Word: slaving
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with orchestrating the national dialogue, has chosen to follow the same fuzzy, emotion-driven path. Thankfully, the idea of an apology for the misdeeds of people long-dead has been apparently squashed by those bright enough to recognize that such a move would accomplish nothing. The push for a slave memorial to be built on the National Mall remains strong. This seems a fairly harmless gesture that might be valuable if it actually served as a balm for the historical wound. Critics point out that space on the Mall will rapidly run out if we construct a monument for every...
...houseboat where Cunanan put a bullet into his own skull after setting off one of the most intensive manhunts in recent history. A book published this fall, Death at Every Stop: The True Story of Andrew Cunanan--The Man Who Murdered Designer Gianni Versace, by Wensley Clarkson (author of Slave Girls), added a few new details to the once inescapable but now nearly forgotten Cunanan legend: he reportedly fathered a child and starred in two "graphic, low-budget, sadomasochistic gay pornographic videos." In a tribute to the speedy turnover of news cycles, few media outlets paid much attention...
...Amistad Again Steven Spielberg puts his craftsmanship in the service of moral seriousness. Again, in this true tale of a slave mutiny and its nightmare aftermath, he creates a gripping portrait of human decency mobilized to help an inhumanly abused minority. Again he unsentimentally places us in touch with our best sentiments...
...freed by a Supreme Court decision. Worse, their case became a playground for special interests: abolitionists not at all certain their cause wouldn't be better served if they allowed the blacks to be martyred; a President, Martin Van Buren, running for re-election and trying to appease the slave states by suborning justice; Spain's child Queen furious over the loss of one of her ships; the slaves' owners' demanding return of their property; even the officers of the ship that intercepted the Amistad claiming salvage rights...
Legal maneuver and political maneuver, the dank gloom of the prison into which the Africans are crammed, awaiting their fate, an astonishing evocation of the terrors of the slave ships' notorious Middle Passage--Spielberg permits himself time to explore every aspect of his saga in rich detail. And he grants his actors--among them a warily compassionate Morgan Freeman as a black abolitionist; Matthew McConaughey as a puppyish lawyer growing into an attack dog; Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, bent with age and crotchets, but finally lending his eloquence to the cause--a similar latitude. It's a shame...