In what ways does Steven Spielberg adapt the original story for the screen – and what are the consequences of these adaptations?
After viewing the film Amistad and reading Iyunolu Folayan Osagie’s The Amistad Revolt, I have noticed and read about quite a few discreptinies. Steven Spielberg made several adaptations to the story in his film Amistad that did not quite line up with or properly portray the history itself.
One of these omissions or adaptations included the replacement of real black abolitionists with a single black abolitionist Joadson (Morgan Freeman). This could be seen as detrimental to history in the sense that it portrays all of these black men walking around in America while only one African American is actually fighting
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An example of this comes very early in the film when Cinque is escaping. It is a very powerful start, the camera pans in on a close up of him scraping the nail from the ship. You hear the eagerness, struggle and pain in his panting, then the camera moves up to his face. The details in his blood, sweat, and struggle shown on his face are very moving. When he finally gets free they enter an intense battle with their captors. After Cinque kills the captain of the ship, the camera angle hits him from below. This is a very powerful use of camera work, it depicts him as a strong leader and someone who is fighting for their …show more content…
I think that this is a fair assessment; Spielberg could have definitely focused more on the hardships rather than the fight of the lawyers. Though historically, the abolitionists really had to do most of the litigation because there really wasn’t much they could do after being captured and put in a foreign place. Imagine being in a completely new culture where no one understands you and you cannot understand them. There is not much you can do to fight for yourself; they had no other choice but to put their trust in the