spielberg's newest film, Amistad , we go from this

intense gazing at the screen - trying to decipher what in the world is going

on - to nearly suffering an extreme case of whiplash as a brutal sequence of

unblinking violence and bloodshed erupts. It is a harsh, graphic scene, but

also one of Spielberg's most kinetic and visually inspired in years, and it

opens Spielberg's first "serious" film since his Oscar-winning triumph, 1995's

Schindler's List .

Currently playing at Bethel Cinema, Amistad cares not to be as definitive an

epic on the atrocities of slavery as Schindler's List was on the horrors of

the Holocaust, but rather takes an incident that has been pushed to the

appendix of our national history's consciousness - an 1839 slave revolt aboard

a vessel that eventually found its way onto the Connecticut coast and

subsequently led to the African insurrectionists being put on trial for murder

and piracy - and seeks to use it as commentary on, yes, the atrocities of

slavery, but also the subtle and overt manifestations of racism and the often

perturbing manipulations of law, justice and politics to suit one's own gains

and desires instead of what is right.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is Spielberg's approach to

these events as he attempts to cast the audience as impartial (or at least, as

impartial as one can be when watching one group of human beings trying to

subjugate and dehumanize another group) observers of the circumstances before

them, rather than set them up as holier-than-thou judges of their

idealistically inferior ancestors. This is done, beginning with the opening

frames, by slyly keeping us off-balance and unsure of exactly what is

happening before us.

In some cases, this means giving the audience scenes with little or no

dialogue and only later in the film explaining what has gone before us. (One

frightening sequence depicts the inhumane cruelties of slavery yet leaves many

actions unexplained.) In others it means whole scenes in which the Africans

speak their native tongue, Mende, without the presence of subtitles. We are

wondering, what are they saying? Spielberg is constantly challenging us to

interpret what is happening before us and form our own conclusions (even if

those suppositions may eventually prove incorrect) so that when the inevitable

"message" speeches are made, they are given more weight because we feel we

have traveled along with these characters instead of just waiting two and a

half hours to see them catch up to us.

A key to Spielberg's success with Amistad is the performances of his lead

actors, including Matthew McConaughey (as another young, eager attorney),

Anthony Hopkins (as former President John Quincy Adams) and a host of other

capable talents, including Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, and Pete

Postelthwaite. Most impressive among them is relative newcomer Djimon Hounsou,

who portrays the role of Cinque, the leader of the slave uprising. As

mentioned above, very little English is involved in this portrayal, but much

is communicated through Hounsou's charismatic, commanding presence. He is not

a fellow to be ignored, and Spielberg and his screenwriters, using some

dramatic license (to conjure up a meeting between Cinque and Adams which

allegedly never took place), make sure Cinque is not conveyed as a passive

black man waiting to be saved by the white lawyers, but is instead a

triumphant man who imparts lessons to the very men seeking to regain his

freedom.

Amistad , rated R for some intense scenes of violence and slave brutality, is

a strong artistic success for Spielberg. Though it may not stand the test of

time as a great film to stand alongside his Schindler's List , it is a very

good film that undoubtedly should stand as one of 1997's best entries.