Exquisitely made feelgood schlock which ultimately tells a big lie

Rating: 5/10 (1 April 2012)

As a film, as entertainment, as a night at the flicks, as a great way to spend well over two hours wallowing in non-stop feelgoodery Amistad is superb, and Steven Spielberg does quite brilliantly what only he and a few others can achieve. The acting is the finest, his actors are the finest, his script is the finest, his direction in which he balances action with reflection is the finest, and no doubt as for cinematography, sound design, editing and the rest a man of Spielberg's stature in the industry is able to employ the finest professionals working in film-making and he so obviously does so.
So why do I feel that at the end of the day Spielberg's Amistad is simply nothing but 154 minutes of appalling sentimental schlock and, worse, appalling and dishonest sentimental schlock. I have no doubt that after watching Amistad Americans in their thousands have left the cinemas or turned off their DVD player and thought to themselves or even said out aloud: We are the finest nation on Earth and while we exist, the world is truly a better place. Well, perhaps all those who did and do so might care to pause a moment or two and ask themselves why the proportion of black and coloured inmates in U.S. jails compared to whites is still higher than the proportion of blacks and coloureds which make up the population of the U.S. They might care to ask themselves why a higher proportion of blacks and coloureds are unemployed, live in poverty and have a far lower standard of education. They might care to ask themselves why, almost 60 years after the hearing of the Amistad case before the Supreme Court the so-called Jim Crow laws were enacted denying blacks anything but equality with whites.
But it's just a film, you might be saying, come on, don't be so uptight about it. Well, granted that it's not just the Americans but we Brits and the French, the Germans, the Russians, in fact every nation on earth who regularly chose to rewrite its history in films, novels, plays and poetry the calumny is not isolated or even unusual. We Brits like to bang on about what a civilising influence our glorious empire was and ignore completely the misery its establishment engendered and the huge number of deaths that were thought necessary for it to continue civilising 'savages'. And what after all, you might care to argue, is the 'truth'? One man's truth is another man's folly, perhaps, or one man's open mind is another man's gullibility. Well, I'll gracefully take the point but respond by pointing out the facts I cited above of the comparative freedoms and affluence of blacks and coloureds compared to whites in America. And I might ask why, when Hurricane Katrina devastated large parts of New Orleans, was hardly any assistance offered for several days? Why, it might be something to do with the fact that establishment America didn't and doesn't quite rate a black chocolate city like New Orleans has high as rather more top-drawer municipalities (although down-at-heel white communities aren't exactly privileged). And when we talk of 'establishment America', we might add that Hollywood and its filmmakers are one of its essential constituent parts.
By all means enjoy Amistad as a film, a piece of fiction, but please don't run away with the idea that despite portraying historical incidents - although one larded with fictional characters: Morgan Freeman's dandified citizen is especially offensive, particularly since every other black face in the film is, if not an African from the Amistad, a servant or pauper. The incessant and remorseless feelgood soundtrack should serve as a warning: on and on and on it goes, all patriotic flutes, trumpets, syrupy strings. A good case could be made about accompanying some film soundtracks with the notice that 'this soundtrack can adversely influence your judgement'. When a 15-minute scene of a grand American figure such as John Quincy Adams grandly making grandly patriotic observations has a backdrop of such a patriotic melange of flutes, trumpets and strings, you just know something very rum is going on.
Giving Amistad a rating presents a real problem: as filmmaking it is very fine indeed and Spielberg is a filmmaker almost without peer. But unfortunately a film which sets out to do what he has attempted to do needs more, not least true honesty, so this one, Stevie, can only get a five, because five is halfway between zero and ten.