AMISTAD
COLLISION OF PAST & PRESENT

When a subject as ugly as slavery is brought onto the big screen in all its starkness, it is bound to disturb the cast and crew involved in the production. And when the cast for the roles of slaves are especially brought over to America from Africa, a startling and ugly collision of past and present is perhaps inevitable. This is what director Steven Spielberg and his crew found out during the filming of Amistad, the second film to emerge from DreamWorks Inc., the production house owned by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. There was one scene, for instance, when a group of Africans shackled together with chains, stumbles off a slave ship to the shore. They are roughly pushed along by white men. Another scene, voted the most horrific by the cast and crew, took place in the dark hold of the slave ship. Hundreds of African men, women and children were huddled together, naked and chained. Cold water gushed down from above. One of the actors couldn’t help sobbing. Spielberg wasn’t looking to soften the experience. He wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. And sure enough the horror at the thought that some people had spent all their lives in such conditions, made the crew’s blood go cold. Ghanaian-born actor Derrick N. Ashong recalled how frightened he felt at the feeling of oppression and hatred. And how difficult he found breathing with shackles around his neck.

Matthew McConaughey, who plays an American lawyer in the film, found the experience disturbing as well, in scenes such as the one where he had to drag an African around the courtroom and roughly pull back his lips to expose his teeth.

The real-life story of the slave ship 'Amistad' is a little known part of American history. In 1839 Portugese slave traders captured hundreds of West Africans from what is now Sierra Leone. The operation was illegal since slavery had been outlawed by Spain in 1817. But nevertheless, the enslaved Africans were shipped to Havana, where two Spanish slave traders took over 44 surviving slaves and put them on board the ship 'Amistad'. But now, one of the prisoners, a courageous man called Cinque, managed to break free and led a slave revolt on board. The crew was killed by the Africans who only spared the two Spaniards so that they could guide the ship back to Africa. But the Spaniards outwitted them by guiding the ship towards Africa by day, and switching the ship's direction the opposite way by night. Eventually the ship ended up near Long Island, USA, where the Africans were taken prisoner again and made to stand trial for murder and mutiny.

The modest production of Amistad with its one or two Arriflex cameras was a huge contrast to Spielberg’s last directorial venture, the action-special effects extravaganza, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It was choreographer Debbie Allen who came upon the story of the slave ship La Amistad, in the late ’70s. But even as she built up a career in television, she found it extremely difficult to find any takers for her project. She carried it from studio to studio, and everywhere the response was the same: no-one wanted to see yet another ’white versus black’ movie. Ten years later her efforts won her a meeting with Steven Spielberg and the DreamWorks team. Spielberg loved the idea, and Amistad was born. The 51-year old director has a special affinity to the subject of slavery and the exploitation of blacks, ever since he and his wife, Kate Capshaw, decided to adopt two black children, and found they had to contend with issues of race in everyday life. Amistad was released in America in mid-December.