Regie:
Steven SpielbergDrehbuch:
David FranzoniKamera:
Janusz KaminskiMusik:
John WilliamsBesetzung:
Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgård (mehr)Streaming (4)
Inhalte(1)
Epische Verfilmung des Sklavenaufstands auf dem Schiff "La Amistad" und der anschließenden nervenaufreibenden Gerichtsverhandlung. Der Versuch der befreiten Sklaven, das Schiff nach Afrika zurückzusegeln, scheitert. Sie landen auf amerikanischem Boden und werden vor Gericht gestellt. Der Prozess wird zu einem bitteren Kampf zwischen Gegnern und Befürwortern der Sklaverei. (ZDFneo)
(mehr)Kritiken (8)
This masterpiece by Spielberg has been accused of being a three-hour academic bore, for me it's a three-hour gripping tale with a truly excellent Djimon Hounson in the lead. The scenes from the slave ship are breathtaking, unforgettable. Together with A.I. Artificial Intelligence a very undeserved flop for Spielberg.
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Film as a history lesson, film as a good deed, film as an apology (in the narrower sense of Spielberg’s apology to African-Americans offended by certain scenes in The Color Purple and in the broader sense of the white man’s apology to oppressed blacks). In any case, Amistad is a film that seeks mainly to convey historical events smoothly rather than to present the facts with the maximum fidelity to actual historical events or with an attempt to unsettle viewers (and thus compel them to think more seriously). The very animalistic and, unusually for Spielberg, bloody prologue is the only slightly unpleasant sequence in the film, which is otherwise too easy to watch given its subject matter. The following minutes are filled with explaining and “humanising” the suggestive, intentionally incomprehensible opening minutes. The foreign is slowly pushed to the level of the familiar, while language and cultural barriers are removed. The right of slaves to commit a similar act is not the only issue addressed (due to the one-sidedly outraged perspective, all arguments are made in their favour). At the same time, parallels are sought between the slaves’ culture and Christianity, which Africans must understand in order to be at least partially accepted by a different society, as if this was the first (and thus necessary) step toward the later integration and emancipation of the black population. As much as Spielberg tries to respect the point of view of the Africans and to “de-objectify” them by at least (superficially) taking their cultural history into account, much more space is given to people who speak English fluently, whose goal seems to be to civilise the savages and rid them of their fear of the unknown. Perhaps even by misusing (an alternative interpretation of) the story of all stories, i.e. the story of the Bible. The question of who is entitled to write the story of humanity is one of the many that this ambitiously expansive film poses. The problem with Amistad is that it would like to suggestively depict the story of a group of slaves, to reveal slavery for viewers untouched by history (just as Schindler’s List revealed the Holocaust for them), to defend the importance of Christianity and democracy (i.e. the two ideologies that made slavery possible) and to humanistically point out the equality of all human beings. The film’s ideological goals are rather more mutually exclusive than intertwined and complementary, which doesn’t change the fact that the film works superbly on a basic, emotional level thanks to Spielberg’s storytelling skill and feel for visual shorthand. Though we could have additional criticisms about the film’s extreme literalness, the many famous actors who draw attention away from the plot or the inappropriate comedic interludes on the theme of the clash of two different cultures, which would have been more suitable for a buddy movie, none of this diminishes the emotional power of some of the film’s excellent scenes, such as Hopkins’s Oscar-winning speech before the Supreme Court. 75%
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Spielberg is a pro. No doubt about it. But his visions are sometimes greater than the reality. When it comes to Amistad, I can’t say that I was bored. But I can’t exactly say that I was having fun, either. This movie is told so precisely that it’s lacking any sort of self-preservation that would remind me that nothing all that interesting was going to happen throughout the two hours and a half that could potentially keep me awake. However, the biggest issue were the actors themselves. It’s not that they were bad. But they’re just kind of floating through the movie. They drew a breath and as soon as they breathed out, someone else was already on the screen. Nobody says anything distinctive that would make me interested in watching the rest of their life story. But after I’ve watched it, I realized that this wasn’t a story of people, but rather of a ship that was unlucky to voyage to America. Alas, a waste of wood…
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I felt as if Spielberg couldn't catch the right wind in the sails. At times it’s very harsh, but there are also boring passages when the viewer is merely bored. Far from being as grand and attractive a spectacle as expected. And furthermore, quite unfriendly to the audience.
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Ich verstehe nicht, wie dieser Film scheitern konnte. Voller großartiger Schauspieler, makellos gefilmt und mit einer unbezahlbaren Atmosphäre. Und erst der Soundtrack von Williams … Das Massaker zu Beginn zählt zu den rauesten Filmszenen aller Zeiten, und ich hätte nie gedacht, dass mir die Erschaffer dieser Szenen zwei Stunden später so sympathisch sein würden. Allerdings wäre das nicht Steven Spielberg. Die ganze Passage mit Cinques Reise nach Amerika ist so suggestiv und mitreißend, dass ich meine Tränen nie zurückhalten kann.
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No one but Spielberg can make a film like this: spectacular, impressive and riveting. The sequences from the slave ship in particular literally sent chills down my spine and I even I devoured every word of Hopkins's long speech, something that doesn't happen very often. They should make more powerful films about human wickedness like this, though this one is actually unnecessarily long and slightly fragmented in its encompassing message.
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A potentially interesting challenge to the field of courtroom drama where a multitude of different motivations collide is unfortunately overturned into a bouquet of fluff and instant emotion. Besides, the whole thing looks somehow like TV.
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This film should have such a beautiful ending the moment the trial ends, but no, Spielberg has to push it to his pathetic perfection. One would be scared shitless by it. Yet it has absolutely brilliant scenes. When you think the whole time that McConaughey and Hounsou dominate the entire film, suddenly Anthony Hopkins comes in to prove his unique mastery to you. That is a person who knows how to convey pathos in such a way that you believe him. One of the few.
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