[ Previous ] [ Next ]

[2007, UK/US, directed by Michael Apted, written by Steven Knight.]

Half way through Amazing Grace I began thinking about two people: one, American historian William Lee Miller, who wrote a monumental work (tome) Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle In The United States Congress, and, two, the late Texas newspaperwoman Molly Ivins. Miller said his hardest task was to bring Parliamentary procedure "alive" and to keep readers fascinated by an amendment to an amendment and why it matters. Ivins wrote that all the great melodrama of deals and double-crosses and stabs-in-the-back gets buried in a newspaper filler sentence about the sub-committee of the standing committee on agriculture met Thursday last and adjourned at 9:00 p.m. (I paraphrase).

This was the problem for the producers/writers of Amazing Grace: how to turn decades of first readings, hearings, third readings, referral back to committee and so on and so forth into gripping drama that will repay the costs of a pricey costume epic edited down to more or less two hours for an audience mostly not composed of C-Span and Prime Minister's Question Time groupies. The advantage was that it could be assumed that everyone who saw the picture would automatically side with William Wilberforce and the fight to abolish the slave trade (excepting, of course, those who are still involved in the slave trade). The solution was to compress the action, ignore the little matter of the House of Lords and the Royal Assent (the movie gives one the impression that Britain has a unicameral legislature), and moving people who would have been in the Lords - H.R.H. The Duke of Clarence, for example - into the Commons.

The odd thing is, the device works. As a movie, this one is splendid, all of it - costumes, sets, direction, atmosphere and above all, acting. The truncated version of the abolition of the slave trade works on its own terms, and bizarre bits like Fox turning into Lord Fox and Clarence sitting in the Commons slide by easily. The feeling is, if you want the entire story with utter accuracy, go plant yourself in the British Library and read it.

The Clapham Set here is every collection of well-intentioned world savers all of us had to endure in college lecture halls or handing out leaflets on a fine afternoon when everyone else wanted a cold beer and a picnic under an oak. Albert Finney is utterly believable as John Newton, and does the real person the great service of making him a man facing justice, not a whimpering sentimentalist burbling platitudes. Michael Gambon runs off with the movie; as Fox, he has the best line in the film, interrupting a meeting of dejected abolitionists who have just learned that This Is Not Going To Be Easy, sprawling in a chair and asking: "Any of you saints drink?"

And, of course, there is Ciaran Hinds as Tarleton. Lord Tarleton, no less, and a character whose connection to the real Banastre Tarleton is, essentially, non-existent. Hinds is as nasty as Jason Isaacs's sociopathic William Tavington, only darker, older, smarter and a more realistic 18^th Century figure. Tavington could be placed into any century, but Hinds' character would not be believable outside the late 18^th Century upperclass world of politics, clubs and Parliament. There is one reference to Tarleton having fought in America and lost several digits as a result, and after that, his MP could be any arch-Tory MP from his time and social position. Under these circumstances, it was easy to forget the real Tarleton and accept this imitation for the great fun it was: Hinds is simply terrific to watch, particularly in any scene with Gambon or Toby Jones (Clarence). Hinds' Tarleton is closer to his villainous gangster in Veronica Guerin than it is to anything recognizable as Banastre Tarleton, which means, basically, that one can let go of being annoyed and enjoy the performance.

In conclusion, see this film. It is visually lovely, emotionally satisfying and splendid, old-fashioned British fare. It has, as was said of the Brits, class. If you want the real Wilberforce, Pitt, Tarleton, Clarence, and Fox, go to the library.