Amazing Grace--New Movie About William Wilberforce--Receives Rave Review in IHT
Two hundred years ago next month, Britain ended its participation in the slave trade. The move hardly absolved the country of the sin of having shipped millions of Africans to the New World for sale as chattels. But it was a rare point of light in one of the darkest chapters of human history — and it set in motion the gradual emancipation of slaves across the Americas.
Now, in a somewhat daring attempt to combine education and entertainment, the story of how William Wilberforce, along with a handful of Quaker activists, persuaded a reluctant British Parliament to abolish the slave trade is retold in Michael Apted's new movie, "Amazing Grace," which will be released in the United States next week and in Britain next month.
It is a story of good versus evil in which, after endless setbacks, the world ends up a better place. But will today's filmgoers care? The movie is not, after all, another bloody Mel Gibson-style revisitation of history: the backdrop to its plot is the battle between conscience and profiteering.
Still, Britons, at least, may be ready for this: not so much because they are used to "talking heads" in costume dramas, but because the government is promoting a yearlong program of high school courses, exhibitions and debates about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Further, Britons are more than ever aware that theirs has become a multiethnic country.
Elsewhere, the March 25 anniversary is less significant. In the United States, the watershed date in the fight against slavery is, of course, the Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. And every country once involved in trafficking or exploiting slaves — and there were at least a score — remembers its own moment of moral awakening.
Yet the makers of "Amazing Grace" believe their movie raises broader issues.
Steven Knight, the film's British screenwriter, noted that, with the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade, public opinion was for the first time mobilized to press for social reform. In that sense, the use of petitions (including one carrying 390,000 signatures), public meetings, books and pamphlets heralded the birth of modern politics.
Apted, whose recent credits include "Enigma," in turn saw an opportunity to emphasize the importance of politics, then and now. "I wanted to do a story about the corridors of power," he explained. "I am trying to shine a light on the value of politics."...
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
Now, in a somewhat daring attempt to combine education and entertainment, the story of how William Wilberforce, along with a handful of Quaker activists, persuaded a reluctant British Parliament to abolish the slave trade is retold in Michael Apted's new movie, "Amazing Grace," which will be released in the United States next week and in Britain next month.
It is a story of good versus evil in which, after endless setbacks, the world ends up a better place. But will today's filmgoers care? The movie is not, after all, another bloody Mel Gibson-style revisitation of history: the backdrop to its plot is the battle between conscience and profiteering.
Still, Britons, at least, may be ready for this: not so much because they are used to "talking heads" in costume dramas, but because the government is promoting a yearlong program of high school courses, exhibitions and debates about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Further, Britons are more than ever aware that theirs has become a multiethnic country.
Elsewhere, the March 25 anniversary is less significant. In the United States, the watershed date in the fight against slavery is, of course, the Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. And every country once involved in trafficking or exploiting slaves — and there were at least a score — remembers its own moment of moral awakening.
Yet the makers of "Amazing Grace" believe their movie raises broader issues.
Steven Knight, the film's British screenwriter, noted that, with the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade, public opinion was for the first time mobilized to press for social reform. In that sense, the use of petitions (including one carrying 390,000 signatures), public meetings, books and pamphlets heralded the birth of modern politics.
Apted, whose recent credits include "Enigma," in turn saw an opportunity to emphasize the importance of politics, then and now. "I wanted to do a story about the corridors of power," he explained. "I am trying to shine a light on the value of politics."...