Amistad Analysis

The Amistad movie in my opinion was good when depicting certain aspects like the tensions between the abolitionist and the slave advocates as well as the race relations between the slaves and everyone else. When it comes to the sectional tensions in the north there where the abolitionist and those who wish to keep slavery in tacked, because they fear that abolishing it would disrupt the everyday lives of the citizens. Meaning, if the rule to let go of the slaves where to be put in motion, then the outcome could be the start of a civil war between the North and the South. In one scene where there was a large dinner party, Calhoun spoke to John Quincy Adams and said that “people in the south ignore that slavery is so interwoven to the fabric …show more content…
By comparing the two, I feel that the only difference is that the article is more detailed and give multiple examples of journeys. Meaning that just like the movie, the article talked about slaves being placed in one room on the ship, where it is hot and cramp. When dealing with food, what they where given looked like slop, which compared to the writing in the article, the slaves received beans. One of the bigger differences between the two is that in the article, was that the article goes through the process of bringing the slaves to America. Factors such as hunger, rations, diseases, and death, played a big role for the death of slaves during the hellish journey. Slaves would be feed twice a day, whether they eat it or not was up to them. However, those who choose not to eat it where starting to die from starvation. When brought up to the deck, slaves would have to be watch because, like the movie with Cinque’s wife, she had the opportunity to drown herself by falling off the ship with their baby. The method of choosing to fall of the ship was a voluntary method for the slaves to decide, however there where different ways that was un-voluntary. Meaning, that If anything happens such as low rations on the ship, the ship crew would have to make sacrifices like throwing slaves off the ship. This method was shown in …show more content…
The reason that its more appealing to me was because Lemisch wrote about his thoughts on the director, Steven Spielberg and the making of his version of the Amistad, which has some problems and irregularities. Meaning, that he was pointing out the farfetched ‘Hollywood” scenes and challenge it, because it doesn’t represent the absolute truth in history. For example, Lemisch noted that the during the beginning of the movie, when the slaves managed to break out they immediately went after the weapons crate. The questions asked was how did the slaves know that weapons where there? Or was it by luck or did they in fact knew where they were and was planning on the uprising? Throughout the article, Lemisch continues to question the movie’s portrayal and how close it tilts from Hollywood to factual history. There are other examples that are given, that points out the flaws of the movie and its tendencies to stagger at times on the facts. However, Lemisch does acknowledges that no matter if he disagrees with Spielberg movie, Steven is still a historian who portrayed his vision. Overall, I found the article was good, because it helps point out the flaws and questions what other might not have wondered or understood in the