By JERRY O'BRIEN
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Watching Steven Spielberg's Amistad for the first time yesterday produced an exhilarating rush of emotion and left a wake of satisfaction, as it will for all Rhode Islanders.

After all, we've got a bit more invested in this motion picture than does the average moviegoer.

The architectural gems in Newport, Providence and Bristol grace the screen beautifully.

The State House looks so good you'll wonder why they bothered to build one in Washington, D.C.

Colony House and the rest of Newport's Washington Square, filled with bundled-up pedestrians, neighing horses and clouds of dust, look wonderously trapped in the 19th century.

Newport's Queen Anne Square and the imposing Trinity Church offer a lovely counterpoint to the massive stone jailhouse that we watched being built of plastic and plywood back in February.

And, I'm pleased to report to grandchildren yet to be born, I made the final cut.

I was one of the lucky hundred or so extras who got to be in the courtroom scenes filmed in Colony House last March. My total screen time: 4.5 seconds. And I'm proud of every millisecond.

When the lights go down and the screen begins to glow, we'll all be looking for something: local landmarks, friends, ourselves. They're all here, and they all look great.

It's a mark of Spielberg's deft hand that the period costumes and authentic skyline don't overpower the story, a common pitfall in historical dramas.

As in the best of history classes, however, the narrative flow bogs down at times, stuck in the mud of international law and courtroom minutiae

Amistad is extraordinary when it delivers conflict and passion. The opening scenes of the shipboard rebellion rank with Spielberg's best work. But when the movie serves up political strategy and courtroom tactics, the gallop slows to a crawl.

As the court clerk in a number of scenes, I was the one recording the proceedings: scratching a large journal with a quill pen, glancing down to my inkwell and up to the unfolding action.

It's a tale worth recording, and until now, not one that has reached a large audience.

Amistad is the true story of a revolt in 1839 on the Spanish ship Amistad, by kidnapped Africans bound for slavery in Cuba. Led by a man called Cinque, the captives seize the vessel but are captured off the coast of Long Island and charged with murder and piracy.

The incident galvanizes abolitionists, angers pro-slavery advocates and lands in the Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams wins the Africans their freedom.

Along the way, as in all of Spielberg's movies, there are stunning set-pieces.

Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), lit by lightning and soaked with rain, extracting a blood-streaked cutlass from the body of a dead man.

The abolitionist Joadson (Morgan Freeman) stricken with emotion in the brutal, chain-draped hold of the slave ship.

The shocking flashbacks of torture and degradation as the Africans were transported from their homeland to the auction blocks of Havana.

There, too, are the extras with whom I all but lived for eight unforgettable days in March, a close yet evanescent comraderie. There's the man who looked like Rip Van Winkle. There's the sailor guy with the huge tattoo. There's the dark-haired woman who dreamed of stardom.

With each successive shot, I could see the director hovering over every scene, just as he did in crowded Colony House -- huddled intently by the camera, smiling, nodding, clapping his hands with delight.

"I love to try different things. You never know what you'll see," I remember Spielberg saying to actor Matthew McConaughey after the upteenth take of a courtroom scene. "That's part of the fun."

Then the director gestured to the bedlam of actors and technicians that surrounded him. "This is a gift," he said. "All of this is a gift. Let's use it."

An honorable movie has been made of a noble story. If it only happens once in a lifetime, I'm glad it happened here for me.

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