Movie Review: A review of 'Amistad' by Michael Janusonis
Related Story: 4.5 seconds that will last a lifetime

Story by Arial SABAR
With reports from CELESTE KATZ, JERRY O' BRIEN and MICHAEL JANUSONIS

Hollywood movies don't get shown here before they do in Hollywood. But last night was different.

Klieg lights painted clovers in the sky above three Rhode Island cities, the sharply dressed schmoozed over cocktails at a ballroom reception in Providence, and around 1,000 Rhode Islanders flocked to theaters in Warwick and Newport to see a $45-million Steven Spielberg film one day before New York and Los Angeles.

The film was Amistad, and the reason it appeared here first was simple: Spielberg's studio, DreamWorks, wanted to reward Rhode Island, where much of the movie was shot and where the architecture has changed so little over the last century that all the director had to do in some scenes was take down street signs and sprinkle a little dirt over the asphalt.

By all accounts, Rhode Island audiences liked what they saw last night.

As moviegoers streamed out of the Opera House Theater in Newport, many said the film moved them, even if its bloody depictions of torture and murder made them wince.

Others said they learned things they didn't know about slavery.

"I've got a new outlook on what slavery was all about and what they all went through," said Carlos Silva, 17, who was among a group of seven honor students from Rogers High School who saw the film here.

Former Sen. Claiborne Pell, who attended the Newport showing with his wife, Nuala, called the movie "wonderful."

"The important thing is the emphasis on freedom, the single most powerful driving force," he said.

Governor Almond, who saw the film in Warwick, described it afterward as "very powerful and very, very well done." The high points, for him, were John Quincy Adams's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court and an extended shot of the dome of the State House, which is the U.S. Capitol in the movie.

Almond wasn't the only one tickled at the sight of the commonplace made magical on the big screen.

Newport moviegoers seemed titillated to see the places they pass everyday depicted as 19th-century courthouses and prisons.

At the first shot of the city's Trinity Church, which can be glimpsed in the background as the captive slaves are led to prison, a man said, "Look, there's Trinity Church."

The audience shouted "Yay!" and applauded.

The oohs and ahs continued as other Newport landmarks crossed the silver screen: the altered facade of Yesterday's restaurant, the marble columns of the Bank of Newport, the well-preserved brick and clapboard face of the Citizens Bank Building.

The audiences were generous in their reactions, audibly gasping at the blood-spattering slayings aboard the Spanish schooner La Amistad and tittering at the portrayal of a sharp-witted yet doddering John Quincy Adams.

IN SOME WAYS, the two screenings here smacked of Hollywood.

Tickets were not available to the general public, with the exception of a small number doled out by lottery in Newport; the rest were distributed through the governor's office and Newport City Hall, and many landed in the hands of local VIPs.

In Providence, women in fur coats and men in dark suits rubbed shoulders at a prescreening reception, where formally attired waiters passed around trays of toothpick-skewered stuffed mushrooms and bacon-wrapped scallops.

But in other ways, this was definitely not La-La Land. None of the film's stars were on hand for the screenings; the proverbial "red carpet" leading to the Opera House Theater in Newport was a white cloth resembling an unfurled roll of paper towel; and an official at an outdoor reception near the theater descended into a distinctly Rhode Island style of provincialism.

The Showcase Cinemas in Warwick had at first been chosen as the sole site for the Rhode Island premiere. But after Newport officials complained and Rep. Patrick Kennedy intervened on their behalf, a second showing, at the Opera House, was added.

The Newport showing began at 7:15 p.m., an hour before Warwick, and Keith Stokes, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, didn't pass up the opportunity to take digs at the cross-state rival.

"Welcome to Newport, and the world premiere of Amistad," he said, standing on the Old Colony House steps at the public reception last night. "We're an hour before that town called Warwick, and a day before New York and L.A." (In fact, the world premiere took place last week in Washington, D.C.)

THE FILM, starring Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins, tells the story of African slaves who revolted aboard a Spanish schooner in 1839, and killed some of the white crew. The incident threatened international relations between the United States, Spain and England; further polarized advocates and opponents of slavery in America, and inspired former President John Quincy Adams to defend the slaves before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even before its national opening this Friday, the movie has renewed discussions about the legacy of slavery in America.

It has also led to or coincided with novels and reissued history books on the episode, an opera, cover stories in popular political journals like The New Republic, and a lawsuit over who owns the rights to the story depicted in the movie.

Locally, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the United Black and Brown Fund are sponsoring forums, book signings, exhibits, and fundraisers.

Speakers at the two prescreeening receptions last night emphasized the historical underpinnings of the movie.

"Amistad . . . has united many of us in a drive to educate and to learn about issues of slavery, justice and opportunity," activist Rose Weaver said at a reception in the fifth-floor ballroom at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

The Rev. Lauri Smalls, who conducted the Voices United in Praise chorus at the reception in Newport, delivered a similar message to the crowd of some 200 that gathered around the stairs of the Old Colony House.

"I'm glad they made the movie to set history right, to show that black people weren't passive and fought back," said Ms. Smalls, whose cousin was an extra in the film.

More than half of the film's scenes were filmed in Rhode Island, according to Rick Smith, who heads the state's Film & TV Office. The Old Colony House in Newport is a courthouse in the film, Fort Wetherill Beach in Jamestown is the rocky beach where the African slaves row ashore in a lifeboat, the Hope Farm Stream in Bristol is the river in which Africans fill buckets with water.

Spielberg was drawn to the state because so little had to be done to transform squares and buildings into the way they might look a century and a half ago.

"It's living history," Newport Mayor David Gordon said last night.

In that city, many came to the outdoor reception in Washington Square last night even though they didn't have tickets to the show.

Among them was Patricia Gunn, who brought her two teenage daughters, Alexia and Francesca, even though Francesca had a long night of homework ahead of her.

The three had come out to this very square every day during the filming in March. They were still star-struck last night.

"I wanted [Francesca] and her sister to be part of history, to tell their children, `We were here,' " Gunn said.

Lynn Lydon, of South Kingstown, was an extra in the movie and was thrilled to see herself last night on the screen in Warwick -- even if only from the neck down. Lydon played a Washington woman, and in a scene in front of the State House, there's a body that's only partly in the frame; she swears it's hers.

"I know from the costume that it was me," she said as she made her way to coffee and danishes in the theater lobby late last night.

Other Rhode Island extras won't know till the national opening, on Friday, whether they made the final cut.

During filming, David Spitzman had awakened at 4 a.m. to play a militia sergeant as an extra in the film. But last night he could only stand on a street corner and watch as lucky ticket holders streamed into the Opera House. He was one of the 376 people who entered a lottery for 35 pairs of tickets earmarked for the public.

"It would have been nice" to have won, he said.

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