Wiki for Dr. McClurkens Courses

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======How does this movie work as a secondary source about the past? What does the movie get right about history?======

As with all historical films, there is always an aspect of surrealism embedded within the narrative, and in the case of Spielberg’s Amistad, I’d argue that it remains historically true, with its embellishments—that being its dialogue and generated characters, such as Morgan Freeman’s Theodore Joadson—emphasizing the movie's messaging, rather than hindering it. First, while a great portion of the film delves into the Amistad case in a judicial setting, I want to reflect back on the film’s depiction of the voyage of the enslaved Mende people and its correlation to an excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, specifically the portrayal of the voyage itself. Olaudah Equiano retells how he, and many other such enslaved people, were confined within the ship’s cargo hold, only perpetuating their poor conditions with “the heat of the climate, added to the number on the ship, which was crowded…almost suffocated us.” Cinque’s owns summary of the Middle Passage is a near replica of this exact scenario, and it's visually portrayed with a deep, unsettling poignancy as they suffer under the abuse of their Spanish captors upon the La Amistad. - Bailee E.

This movie gets a lot right about the story of La Amistad. It gets right that it was often Africans kidnapping other Africans to then sell to European traders for hard to obtain goods like guns. The scenes showing the middle passage are also incredibly and terrifyingly accurate, showing the true brutality of the process, as well as the odd mix of Christianity (when they get on the boat, there is a priest there). The story of these specific captives is also told truthfully; they are first sold in Havana by Portuguese slave traders to Spanish ones who plan to take them to another part of Cuba, but when the captives revolt, they keep two enslavers alive to get them back to Africa however secretly direct the ship to America where the situation immediately plays out in the courts. This movie too considers the U.S. political system and the political intrigue that would play into the case’s appeal to the Supreme Court. We are also shown the appeals of Spanish Queen Isabella II, even if they are a little exaggerated (example being when she is shown jumping up and down on a bed). One other truth that is very rarely shown in similar films is the cultural divide of the different groups, there are three languages that are being thrown around here — English, Spanish, and Mende. Of course, there would be difficulty in understanding the captives and of course it would be hard finding a translator. Similarly, the cultural practices of the African captives and Americans feel so alien to each group. The scene where Baldwin is trying to explain to Cinque that they must try the case again and Cinque’s confusion over how one can simply get rid of a “chief” drives this point home, the two parties are coming from such different political and cultural understandings. While the movie does take some fictional liberties — like in the amalgamation character of Joadson — the movie remains astoundingly accurate.  – Nora M.

The film does a good job of showcasing a reconstruction of the Middle Passage, prioritizing historical gravity and the scale of brutality over audience comfort. One example that stood out to me was the inclusion of the Lomboko slave fortress, in which the film strips away the romanticism often associated with historical dramas, grounding the narrative in the systemic betrayal of Africans by both local tribes and European enslavers. The inclusion of specific  details such as the forced dancing with the crewmen and exercise to maintain muscle mass, the starvation-level rations, and the acts of captives throwing themselves overboard, showcasing their last bit of agency, serves to confront the audience with a small taste of the dehumanizing nature of the centuries-long transatlantic slave trade. These sometimes fleeting moments of historical fact are essential to the film's integrity, serving as testimonies to the suffering endured by real individuals. These moments collectively dismantle the sanitized version of history that we are so often fed in mass media. The film captures how these individuals were reduced to cargo and trapped in a horrific liminal space where their humanity and agency was systematically stripped from them. The film also focused on the linguistic divide that highlighted the deep, intentional divide between the captors and the captive. By emphasizing this barrier, the film illustrates how language was weaponized to strip the captives of their identity, ensuring they remained "others" in the eyes of their oppressors in a very dehumanizing way. - Izabella M

While like nearly all films, Amistad does have some fictionalized elements, such as Morgan Freeman’s character and some of the finer details regarding the involvement of John Quincy Adams, most of the historical events portrayed in Amistad are accurate. The depiction of the “Middle Passage” trip taken by slave ships was highly accurate to given accounts, even as the violent nature of how slaves were treated would have been difficult for audiences to stomach. Many of the political figures in the film, such as John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren, are accurate to their historical counterparts as well, mainly through their political motivations. Additionally, the facts of the Amistad case are accurate in the film, with the process of the slaves’ case moving through various courts after being appealed by the United States. - Hunter M.

Amistad gets right about the various countries which were involved in the transatlantic slave trade. In Sengbe’s capture, we see how European powers made deals with local tribes within Western Africa to capture slaves through trading resources and military items. The narrative then follows the Portuguese ship to Cuba where the slaves are sold to Spaniards—and, throughout the film, the Spanish play a key role (especially Queen Isabella II) in urging the Americans to uphold slavery. The British are also seen during the trial and when the Royal Marines destroy Lomboko. Amistad does a relatively decent job at showing the variety of colonial and local powers which were involved in the slave trade. - Aaliyah A.

Going into the movie this week, I only read a brief synopsis about the story on Google, and I had no idea how significant this movie was in terms of its portrayal of the Middle Passage and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Our small group discussed some of this in class on Tuesday, but I think it's important to note that in the scene where Cinque was being kidnapped, the movie showed that he was captured by other Africans, highlighting a very critical element to understanding the dynamics surrounding the slave trade that Africans would participate in kidnapping other Africans in order to receive goods, like guns, from the Europeans. The visual representation of the Middle Passage brings understanding this part of history to a new level as the American public has read about or heard of accounts of the Middle Passage, like the one written by Equiano, in the past, but seeing it happen to people is an entirely different experience. While it's graphic and hard to watch, it's so important to see details like the distribution of food aboard the ship or the way people threw themselves into the ocean to really get a grasp on how inhumane and horrific the experience was. -- Grayson D.

======Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact?======

Now, although I previously stated that I believe Spielberg’s embellishments of the narrative enhance the film’s messaging, that does not directly imply that all are intrinsically accurate, or that the film aims to pretend to be so. One such case is the letter addressed to John Quincy Adams. In the film, Roger Sherman Baldwin, the lawyer presiding over the Aimstad case and the 32nd governor of Connecticut, writes it as he pleads for Adams to support their case as it ascends to the Supreme Court. However, the original letter—referenced, but not accurately depicted in the film—was written by a young boy named Kale (https://www.masshist.org/database/16
), one of the defendants, who appeals to Adams' “love (of the) Mendi people.” In the original document, there is a distinct lack of classical recall, or a Ciceronian quotation, but a simple question: “We want you to ask the Court what we have done wrong.” - Bailee E.

The historical inaccuracies of this movie, while present, are thankfully less vivid than in other films. The story is obviously dramatized, but still reflects historical accounts of the transatlantic journey, and pretty accurately depicts the conditions on the ship, and how people end up being captured by slavers. And while I understand the need to simplify a story enough to fit onto a screen for under three hours, a blaring error was a generalization of the Africans being transported. In the film, they were all of the Mende people. They could speak the same language, had the same traditions, and dressed similarly. But in reality, there were multiple cultures represented. A lot from the Mende, but also from the Congo and other Central African regions. -Katie D.
======How does the film’s overall interpretation(s) deviate from scholarly historical sources (as presented in class)?======

This movie placed a heavy emphasis on the moral questions of slavery and put that into the arguments made by the lawyers who were representing the captured from La Amistad. John Quincy Adams gives a rousing speech to the Supreme Court full of references to American founding fathers and documents as well as to the natural state of man — that of course being that all men are and should be free. By placing these arguments at the end of the movie, ultimately being one of the last arguments we hear, the audience may assume that this is ultimately what won the case. However, the case was really won on technicalities — the captives were born in Africa and were illegally transported, the Treaty of San Lorenzo did not apply to human beings, and the mutiny was an act of self-defense. The beginning of the movie does emphasize these original points and technicalities, but by leaving the audience with moral questions about the basis of the nation, it is trying to connect with an American audience and demonstrate that ultimately our belief in freedom will win. This interpretation does leave the audience with lots to think about, however, it may deceive the audience into believing this total win of American morals. – Nora M.
======How does this movie work as a primary source about the time in which it was made?======

The movie was released in 1997. This is at the tail end of the great surge of patriotism, and post soviet collapse. All the other films shown in the class were also released in the 1990s, with the exception of The Patriot. During this time period, I believe there was an increase in multicultural representation in films, or at least greater diversity of stories shared. Amistad is one of them, as viscerally brutal depictions of slavery were seldom shown in movies. This makes it a powerful source for viewers, especially coming from such a famous director, of a realistic depiction of slavery, from the perspective of someone who was captured and transported. While the film was generally anti-slavery, I did get a vibe of putting trust back into independent courts, or at least some American exceptionalism during Adams’ speech in front of the supreme court. This is fitting of the time period, as in the 1990s American global hegemony was standing, and the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in a surge of pro-American media, or more introspection into American history. -Katie D.

Amistad works as a primary source about the time in which it was made in terms of the rise of multiculturalism found in the 90s. This is seen through the depictions of the Mende people, most notably during the Middle Passage sequence in the film. Instead of shying away from the hard truths about slavery, this film shows the lining up of naked Africans inside the ship, the experience of women during this trip, and the brutal murdering of “sick” slaves. Through this sequence and the overall humanization of Sengbe, Amistad indicates the widening expansion of how Black histories and cultures were represented during the late 90s. —Aaliyah A.

Amistad works as a primary source because it showed how people in the 1990s chose to represent slavery, the slave trade, and the legal fight over the Amistad captives. The movie focuses a lot on freedom, justice, and the idea of America trying to live up to its own values. Even though the movie is about events from the 1830s, the way these events are portrayed reflects the attitudes and historical understanding of the 1990s. It shows us more about how the filmmakers wanted modern audiences to understand slavery than exactly how everything happened.— Cait. Edwards. 
======The "So What" Question -- Why should we care about the movie and its version of history?======

This is one of the only movies with very vivid depictions of the middle passage. That should be reason enough to care about this film because we can read about the brutality of the slave trade all we like, but to witness individuals being crammed into ships, the sounds of screaming and whips, and the casual violence is revolting. One of the most intense scenes is seeing some of the captives being chained together and then being chained to rocks — they slide off the deck together, drowning. The reason behind this was that the crew of the slave ship had miscalculated the number of stores they had, so the enslavers thought it better to kill some of the supposedly “sick” than to try to divide the supplies amongst all the captives. Instead of shooting or stabbing their victims, the enslavers chose an incredible brutal way to do it — drowning is typically not a quick death. Those killed see their fate as they slide off the deck together, screaming and pleading to no effect. Rare is this sort of brutality mentioned in schools or in popular retellings of the middle passage, but here the filmmakers lay it bare for all to see. The violence and brutality that so many people faced during the Atlantic Slave Trade cannot be forgotten. The violence and brutality that this nation was founded on cannot be forgotten. – Nora M.

Amistad (1997) is essential to the history of film because it doesn’t sugarcoat the reality of those who were captured and forced to sail across the Middle Passage. You can tell the amount of care put forth into researching historical shipping logs, court records, personal narratives and accounts from the era. Amistad avoids the pitfalls of a completely fabricated historical fiction, instead grounding its narrative in the events that transpired aboard La Amistad and the events following. Of course, we don’t have every second of every encounter documented, and the film takes its liberties in filling in the blanks that have since been lost to time , but I think the film does a good job overall in engaging with the documented reality of the transatlantic slave trade. In Amistad, the Middle Passage is not merely a plot point, but a central presence that demands the audience’s full emotional and intellectual engagement to truly understand and appreciate. I think we should care simply because this film serves as a strong bridge between historical analysis and public memory. By weaving verifiable details into a true story (albeit a dramatized version of one) that audiences are able to follow along with, it honors the agency and suffering of those who were ultimately silenced by the historical record. It ensures that the gravity of these events are not forgotten or trivialized, but confronted with the weight they deserve.- Izabella M

Why should we care about the movie and its version of history? -
Amistad is certainly worth caring about, because it makes an active effort to portray the violence of slavery accurately, despite being potentially unpalatable to audiences. While other movies like The Patriot released near the same time would often ignore or downplay slavery, it is evident that the goal of Amistad was the exact opposite. This movie’s version of history was mostly accurate at a time when many other historical films were taking much greater creative liberties in terms of historical accuracy, and this helps it stand out from its contemporaries. People should care about movies like Amistad, because the accuracy of how slavery and the Middle Passage in particular are shown is an important historical lesson for audiences to learn. Society at large would have very different perspectives of slavery if the only depictions of it in film came in the form of movies like The Patriot. Instead, movies like Amistad exist that are willing to show how brutal slavery was. - Hunter M.

I think we should care about Amistad because movies like this can shape how people remember history, especially when they learn about a historical event through a movie instead of a textbook. The movie brings attention to the Amistad captives and the realities of slavery, but it also changes or simplifies parts of the history to make the story more dramatic and understandable for the audience. Even if every detail is not historically accurate, the movie is still useful for seeing how the 1990s viewed and talked about America’s history with slavery. So, I think we should care about the movie because it shows both the history itself and how that history was being remembered and represented when the movie was made. I also think we should care about this movie because it didn’t sugar coat or span the camera away from what was happening during violent scenes (Cinque being kidnapped and forced onto the slave ships. The conditions people were put under on these ships. The group being pushed off the ship to drowned by rocks because they were seen as ‘ill/unworking/etc’.) the scenes helped really push the horrible conditions these people were experiencing at these times and made viewers face the reality of the worlds dark history. —-Cait. Edwards.

Some of the movies we've watched in previous weeks, like The Patriot in particular, have kind of strayed away from confronting the ugly truths about America's past and the way racism has had a role to play in many significant events in the nation's history. I would say Amistad leans in the other direction in this regard and shows that you can be historically accurate or show "darker" historical events and still be relatively successful and well received by audiences. This ties into one of the themes I think I wrote about answering this same question last week about what and how do filmmakers choose what to be left out of a historical film and why, and this movie shows that you can have a dramatic story that captures the audiences attention, depict real historical events, and simultaneously not white wash American history for the sake of appealing to the majority of the American audience. -- Grayson D.

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