Having done so, Spielberg is able to outline around this scene the extremely complex ways the Africans' freedom comes about. Just as metaphors are slipshod, so are the concrete delineations between right and wrong, property and flesh, reason and might. Pictures and sounds become the feeling en masse, representing our complex past through myriad icons. A nail become a rock, becomes a sword, becomes a slave, becomes a map, becomes an issue. Language is the void between peace.
Story becomes reason.
Eloquence becomes law where law becomes mute. And the result is history recanted, where whole corridors of forgotten thoughts and characters and their subsequent symbols are lit. The extension of this result is that the audience becomes redeemed by this forgotten world saga. The question is poignant for the viewer as well. Through the film, you will become each of these characters, just as they become each other through telling and fighting together.