Chris Knipp
03-24-2007, 01:48 AM
Michael Apted: Amazing Grace (2007)
Flawed but worthy treatment of a still sadly relevant cause
Review by Chris Knipp
Amazing Grace is a good-hearted movie about a good chain of events: the long finally successful campaign in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to get the English out of the slave trade. As William Wilberforce, the principle leader of the anti-slavery movement in Parliament, the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd has first a vigorous, later a ravaged nobility, and there are other faces we may not find too recognizable such as that of Benetict Cumberbatch as Wilberforce's good friend William Pitt the Younger, who becomes Prime Minister in his twenties, and Romola Garai as Wilberforce's future wife. But the film is anchored, as it were, by two elder giants: Albert Finney as John Newton, the repentant slave ship captain turned preacher, Wilberforce's inspiration, who wrote the words of the famous anthem of reform and struggle: "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound/,That saved a wretch like me./I once was lost but now am found,/Was blind, but now, I see." Wilberforce was a devout Christian, and though he enters Parliament at the age of only 21, whether to devote his life to religion or politics remains a difficult choice for him. He comes to believe that "God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of society." A scene where Newton, having now become literally blind, urges Wilberforce to go on fighting for human rights when the fight is going through a difficult passage, is one of the film's memorable moments. Second there's the irresistible Michael Gambon as Lord Fox, a Tory opponent in Parliament whose crossing over to the abolitionist side helps turn the tide in its favor. Also memorable are Rufus Sewell as anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson, Toby Jones as mad King George III's profligate third son the Duke of Clarence, and Youssou N'Dour as Olaudah Equiano, a former slave active in the abolition movement.
In telling this uplifting story Apted & Co. have captured an authentic look in a wide range of locales -- at Parliament, in the jumbled streets of London, inside and outside the houses of the rich, and in sweeping English landscapes. One hasn't seen such a richly English-feeling and -looking picture for a while and best of all, the debates in Parliament convey a sense of the controlled chaos and quick verbal wit that characterized the age -- perhaps because the English Parliament still has some of that. This is not to say all the dialogue feels right. Sometimes it's too naturalized, as when a phrase like "political activist" pops out from our 'Sixties. The language could have been more ornate and authentic and less contemporary.
Amazing Grace has so much to tell us of Wilberforce, of the turbulent period of Pitt the Younger's prime minister-ship, and of the long struggle against the ruling sugar plantation owners and traders with their men in government, that explanations of what happens to various characters and groups get elided, and one's left with a lot of questions and some half-understandings. What's really wrong with Wilberforce -- what is this "colic" whose wracking pains he's fed opium to deal with? What was Pitt's illness that took him off in his forties? How did he become PM so young? What house of Parliament are we looking at? Why is the Duke of Clarence emphasized here? Would somebody sitting next to him in Parliament actually not know what noblesse oblige means? Do we know now what it means? Why did Wilberforce's bride dress for her wedding like a dairy maid? Who were all those clergymen who urged Wilberforce to fight the anti-slave trade campaign, and what role exactly did they otherwise play? Did they really get over 300,000 signatures on a petition? We see a big gravestone for 'Ndour's character, with Sewall getting drunk beside it. How did the man die? Who was Wilberforce--where did his wealth come from? What about America? What about the French? What effect did the English withdrawal from slave shipments have on the trade in general? Though a well prepared student of English history might be able to answer the main questions, Americans or the less learned will have to do some homework to understand many details.
And though Amazing Grace is informative, if incompletely so, and full of highly dramatic incidents, and the story leads to a pleasing victory for its English reformer good guys, the film's episodic structure results in its being more turbulent than suspenseful. It lacks the emotional payoffs it seems to deserve. The New Yorker's capsule review puts it neatly in an opening line: "Square, but stirring." It could be even more stirring, if it were better written and directed. One has to love the actors, though. They're fun to watch, and leading man Ioan Gruffudd, though he has to agonize to the point of diminishing returns, never loses his nobility. Pitt (Cumberbatch) is very distinctive looking and a strong presence, and that in a movie with Finney and Gambon in it, is just one small way of saying the cast rose to the occasion nicely.
Michael Apted has done some interesting dramatic films, such as Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorky Park, and Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, and the strong political documentary Incident at Oglala. His films are usually at their best when attached to some kind of good cause. But for my money his 7 Up, 14 Up, etc. documentary series following the lives of a socially varied group of English men and women at seven-year intervals is and shall remain his monument. He's a somewhat pedestrian director otherwise. This is one of his better efforts, square, but stirring indeed. The cause it refers to is still current. As Apted offscreen has been pointing out, shocking though it may be to hear it, there are slaves today, they are traded in larger numbers than back then, and we know little about it.
Flawed but worthy treatment of a still sadly relevant cause
Review by Chris Knipp
Amazing Grace is a good-hearted movie about a good chain of events: the long finally successful campaign in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to get the English out of the slave trade. As William Wilberforce, the principle leader of the anti-slavery movement in Parliament, the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd has first a vigorous, later a ravaged nobility, and there are other faces we may not find too recognizable such as that of Benetict Cumberbatch as Wilberforce's good friend William Pitt the Younger, who becomes Prime Minister in his twenties, and Romola Garai as Wilberforce's future wife. But the film is anchored, as it were, by two elder giants: Albert Finney as John Newton, the repentant slave ship captain turned preacher, Wilberforce's inspiration, who wrote the words of the famous anthem of reform and struggle: "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound/,That saved a wretch like me./I once was lost but now am found,/Was blind, but now, I see." Wilberforce was a devout Christian, and though he enters Parliament at the age of only 21, whether to devote his life to religion or politics remains a difficult choice for him. He comes to believe that "God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of society." A scene where Newton, having now become literally blind, urges Wilberforce to go on fighting for human rights when the fight is going through a difficult passage, is one of the film's memorable moments. Second there's the irresistible Michael Gambon as Lord Fox, a Tory opponent in Parliament whose crossing over to the abolitionist side helps turn the tide in its favor. Also memorable are Rufus Sewell as anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson, Toby Jones as mad King George III's profligate third son the Duke of Clarence, and Youssou N'Dour as Olaudah Equiano, a former slave active in the abolition movement.
In telling this uplifting story Apted & Co. have captured an authentic look in a wide range of locales -- at Parliament, in the jumbled streets of London, inside and outside the houses of the rich, and in sweeping English landscapes. One hasn't seen such a richly English-feeling and -looking picture for a while and best of all, the debates in Parliament convey a sense of the controlled chaos and quick verbal wit that characterized the age -- perhaps because the English Parliament still has some of that. This is not to say all the dialogue feels right. Sometimes it's too naturalized, as when a phrase like "political activist" pops out from our 'Sixties. The language could have been more ornate and authentic and less contemporary.
Amazing Grace has so much to tell us of Wilberforce, of the turbulent period of Pitt the Younger's prime minister-ship, and of the long struggle against the ruling sugar plantation owners and traders with their men in government, that explanations of what happens to various characters and groups get elided, and one's left with a lot of questions and some half-understandings. What's really wrong with Wilberforce -- what is this "colic" whose wracking pains he's fed opium to deal with? What was Pitt's illness that took him off in his forties? How did he become PM so young? What house of Parliament are we looking at? Why is the Duke of Clarence emphasized here? Would somebody sitting next to him in Parliament actually not know what noblesse oblige means? Do we know now what it means? Why did Wilberforce's bride dress for her wedding like a dairy maid? Who were all those clergymen who urged Wilberforce to fight the anti-slave trade campaign, and what role exactly did they otherwise play? Did they really get over 300,000 signatures on a petition? We see a big gravestone for 'Ndour's character, with Sewall getting drunk beside it. How did the man die? Who was Wilberforce--where did his wealth come from? What about America? What about the French? What effect did the English withdrawal from slave shipments have on the trade in general? Though a well prepared student of English history might be able to answer the main questions, Americans or the less learned will have to do some homework to understand many details.
And though Amazing Grace is informative, if incompletely so, and full of highly dramatic incidents, and the story leads to a pleasing victory for its English reformer good guys, the film's episodic structure results in its being more turbulent than suspenseful. It lacks the emotional payoffs it seems to deserve. The New Yorker's capsule review puts it neatly in an opening line: "Square, but stirring." It could be even more stirring, if it were better written and directed. One has to love the actors, though. They're fun to watch, and leading man Ioan Gruffudd, though he has to agonize to the point of diminishing returns, never loses his nobility. Pitt (Cumberbatch) is very distinctive looking and a strong presence, and that in a movie with Finney and Gambon in it, is just one small way of saying the cast rose to the occasion nicely.
Michael Apted has done some interesting dramatic films, such as Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorky Park, and Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, and the strong political documentary Incident at Oglala. His films are usually at their best when attached to some kind of good cause. But for my money his 7 Up, 14 Up, etc. documentary series following the lives of a socially varied group of English men and women at seven-year intervals is and shall remain his monument. He's a somewhat pedestrian director otherwise. This is one of his better efforts, square, but stirring indeed. The cause it refers to is still current. As Apted offscreen has been pointing out, shocking though it may be to hear it, there are slaves today, they are traded in larger numbers than back then, and we know little about it.