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Amazing Grace

What's so amazing about grace?

AMAZING GRACE
Cert. PG. 118 minutes
Director: Michael Apted

In this year of the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition, this film seeks to tell the story of the great evangelical William Wilberforce’s struggle to end the slave trade.

This is a highly polished production, full of accomplished actors like Ioan Gruffyd playing Wilberforce, Albert Finney playing John Newton and Michael Gambon as the enigmatic Charles Fox. Although the film is very enjoyable and worth seeing, I felt it suffered from a number of weaknesses.

First and foremost, I think the problem lies in the fact that the tale of the political fight against slavery is not easily adaptable to the cinema. Taking place against the wider background of the American War of Independence, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars this was a protracted conflict spanning over 20 years with much political hard slog and many ups and downs. This is not obviously the stuff either of a swashbuckling adventure, a romantic comedy or a political drama.

Tokens

Secondly, the way the story has been told does play into the hands of those who will want to attack it on grounds of political incorrectness. The characters of Hannah Moore and Oloudaqh Equiano seem to appear as token woman and token African respectively. We really could have done with at least one scene which directly portrayed the degradation and inhumanity of the conditions on the slave ships.

Thirdly, the portrayal of evangelical Christianity, so crucial in motivating Wilberforce, was really quite muted. Wilberforce himself came across as likeable, ailing and eccentric, but not the zealous Christian he was. John Newton, the great preacher and writer of the hymn Amazing Grace was seen as a broken man, in a kind of hair shirt, rather like some member of Opus Dei, seeking to do penance for his past by scrubbing the church floors. Even his great saying, ‘All I know is that I am a great sinner but that Christ is a great Saviour’, was said more wistfully than joyously. And last, I know this is a bit pernickety, but I think Steve Turner’s excellent book Amazing Grace about the hymn itself indicates that the well-known tune used in the film did not emerge until well after the events of 1807.

I suppose I was a little disappointed. But having said all that, it is a good story of passion and humanity and redemption, and I am sure it will provide useful leads in sharing the gospel with our friends.

John Benton