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How sweet the sight
Despite flaws, Amazing Grace offers valuable look at abolition movement
AMAZING GRACE
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Barbara Spooner, Albert Finney.
Written by: Steven Knight
Directed by: Michael Apted
111 minutes, Rated PG
Michael Apted's film, Amazing Grace, presents the 19 years William Wilberforce (1759-1833) campaigned against slavery. The film is rich in purpose and detail, including horrifying displays of slave irons. Although imperfect, it is a worthy vehicle for understanding political and clerical history.
As a young man in London, Wilberforce struggled between becoming an Anglican priest or a member of Parliament; he decided finally that, as a politician, he could practice his faith actively in social justice. One of Wilberforce's minor mentors was John Newton, the former slave-ship captain and Anglican priest who wrote the words for Amazing Grace, among many beloved hymns.
Wilberforce sacrificed his youth and his health (he suffered from something like Crohn's disease) during his decades-long struggle -- supported by Thomas Clarkson and the Quakers -- to abolish the slave trade. Amazing Grace ends with the 1807 passage of Wilberforce's bill to outlaw the British trade in slaves. Wilberforce continued to fight for abolition abroad until his dying day.
There is no way that Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) could have directed Amazing Grace without a liberal greasing of self-importance and historical irony, which set the film's tone. But surely there must have been a way for Steven Knight to write dialogue to sound more like conversation and less like quoted speeches. Knight plays back and forth with time; one flashback has Wilberforce telling his story to the woman who becomes his wife, even though she has proven she already knows it.
Apted plays with light -- the gentlemen's card clubs glow like copper plates. Both director and writer play up sentiment at the expense of history. For example, Newton, old and, by then, blind, is guided into the House of Commons as the anti-slave-trade vote is taken, and tender hearts must pound.
Apted ends the film with an anachronistic band of bagpipers, which reopens the face faucets. Amazing Grace is set to "New Britain," the American hymn tune most Americans are familiar with today, although not the tune Newton or Wilberforce most likely knew.
The acting is good, if staged. Ioan Gruffudd (Horatio Hornblower) strengthens Wilberforce, even when the MP doubles over, ill. A bevy of recognizable English actors appears throughout, including Benedict Cumberbach, Toby Young (Capote in Capote), Ciaran Hinds, the inimitable Michael Gambon and Stephen Campbell Moore (History Boys). Rufus Sewell energizes the role of Clarkson, Albert Finney is strong as Newton, and Youssou N'Dour plays a former African prince and slave. Romola Garai is vibrant as Wilberforce's abolitionist wife, Barbara Spooner (where are all the other female abolitionists?).
Amazing Grace is not the best movie that could have been made on abolition, but if it sends one person to learn more about Wilberforce and his three priest sons, it is not just a biopic. If it continues the conversation about slavery -- then and now, black and white, male and female -- Amazing Grace becomes much more than a costume drama.
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