![]() “She impressed upon me the importance of the African culture. “She had me after 10 minutes, really,” Spielberg says. An hour and a half later, Allen says, they had to drag Spielberg away from the meeting. She was given 25 minutes to win over Spielberg. She thought the Oscar-winning film gave her a peek into the director’s soul and that if she could just meet with him, she could persuade Spielberg to make her movie.Īfter talking to DreamWorks SKG executives Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, Allen got her wish. It was after seeing “Schindler’s List” that Allen came to think of Spielberg. She shopped the project to studios for years, all the while continuing to research and develop the story. ![]() So why did it take 13 years to put it in theaters? Allen doesn’t pretend to have the answer to that one. The fate of the captives eventually was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, with former President John Quincy Adams arguing for the Africans’ freedom.Ĭlearly, Allen thought, the story had all the elements necessary for a great movie - conflict, resonance, heroism. “I felt robbed and cheated that I had never been taught about this in school,” says producer Debbie Allen, who initiated the project 13 years ago after coming across two volumes of essays about the Amistad incident.Īllen realized the importance of the story after learning the details about how the slaves were captured by an American naval ship, imprisoned in New Haven, Conn., for their mutiny and then put on trial in a case that had great political implications for a nation about to explode in civil war. ![]() It’s also an extraordinary piece of history that nobody seems to know about, much like Spielberg’s last factual effort, “Schindler’s List.” It’s a story about all peoples, a story that still reverberates powerfully today. That this was a true story, the story of my people, made it all the more difficult.”įor director Steven Spielberg, “Amistad” isn’t simply a story about Africans or Americans. “But you would see others crying, and then the tears would come. “I tried not to cry,” Honsou says quietly. It was especially difficult to keep his composure while filming the harrowing scenes where the slaves were stripped naked, beaten and, many times, brutally murdered while being transported from Africa to the United States, a country deeply divided over the issue of slavery. There were the days spent in heavy iron shackles, nights spent thinking about the true story of the 53 slaves who rebelled on board the slave ship La Amistad in 1839, killing all but two of their captors in the name of freedom. There were quite a few moments during the making of “Amistad” when actor Djimon Honsou felt like crying.
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