Amistad By Steven Spielberg: Movie Analysis

In 1839 a slave ship called the Amistad sailed from Cuba to the United States carrying a group of illegally-acquired slaves from West Africa. Amistad is the title of a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, that tells the story of these slaves and their impact of American society. The movie opens by singling in on a man by the name of Cinque, a tribe leader. He is captured and taken to slave fortress from where he is them transferred onto a slave ship. Cinque leads a mutiny to take over the ship and sails toward land seeking freedom. They land in Pennsylvania and are imprisoned as fugitive slaves. Their case is taken by an abolitionist lawyer named Roger Sherman Baldwin. Since none of the prisoners know English, it is extremely difficult to communicate and to build a case. They seem doomed to die since they murdered their captors, however, Baldwin argues that the prisoners are not slaves at all, since they were illegally-acquired from West Africa. The case plaintiff argues that the prisoners are slaves from Spain and even go as far as forging paper work to get their way. Baldwin has to scramble to find a way to prove that the paper work is illegitimate and that the prisoners are free …show more content…
Although it doesn 't adhere to the general criteria of what makes an interesting movie, it captures your interest and maintains it well throughout. However, I do have several complaints. The main issue is with the beginning. The first twenty minutes of the movie are meant to set up the back story of the prisoners, but, since there is no English, it can be kind of confusing, unless you read the movie description online. I think the movie would have benefitted from a shorter introduction with written descriptions of what was happening. I also noticed that at several points throughout the movie that the lighting was really low, even when the scenes were set during the day. However, the lighting seems to get better as the movie goes