Difference between revisions of "329-2010--Week 5 Questions/Comments"
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In our textbook, "Reel History," Robert Brent Toplin talks about how "tainted" the movie became because of a series of small historical inaccuracies which, added together, undermined the film's integrity (69-78). | In our textbook, "Reel History," Robert Brent Toplin talks about how "tainted" the movie became because of a series of small historical inaccuracies which, added together, undermined the film's integrity (69-78). | ||
I don't know if I would call this "wrong," but it was certainly jarring to see John Quincy Adams deified. The movie never explains why everyone regards him as an oracle, except that he is the son of a famous father. (This is designed to resonate with Cinque's ancestor worship.) Hopkins, who looks astonishingly like the photo of Adams, plays the old curmudgeon as a doddering relic whose mental powers are deserting him, yet Tappan, Joadson and later Baldwin believe he's the only one who can win their cause. The script doesn't support that conclusion, and it weakens Hopkins' believability.--- Deborah S. | I don't know if I would call this "wrong," but it was certainly jarring to see John Quincy Adams deified. The movie never explains why everyone regards him as an oracle, except that he is the son of a famous father. (This is designed to resonate with Cinque's ancestor worship.) Hopkins, who looks astonishingly like the photo of Adams, plays the old curmudgeon as a doddering relic whose mental powers are deserting him, yet Tappan, Joadson and later Baldwin believe he's the only one who can win their cause. The script doesn't support that conclusion, and it weakens Hopkins' believability.--- Deborah S. | ||
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| + | The movie does a good job of portraying that only a few people where for the abolition of slavery. But, when they first went to ask John Q. Adams to back them in their pursuit of winning the trials he claims that he is neutral in the matters that came between the abolitionists and those that were pro-slavery. This implies that there is an equally back constituency on both sides which we learned in class is not true. In the movie it seems that those who were neutral were the smallest minority, when in fact the abolitionists were seen as extremist and were the true minorities in the subject of slavery. - Mike E. | ||
The film misleadingly characterizes the case of the Amistad as a turning point in how American's view the issue of slavery by suggesting that John Quincy Adams' plea to abolish slavery convinced the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the Amistad slaves. Like we discussed in class, the case had no refection what-so-ever on how American's view domestic slavery, nor did it set any future precedents for how domestic slaves were to be handled. The case was solely about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade that had, by that time, been made illegal. --Erin L. | The film misleadingly characterizes the case of the Amistad as a turning point in how American's view the issue of slavery by suggesting that John Quincy Adams' plea to abolish slavery convinced the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the Amistad slaves. Like we discussed in class, the case had no refection what-so-ever on how American's view domestic slavery, nor did it set any future precedents for how domestic slaves were to be handled. The case was solely about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade that had, by that time, been made illegal. --Erin L. | ||
