The 1997 film Amistad was birthed during a historical biopic craze of the 1990s. Amistad filmmakers play directly to the viewers by presenting scenes that induce four specific, albeit basic, emotions: excitement, anger, sadness, and an overarching feeling of progress by the end of the film. As soon as the film begins, the viewer is induced with a feeling of anticipation as the camera is focused in on the sweaty face of the main character, Cinque. Cinque is in the dark underdeck of La Amistad, his face briefly illuminated every few seconds by the lightening of a thunderstorm. The viewer is able to hear Cinque’s heavy breathing as he struggles with something. The viewer is alerted to that something when the camera displays Cinque’s bloody …show more content…
The viewer feels a sense of relief, much like the of Cinques, when he is able to pick a nail up from the ships floor boards, thus offering him a chance to break free of his restraints. The scene is black again and is punctured with a yell and the cracking open of a case of weapons, a scene that is illuminated by the periodic flashes of lightning. The camera then displays Cinque and other captives entering the top level of the ship. Cinque strikes a crew member with an axe like weapon, killing him, and thus starting a battle of crew and captives. The viewer feels an intense amount of anticipation and excitement as the battle ensues. The screen is only illuminated by light every few moments, transporting the viewer directly into the scene: they are struggling to see the battle and it’s craze much like the captives …show more content…
This scene involves the murder of fifty enraptured people at the hands of slave-traders. The scene occurs on the upper deck of La Amistad, the sky is clear and the water can be heard smacking against the sides of the ship. There is yelling from encaptured people onboard the ship as well as they are forced to watch this mass murder and are unable to do anything. The viewer watches are two crew member kick a large netting of rocks over the edge of the ship and begins the terror of the mass murder. Chained together, the viewer watches as fifty or so captives are pulled over the edge of the ship by the weight of the rocks. The captives scream and struggle to not be pulled of the ship but the crew forces them off through pushing and kicking them of the edge of the ship. In the back, the viewer can see as Cinque is being whipped for attacking a crew member. The viewer can hear the pained grunts and yells of Cinque mixed with the screams of terror coming from the fifty victims of mass murder. The blatant act of inhumanity stirs anger inside the belly of the viewer, but there is an underlying reason the anger is felt so deeply by the viewer. The contrasting images in the scene inspire anger. The viewer has before them the beautiful, wide open ocean against a clear, sunny blue sky. The viewer sees the beauty of the ocean water as it laps against the sides of the ship and suddenly this beautiful scape becomes
History can be learned through several different mediums, and it is arguable that the most popular methods are through film and literature. Each come with their own respective advantages and disadvantages, and can each have a different effect on how an event is both portrayed and conceptualized. When comparing the 1987 book Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and its Impact on American Abolition, Law and Diplomacy by Howard Jones, and the 1997 film Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg, it is apparent that both the book and the film are able to effectively retell the story of the events that took place aboard the Amistad in 1839. Yet each shed a different light on the matter and have been received by people in a different way.
The movie, “The Perfect Dictatorship” (“La Dictadura Perfecta”), directed and produced by Luis Estrada and released in 2014, is a political, satirical comedy story of two reporters attempting to repair the image of a corrupt governor after he signs a deal with the boss of their television company, Television Mexicana. That’s one way we could describe the plot of the movie. Another would be that the movie depicts the inherent corruption of the Mexican government and the lengths to which they will go to retain (or regain) their reputation. Equally, we could see the movie as a demonstration of the corruption of the Mexican media and the ways in which the media influences and effects politics. In fact, the
What exactly does Aztlan mean? There are various definitions, such as the ancestral homeland of the Aztec people and their descendants or everyone’s individual Aztlan which is ones’ personal sanctuary. A place one creates in their own image consisting of features that show what kind of person they are, while at the same time still recognizing their ethnic culture. We all have this place though not everyone’s is the same. Your hobbies, interests, the way you dress all make up this special place. Without it, we would be metaphorically lost. For example, in the essay “Refiguring Aztlan”, it says, “Through Aztlan we come to better understand psychological time, regional make up, and evolution. Without any one of these ingredients, we would be contempo-rary displaced nomads, suffering the diaspora in our own land, and at the mercy of other social forces. Aztlan allows us to come full circle with our communal background as well as maintain ourselves as
1. What is the difference between a. and a. Topic: style- satirical tone “Do you see these little holes on his arms that appear to be pores?.these holes emit a certain grease that allows our model to slip and slide right through the crop with no trouble at all” (1199). The satirical tone exemplifies the realization of the paradox towards Mexican prejudice; the author satirizes society’s stereotypes against Mexicans. Demonstrating how in reality some individuals view Mexicans as robots instead of human beings. The author criticizes the label of a farmworker and thus shows how society may perceive Mexican as only being good for fieldwork.
...es of the servant and Judith who appear collected and focused with intense concentration and diligence to the task. By incorporating such dramatic expression on the faces and bodies of the figures the viewer can empathize and almost feel the sheer pain depicted on the face of Holofernes as well as the intensity and urgency of the two women’s task.
This analysis will explore these cinematic techniques employed by Pontecorvo within a short sequence and examine their effects on our understanding of the issues and themes raised within the film.
A person can see that they are being oppressed and treated unjustly, but if they do not have the understanding of why they have been placed in a particular position, and if they do not have the tools to remove themselves from said position then their knowledge is useless. In the films Salt of the Earth and Cesar Chavez, the farmers and miners both have a general awareness that the treatment they are receiving is far past inhumane, however they feel powerless because they do not feel they have a place in society or history. Political consciousness is formed by the oppressed cultivating methods to regain a sense of self within history and society; riding themselves from their oppressors authority. Each film ended with the beginning of the process
There is no secret that films in the genre of biopic can often stretch the truth. These types of movies are frequently mere depictions of myth that is loosely based on factual accounts rather than being accurate representations of history. Many ethical dilemmas arise from these circumstances. Among those are the damaging representations that may skew a viewer’s perception of how history may have actually played out. Should filmmakers warn viewers that certain historical details of their forthcoming motion picture have been changed for the purpose of film? What are the editorial ethics when important details pertaining to vital pieces of history are left on the proverbial cutting room floor? The brand new film “Cesar Chavez” does a lot of work to bring about the often untold story of the California migrant farmworkers labor activism and organizing, yet in the process, manages to erase the pertinent contributions of the Filipino who many consider as the pioneers of these movements.
Before reading or watching the film, I knew little about Cesar Chavez. I only knew that he fought for the rights of farm workers, but had no idea of how he achieved it. I was surprised to learn about some of his innovations that later lead to his success. Especially since some were already used by other strong leaders previously from him. The two innovations that stood out to me the most were the use of nonviolence and boycotting. Both innovations helped Cesar Chavez in achieving fair rights for other farm workers. These innovations are still used and seen today since they have been effective in accomplishing change.
The Amistad was a Spanish ship built in Baltimore for the purpose of transporting slaves. For three years, it sailed the high seas delivering its cargo to various locations. But in August of 1838, a scandalous injustice was uncovered after the ship was seized by an American vessel, the USS Washington, a coast guard ship under the command of Lt. Thomas R. Gedney. Lt. Gedney and his crew towed the Amistad into a New England harbor in Connecticut where soon many controversies amounted and drama would unfold.
However, they are not faster enough, and they can never catch up to it. The slow motion in these scenes exacerbates the sense of frustration and helplessness. The hooded figure represents “a women’s difficulty in separating from their mothers, consolidating their identity, and coming to terms with their sexuality … a desperate yearning for her mother represented in the pursuit of the mirror-faced figure, and a self-destructive identification with her dead father, expressed through her final suicide .” (Fabe 141,150)
To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there were very obvious differences in their culture and the one that I belong. Mexican-American culture identifies with their family rather than individualized or spiritual identities and the culture has gone through significant changes because of discrimination and the changing demographics of the United States.
Recently, there is a spike of historical films being released lately. One of the films is an Academy Award nominee for “Best Picture,” Selma. The film, Selma, is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches. The film shows the struggles of the black community face with the blockage of their voting rights and the racial inequality during the civil rights movement. Selma is about civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. heading to the rural Alabama City, Selma, to secure the voting rights for the African American community by having a march to Montgomery. It shows the struggles from what the African American community had to endured during the 1960s. Selma shows a social significance to today’s current events, specifically
Amistad is about a mutiny in 1839 aboard a slave ship, La Amistad, which eventually comes to port in New England. The West Africans who have commandeered the ship are taken into custody and the plot revolves around who "owns" them or if, indeed, they should be freed. This sets up the main event of the film, a courtroom drama about rights and origins, with the required flashbacks to the voyage and the gruesome conditions aboard the ship. The problem with this approach is that we learn less about the real conditions of slavery and instead focus on the more sanitized conditions surrounding the courtroom. In addition, we get a film which is largely about the efforts of the whites battling the case and much less about the struggles of the Africans themselves.
The film Amistad begins with a group of Africans, captured from a Havana slave market, on a ship named Amistad. The movie provides a reinactment of the slave journey between Africa and the United States of America. The Amistad was written by David Franzoni and was published in 1977. David Franzoni is well know for his film King Author. The constraints of the movie is the beginning . The extreme graphics that are shown will cause a person with a weak stomach to maybe turn away from watching the complete movie. The middle passage was a long and heart touching journey that the Africans travelled. The main reason for the movie is to manifest the capturing and freeing of the slaves in the 1800s.