| politically from the incident,
being attacked by southern politicians. With the "Amistad" being no ship
for transatlantic voyages, but the Blacks presumably not being slaves from
the Caribbean islands, the following trial primarily has to deal with the
question where they actually come from. In case they were born as slaves,
they would be regarded as "freight", and Isabella's claims of possession
could be considered as legal, whereas in case they were abducted from Africa,
they - as free human beings - would have to be released, as enslavement
was already forbidden in the United States at that time.
But this absurd distinction does not but
illustrate the inhumanity of slavery. And unfortunately, it's this juridicial
controversy - and not the topic of slavery as such - which appears to be
the core theme of Spielberg's film. Therefore, Amistad turns out
to be a film about the contradiction between theory and practise of the
ideals laid down in the U.S. Declaration of Independence rather than about
slavery. Consequently, the focus of the film changes gradually towards
an almost completely "white" point of view. The group of the Africans are
more and more reduced to one single person, their leader Cinque (Djimon
Hounsou) who, nevertheless, plays only a subordinate role. |
President Van Buren
(Nigel Hawthorne)
Cinque (Djimon Hounsou)
|
