Amazing Grace

Year:  2006

Filming:  Color

Length:  117 minutes

Genre:  Biography/Drama/History/Inspirational

Maturity:  PG (for mild language and intense thematic elements)

Cast:  Ioan Gruffudd (William Wilberforce), Romola Garai (Barbara Spooner), Benedict Cumberbatch (William Pitt), Michael Gambon (Lord Charles Fox), Albert Finney (John Newton), Rufus Sewall (Thomas Clarkson), Youssou N’Dour (Olaudah Equiano), Ciaran Hinds (Lord Banastre Tarleton), Toby Jones (Duke of Clarence), Bill Paterson (Lord Dundas), Nicholas Farrell (Henry Thornton), Sylvestra le Touzel (Marianne Thornton), Jeremy Swift (Richard the Butler)

         

Director:  Michael Apted

Personal Rating:  5 Stars

***

      There are pathetically few movies that are able to deal with political/legal themes and still maintain a human touch that transcends the specialist category. But one of them on the top of the list is Amazing Grace, a biopic of the man who was instrumental in bringing an end to the British Slave Trade. As a period piece, it excels for good taste, balance, and a keen ability to connect the past with the present. As a story, it succeeds in intriguing, inspiring, and warming hearts with hope for humankind.

    Ioan Gruffudd stars as William Wilberforce, an energetic young Member of Parliament, who experiences a spiritual reawakening and becomes an Evangelical Christian. Discerning whether or not he should withdraw from the world and peruse the ministry, his friend William Pitt convince him to stay in politics by connecting him with abolitionists seeking to put an end to the British slave trade. Deciding to use his talents for the good of all, Wilberforce takes up the challenge, but his participation in the controversy makes him increasingly unpopular among powerful parliamentarians who have a vested interest in the trade.

    Working tirelessly to change the hearts and minds of the British people and show them the great inhumanities of the trade, Wilberforce makes allies with honest yet unkempt activist Thomas Clarkson, the former-slave turned elegant man-of-means Olaudah Equiano, and even the self-serving political survivor Lord Charles Fox. Together, they gather thousands of signatures in favor of abolition to present before the parliament. He also makes a point of impressing upon the powerful landed classes the plight of those suffering under their very noses, bringing to light how African men, woman, and children are made to endure a horrendous sea voyage and sold to sugar plantations to be worked to death.

    But in spite of the evidence, many politicians such as Lord Dundas decide to play it safe and refuse to vote for complete abolition. Even many of Wilberforce’s supporters fail him by going to a comic opera instead of turning up to vote. When the French Revolutionary Wars begin, Parliament shoves the issue on the back-burner, and Wilberforce is accused of being unpatriotic. Disillusioned, he considers resigning from his position in the government, and some of his supporters adopt revolutionary sympathies. But then Wilberforce meets his future-wife, Barbara Spooner, who encourages him to persevere in the face of any and all obstacles. From that point on, he is a newly driven man.

    This movie adroitly captures the dangerous ebb and flow of the political world while at the same time bringing out personal stories against the backdrop of epic historical events. The characters are portrayed in a very human light, whether they are from the upper or lower classes, pro-slavery or pro-abolition. The costuming and overall setting is exquisite and manages to capture the right balance between realism and flourish, accessibility and old-fashioned flare. We get to see fine dining halls, charming country estates, stuffy parliament chambers, dingy city streets, and bustling docks, getting a full-scaled panorama of 18^th century Britain. The music score is also top-notch (highly recommend you get the CD!) which managed to bring out the flavor of both British and African cultures, interweaving past and present instruments flawlessly.

    Ioan Gruffud is at his acting best in his portrayal as William Wilberforce. Like Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, the character is so full of depth and humanity he seems to literally come to life through the actor depicting him, and by the end of the film, we can’t help but be an admirer of him. After all, he’s an affable and intelligent young man with a great career ahead of him, but he risks scuttling it in order to aid the oppressed and nearly destroys himself physically and emotionally in the process. He becomes a suffering soul, and a living martyr for those who have no voice. Gruffudd captures all these things with great passion and grace.

    Romola Garai makes a wonderfully warm and witty Barbara Spooner, urging Wilberforce to come out of his slump and return to the parliament floor. Her chemistry with Ioan Gruffudd on screen is delightful, especially their desperate attempt to find something to argue about in front of their match-making friends! One thing that bothered me, however, was the low-cut neckline in the dresses she usually wore in the production. I know that this could just be attributed to late 18^th - early 19^th century fashion, but I just thought it was a bit revealing and purposely seductive. It’s a Hollywood thing, but I must admit I was hoping for better.

    Rufus Sewall’s portrayal of Thomas Clarkson is lovably bluff and scruffy, revealing a good heart but also a dangerously passionate streak that threatens the whole enterprise. He gets into confrontation with Wilberforce over how best to handle their repeated defeats in parliament. Clarkson suggests that a revolution might be their only hope, but Wilberforce forcefully reminds him that he has taken an oath of loyalty to the king (who I do we wish would have made an appearance at some point in the film!). Clarkson retorts that the king is insane, and that he intends to go over to Paris to mingle with the revolutionaries. After several moments of tense listening, Wilberforce cuts him off, and orders him never to speak of revolution in his presence again.

    This is such a British moment in the film, because it exemplifies the realization Wilberforce experiences, and that the British people throughout history have clung to, that they must “hold back from the brink”; that needed changes can come through the due process of law, without shattering the governmental structure. Indeed, the film-makers evidently understood the importance of this project to the way people perceive the British People and their history and culture, because they made sure that all the filming would be done in Britain and that all the actors cast for the movie were British.

    The other great thing about Amazing Grace is the way that spiritual themes are handled without being preachy. Wilberforce is a deeply religious man, and the virtue of this shines through his actions and world view, but the script never reads like a proselytizing pamphlet. It’s sincere; it’s real; it’s naturally moving. I love the way he is portrayed as praying simply and openly, and the motif of the spider web symbolizing his love of The Creator and all His Creation. This point is also brought to the fore when he gets out of his carriage on a rainy night to stop a man from beating his horse, and the man listens to him because name of Wilberforce has now come to be respected by many as a symbol of principle.

    Getting to see Ciarin Hinds portray Banastre Tarleton in his post-revolutionary years was quite a treat. I must admit it took me a few minutes to make the connection between the pro-slavery MP and “Bloody Ban” of wartime infamy. But when he held up his hand to reveal missing fingers that he had lost fighting with the American rebels, it suddenly dawned on me, and I yelped, “It’s Ban!!” Nice to see him depicted as a well-rounded character, instead of the over-the-top villain in The Patriot. And at least this sets the record straight that he didn’t get impaled by Mel Gibson, but moved on to greener pastures in career as a consistent un-huggable.

    There are a few other moments in the film that hearken back to the American Revolution. One is when Wilberforce speaks out in favor of ending the war and making peace the rebels. It is often forgotten that there was a whole movement within British parliament opposing the taxes levied in America and seeking to give her representation in the mother country. When things began to look increasingly hopeless about politically reuniting, they urged a swifter peace to avoid further bloodshed. Another interesting moment in the film is when a legless beggar crawls over to Wilberforce in the street, saying that he “lost his legs fighting the Yankee rebels”. I wonder how often people ever think about the human cost of that war for Britain, and the social aftermath of it on both sides…

    Benedict Cumberbatch makes a wonderfully erudite and elegant William Pitt. One particularly good line is when Wilberforce exclaims that it is next to impossible for Pitt to become prime minister in his 20’s, to which he responds, “We’re too young to realize certain things are impossible, which is why we will do them anyway.” In reality, Wilberforce was never able to visit Pitt’s deathbed as shown in Amazing Grace, and they were actually somewhat estranged over some political differences at the time. But the portrayal of their friendship is touching nonetheless, and in reality, Wilberforce always seems to have treasured the memory of it. 

    I’ll admit that Albert Finney as John Newton looks rather different than I pictured him and that his portraits portray him, and I do sort of wish the film focused a bit more on his personal experiences since he is the one who wrote the title song! But he still does serve as a powerful example of the older generation passing on the mantle to the young, with his impassioned exhortation to “blast the slavers out of the water”. It is also deeply moving when he weeps and wonders if all the people he sold into slavery had names, and supposes that they must have been “good African names.”

     In connection with that, Youssou N’Dour as Olaudah Equiano puts a face and a voice to the millions of unnamed victims of the slave trade, whose lives were cruelly misused and cut short by the greed of others. Although Equiano pours himself out in the abolitionist cause, he tragically does live to see it succeed. Nevertheless, Thomas Clarkson does visit to grave when abolition is on the brink of passing, tells him the good news, and “shares a bottles” with him, drinking some and pouring the rest into the ground.

    One of the ironic inaccuracies of the movie had to do with the fact that the traditional tune of "Amazing Grace" is believe to have been added to Newton’s hymn at a much later date than the events depicted in the film. In spite of this, Wilberforce is shown singing the hymn to this tune and having it played at his wedding! While on the subject, it must be noted with some pain that, unlike the real Mr. Wilberforce who was said to have a glorious voice, Ioan Gruffudd really can’t hold a tune, and it shows when he stand up on that table belts out the beloved hymn before the unsympathetic throng! Oh, well. Chalk it up to good intentions gone awry?

    The finale is always a tear-jerker, when the trade is finally abolished and Wilberforce, struggling to contain his emotion, is given a round of applause. He exchanges a knowing look with his beloved wife in the balcony, realizing that without her, he may never have seen the cause to completion. The end credits are set against a rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace” played by a military pipe and drum band, and we get to see the kilted players lined up in rows outside Westminster Abbey, where both William Wilberforce and William Pitt are buried. I mean, how British can you get?

    Thinking about the injustice of the Slave Trade and how difficult it was to end, I cannot help but make a comparison to the ultimate injustice of our own era: Abortion. While it may be hard to visualize it being abolished now, perhaps a generation or so hence, we shall look back on the killing of the unborn with the same horror as we now look back on the buying and selling of slaves. What we really must pray for is that we may be given more leaders like Wilberforce and his associates to bear the pressure of an unsympathetic society and see the cause through. That is why stories like this one really must be told, and heroes like Wilberforce must be remembered. That is why I am so grateful this movie was made and is able to communicate his story in our modern era. It stands as proof that faith and endurance can overcome the most strident opposition. It is a manifestation of truly amazing grace.

William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) address the House of Commons

King Arthur

 

Year:  2004

Filming:  Color

Length:  126 minutes

Genre:  Action/Adventure/Drama/History

Maturity:  PG-13 (for intense battle sequences, language, and sexuality)

Cast:  Clive Own (Arthur), Ioan Gruffudd (Lancelot), Keira Knightley (Guinevere), Mads Mikkelson (Tristan), Ivano Marescotti (Bishop Germanus), Hugh Dancy (Galahad), Joel Edgerton (Gawain), Stephen Dillane (Merlin), Ray Winstone (Bors the Younger), Stellan Skarsgard (Cerdic), Til Schweiger (Cynric)

Director:  Antoine Fuqua

Personal Rating:  2 Stars

***

    The Arthurian Cycles have been done to death on the Silver Screen. Bottle-blonde enchantresses, Halloween wizards, and made-in-Taiwan swords sticking out of papier-mâché stones are all too common in the world of fantastical remakes, and they begin to go stale pretty quickly. Innovative interpretations have almost become a separate sub-genre, eager to add a new pinch of pixie dust to revitalize the tales.

   In this particularly unusual film, it was decided that an historical approach should be taken in depicting Arthur on film. Great concept, but making it a reality presented a host of new developmental problems that involved creating a new and far less worthwhile mythology involving disenchanting pseudo-knights, sadistic monks, and a face-painted, girl-power heroine straight out of action comics.

    Clive Owen stars as Arthur, a Roman officer for commanding a band of veteran Dalmatian mercenaries who have been forced to serve the interests of Rome since they were young boys. Stationed in Britain, they are famed for successfully crushing Celtic rebellions and upholding Pax Romana. However, when Rome calls back her legions from the British Isles, the Dalmatian Knights are finally given leave to return to their homeland in the steppes of Russia. But there is a catch. Bishop Germanus, typically shifty with a slick Mediterranean accent, insists that they first trek north into the mountains to rescue a Roman family from invading Saxons.

    Arthur is more than willing since they are his compatriots, but his subordinates, including his best friends Lancelot, played by Ioan Gruffudd, feel that they have been cheated. Nevertheless, they agree to follow their leader into the unknown, and ultimately wind up fighting both Celts and Saxons in the process of completing their mission. When they finally arrive at their destination, they discover that the Roman nobleman they are supposed to be rescuing has been brutally maltreating the local populace, including a bunch of druids locked up in the basement for long-term incarceration to “save their souls”. In this bunch, Arthur discovers a tough little Celt named Guinevere, played by Keira Knightley, who he rescues.

    Sure enough, they meet up double-header cheesy father-and-son villain team, Cerdic and Cyrnic, Saxon warriors with weird voices who engage Arthur’s men in a big battle over a frozen lake. With the help of Guinevere, who turns out to be a pretty good archer, Arthur and his knights win the day, but with heavy casualties. Meanwhile, Guinevere tries to convince Arthur to abandon his allegiance to Rome and stay behind to help the Druid rebel leader Merlin (yes, he makes a dorky appearance…) fight off the Saxons. Although his reasoning is a bit vague, he decides to accept the challenge and make his stand on Badon Hill to fight off the overwhelming onslaught of Saxons. Now his knights must make the crucial decision whether to abandon their old leader to his fate or stick it out with him to the bitter end.

    King Arthur has some epic qualities, and is based on an inherently good premise. Some of the visuals are wonderfully Celtic in feel. Filmed on location in Ireland, the glorious scenery with soaring mountains, rolling hills, and massive lakes was mythic in proportion. The battle on the frozen river is very well orchestrated, and the camera shots under the ice of the Saxons tramping forward are pretty cool. The scenes of Arthur decked out in Roman armor on horseback, surveying the mist-covered Mount Badon before the final battle is particularly evocative. The soul of the warrior becoming a horse in an intriguing concept, as is the portrayal of swords sticking out of all burial cairns as a matter of course, thus explaining why Arthur had to pull out “the sword in the stone.”

     The music is gloriously lush and inspired, even when the film itself is insipid. Moya Brennan’s vocals add a haunting strain to the romantic sequences, and the nostalgic song that Bors the Younger’s mistress sings has some really nice potential, reminiscent of “The Edge of Night” sung by Pippin in The Return of the King. But what could have been turned into something really fell flat after hearing the same line repeated so many times: “We will go home, across the mountains…” Nice for effect, but it was just too much of a good thing.

   

    Clive Owen is a pretty decent actor, but I’m afraid the material he got stuck with in this film is mostly lack-luster. On a positive note, Arthur is portrayed as a devout Christian, which is one of the few things we can actually verify about the historical character. He is shown selflessly praying that God would take his life but spare his knights as they travel north on their final mission. He also counters the pagan (seemingly atheist) Lancelot’s mockery of his prayers by saying, “A man should not fear kneeling to The God he trusts.” But for all this, Arthur embraces the teaching of Pelagius, a heretical monk who claimed their was no such thing as Original Sin or Divine Grace, making it necessary for people to earn their own salvation through good works alone. In this film, he is erroneously portrayed as the champion of the free world under oppression from the Roman Empire and the Roman Church.

    I’ll admit I’m rather prejudiced against Keira Knightley from the first considering her past annoying roles as Gwen in Princess in Thieves and Elizabeth Swan in Pirates of the Caribbean. But honestly, her portrayal of Guinevere as a Celtic warrior princess just totally underwhelmed me. First of all, her character is so different from any past depiction of Guinevere in romances, that she might as well have a different name. Both she and Lancelot had no historical basis, but were introduced to the older Welsh mythology by French minstrels. The film-makers seemed to overlook this point, and didn’t even make use of the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle, which would have at least justified why Guinevere and Lancelot were introduced to the “historical” plot to begin with!

    Instead, they settled for a modernistic portrayal of “girl-power”, an ancient Turiel for all practical purposes! Watching her seduce Arthur in his tent and then run around half-naked on a battlefield, hacking with an axe and strangling with a garrote, was quite disturbing. I don’t know how is with the other viewers, but her grotesquely unfeminine display did not endear her to me. I know all about female Celtic warriors as a historical reality, but have they to do with Guinevere? Furthermore, were their actions really what our modern generation identifies as the height of womanly virtue and role models for our daughters? I can appreciate a feisty maiden armed with wits and weapons to hold off and befuddle the baddies…but she’s got to do it with class, charm, and fitting femininity, not trying to be what she can never be: namely, a man!

    And this leads nicely to the next burning question: Is Hollywood obsessed with woad paint for some strange reason? From Wallace to Guinevere, they’re constantly plastering it on the wrong people from the wrong time periods. During the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, the native Britons had largely been Romanized and Christianized, and were most certainly not running around smeared with blue paint. But this just highlights the major historical foible made when meshing together two major events that were separated by at least a generation: the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain and the invasion of the Saxons. The Saxon baddies are laughably predictable in their behavioral comportments and faux villain voices that come off sounding like they are recovering from laryngitis. There are no insights into Saxon life, culture, or perspective, nor even authentic looking raids!

    The concept of a Celtic society that actually benefitted from being a part of The Roman Empire and The Catholic Church is lost on the storyboard. The portrayal of the Church is deplorable, best demonstrated by a corrupt bishop with a cheesy Italian accent and a spangling of sadistic monks who lock druids in dungeons and starve them to death while chanting requiems. Never mind the fact that The Catholic Church and her hard-working monks were instrumental in saving civilization during the Dark Ages; never mind that they successfully converted Europe and created Christendom; never mind all the glorious saints who were examples of charity and humility to all they met. No, no, no. That simply does not fit into the secular narrative. In championing Paganism and knocking the Church, the film-makers were really advancing a district neutral, lukewarm secularism.

    In getting rid of the Church as a positive influence, there is a necessity to change the traditional reason why Arthur is thought to have fought the Saxons. Instead of Arthur fighting for Christendom against the invading hoards of Paganism, he is portrayed as fighting for an airy-fairy notion of “freedom” with a distinctly modern flavor. One major question remains: Freedom to do what exactly? Like ambition, it’s only really as good as what’s done with it. But the secular perception of virtue has raised the state of being free as the end-all and be-all of life, instead of means to an end. But this nifty replacement of motivations for Arthur doesn’t carry over well, and in the end it comes out very simply as two warrior cultures sparring with one another over the land; “freedom”, religious or otherwise, is ultimately a non-issue.

    Morally, the plot plummets, driven by racy dialogue on the part of “The Knights” and Bors the Younger’s blatant shacking up with his long-time mistress and his multitudinous illegitimate children. Arthur’s own “casual sex” with Guinevere and later marriage to her in a pagan ceremony (in the midst of a papier-mâché Stonehenge no less!) really makes me lose respect for him as well. There is quite a lot of vulgar language hither and yon, explicit and highly unnecessary to get whatever point is trying to be made across to the audience. Battle sequences could be pretty bloody as well, with sword-slashing, ax-hacking, garrote-strangling, and drowning beneath ice. I fast-forwarded quite a lot of these gutsy sequences myself, both because they were graphic and far too long.

  

    I can’t believe they killed off Lancelot in such an anti-climactic fashion on Badon Hill! Really, overall, his position as trusty side-kick was minimally utilized, and while I still think Ioan Gruffudd is a terrific actor, the character development for Lancelot was practically non-existent, and he never really came into his own. His one major moment in the sun was when he leads “the knights” back to help Arthur fight the Saxons, even though they had been given leave to return to their homes in Dalmatia. Sadly, the film fails to make a strong emotional connection between the audience and the characters, much less their long-lost homeland or the autocratic Rome or the savage British Isles.

    Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, for all its historical butchery, did manage to relay the concepts of “home” and “freedom” in a way that could connect with modern audiences while not losing complete touch with the mythologized past. But when every historical epic afterwards tries to recapture the same old sparkle, ad nauseum, it quickly becomes a sappy mess. Although King Arthur did give the main character an interesting little hype-up speech about “home” being an emotional state when free men fight for the freedom of themselves and others, Arthur’s reasons for fighting with the Celtic Druids fail to stir the soul. They are far too vague, propped up by his mother’s ancestry (which is only briefly touched upon) and his disillusioned after Pelagius is excommunicated and executed.

    So in theory, King Arthur, historical style, was a unique idea that could have been a great success if it had been handles with greater care. But the sketchy storyline and historical interpretations reduced it to nothing more than a second-hand, second rate mythology. I suppose we shall just have to live in hope until someone gets up enough nerve to give the de-wizarded Arthurius another go. Until then, we can at least enjoy this version’s epic soundtrack as the saving grace of the production.

  

  

Guinevere (Keira Knightley) urges Arthur (Clive Owen) to battle the Saxons