Blog 8 Amistad

I really liked the movie Amistad and found it really informatice. As of right now I think I’m going to do a film minor here at BYU and so I am quite interested in film. I also believe that Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins are both very talented actors. Even though I believe this I think that the best actor in Amistad was Djimon Hounsou who played Cinque. His portrayal of what it was like to be sold into slavery was quite moving. The scene where Cinque explains how he became a slave was very shocking and I imagine it is not even close to the other horrors that happened to slaves. The reason that I believe slaves were so easy to buy was because the slave traders had Africans hunting there own kind. The white slave traders did not know the lay of the land in Africa but the Africans that worked for them did. The white slave traders did not have to do the dirty work of capturing the slaves they just had to bring firearms and other goods that they could trade for slaves. The movie really illustrated this point when it showed Cinque getting hit in the head and taken away from his tribe and family. However, even though this scene illustrated slavery, I believe that the images of being on the slave ship were the most shocking and they helped me visualize the horrors of slavery the best. The slave ship was of course horrible conditions. All of the African slaves were chained up with no room to really even lie down. There are two scenes of this movie that I believe will stay in my head for a long time. These two being when the African slaves were being fed in the bottom of the ship and the scene where they throw the slaves off of the boat, because they do not have enough food for them. The scene where they are being passed out food is just pure cruelty. All of the African slaves are all underfed, and because of this they are all desperately reaching out for food. The food that they the slave ship crew is feeding them looks pretty gross but sense the slaves are so underfed they are gobbling it up. The slave crew is also very selective of who they actually feed. The African slaves to not have bowls or plates, they are being fed directly into there hands. The slaves who are not being fed are just trying to get any scrapes they can get. Watching this process brought a chill that went up and down my spine. I tried to think of what it would be like, but for the most part I could not even fathom what being in those conditions would be like. I can’t imagine how someone can treat another human being like that. These images reminded me of the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. I have a very hard time understanding how the Nazis can use propaganda so effectively to de-humanize a whole race and treat them as horrible as they did. I believe that the concentration camps and the slave trade were very similar as they both dehumanized large groups of people. The second scene that really affected me was when the crewmembers of the slave ship threw about fifty slaves off the ship. I feel that it was so disturbing to me because many of the slaves were women and children and so they were screaming. From a business stand point it also amazes me how profitable the slave trade was. The slave ship could just kill off many of their slaves and still have a profitable journey. This fact astounds me. In the trial scene they bring up this question again and the British general (I do not know exactly what rank he was) talks about how lucrative a business the slave trade was. This movie really helped me see the terrors of slave trade better then I could before. Some members of our class talked about how they did not like watching movies in class. I remember one girl even went as far as saying something like “I’m not in high school anymore so I don’t want to watch dumb movies.” I have to completely disagree with her. Even though I did not really enjoy the movie A More Perfect Union, I found both Amistad and the John Adams mini series very informative. I was very happy that I had the opportunity to watch this movie, I know that I probably would not have watched it if it wasn’t in this class. Amistad really helped me visualize better then I ever could before.