Essay About Pictures End And Theodore Joadson

Amistad Movie Review
Essay Preview: Amistad Movie Review
Report this essay
The movie that I choose to review is Amistad. I think this movie would be very
appropriate with our course and subject. Set in 1839, a group of Africans take over a
Spanish slave ship: directed by Steven Spielberg. Two abolitionists, Lewis Tappan
(Stellan Skarsgard) and Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman) hire a real estate attorney
Roger Baldwin (Mathew McConaughey), who is convinced he has the key to set African
free. But pro-slavery President Martin Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) is on the other side.
The case goes to Supreme Court where President John Quincy Adams (Anthony
Hopkins), inspired by the moral stature of an African name Cinque (Djimon Hounsou),
defense freedom.
AMISTAD begins with the ship which allowed Cinque to free himself and then other slave
on board. Then they attack their Spanish captors, killing violently all but two sailors so
that they can sail back to Africa. But they end up in New York and American sailors
capture them and taken to Connecticut, where Cinque and other African are jailed. Lewis
Tappan and Theodore Joadson hire Roger Baldwin to defense African. Through the
course of trail Baldwins attitudes change toward Cinque and the Africans, and by the
pictures end he has become abolitionist.
The trial is before Connecticut judge and jury with claims presented by
Spanish slavers, the American sailors, and the US government. Also there is Spanish
diplomat (Send by Spanish Queen) who intends to see the slaves returned to Cuba to be
executed for murder. Baldwin finds documents that seem to prove the ship originated in
Africa and not Cuba. So that they had been captured in Africa and were illegal
international slave trade and must return back to Africa. Pro-slavery Martin Van Buren
chooses a young judge name Coughlin. The abolitionists sense that the trail is against
them and they appeal to ex-President John Quincy Adams for help, but he turns them
down.
Baldwin and Joadson find a British/Mende (African) sailor who speaks both
English and Mende language. Through this interpreter, Cinque is able to describe how he
was taken