But given that Steven Spielberg is the director, Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman the stars, and a reported $75 million was spent on production, it can only be judged a disappointment. [] Schindler's List works better as narrative because it is about a risky deception, while Amistad is about the search for a truth that, if found, will be small consolation to the millions of existing slaves. The Africans have been given clothes. | Yeah? Theodore Joadson : They saw it basically as a legal anomaly and a crude lesson in American hypocrisy. The film begins in the depths of the schooner La Amistad, a slave-ship carrying captured West Africans into slavery.The film's protagonist, Sengbe Pieh (Djimon Hounsou), most known by his Mende name, "Cinqu" (meaning "fifth"), painstakingly picks a nail out of the ship's structure and uses it to pick the lock on his shackles. [22], Amistad was nominated for Academy Awards in four categories: Best Supporting Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Original Dramatic Score (John Williams), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kamiski), and Best Costume Design (Ruth E. Joseph Cinqu, a leader of the Africans, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. The abolitionist Joadson is fictional as is the crypto-Catholic Judge Coughlin that President Van Buren allegedly hoped to improperly influence. Fan Casting Denzel Washington as Theodore Joadson in Amistad In the transatlantic trade of the eighteenth century, 10 to 12 million Africans were transported to North and South America and the Caribbean. : For the past forty years, no subject has received more scholarly attention. One vital task the Founding Father's left to their sons John Quincy Adams [6], The entire film was completed in 51 days and cost around $39 million. , to ancient times, to biblical times ), metaphor (The long powerful arm of the executive office, the last battle of the American Revolution), simile (the truth has been driven from this case like a slave, toyed with like a doll), irony (At least Im sure the President hopes you all read it), allusion (to Patrick Henry, hero of the American Revolution known for having said: Give me liberty, or give me death.). Sure, they saw Sengbe and the other Mende Africans as heroes for having killed white oppressors for freedom and wanted them free. Theodore Joadson [a slave speaks to Theodore in Mende] Baldwin calls Captain Fitzgerald of the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron to corroborate Cinqu's testimony.