Movie Review

Directed by Michael Apted, starring: Ione Gruffudd (Wilberforce), Rufus Sewell (Thomas Clarkson), Albert Finney (John Newton), Romola Garai (Barbara Spooner), Benedict Cumberbatch (William Pitt), Olaudo Equiana (Youssou N'Dour), Samuel Goldwyn Films, 111 minutes, 2007.

The hymn, after which this movie is titled, has never been one of my favourites and it has always surprised me that it is so popular in contemporary culture. Maybe it's the bagpipes. My limited pastoral experience has demonstrated to me that people are always able to find ways to accuse themselves that they are 'wretches' without singing about it. That said, this earnest, 18th century costume drama about William Wilberforce and his 20-year struggle to have slavery abolished in England is a pretty good film.

Wilberforce came from wealthy circumstances and after graduating from Cambridge turned his attention to politics. He seems to have been motivated by a desire to do good and not simply to acquire power and privilege. His Cambridge classmate, William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister at age 24 and supported Wilberforce in his ideas of social reform. However, it was three other figures who pressed him into his abolitionist stance.

Thomas Clarkson was a firebrand preacher of equal passion to Wilberforce and in fact was the person who challenged him to take up the cause. Clarkson recognized that the cause needed a politically prominent character to make any difference so it was his tireless acquisition of data about the slave trade and his extensive travels in England that fed Wilberforce the kind of information he needed. In the biography produced by Wilberforce's two sons, Clarkson's role is denigrated or ignored. This is ever so slightly reversed in the film but in real life it is a good question as to who the organ grinder was and who the monkey was!

One of the problems with the abolition of slavery movement in England was that there were no actual slaves there and people had no first hand experience. Slaves were transported to The West Indies by way of England but were kept on the ships in the deplorable conditions that the reformers tried to publicize. Yousou N'Dour was a former slave who wrote extensively about his experience and provided the real life data about conditions on the slave ships.

John Newton, author of the song, was a slave ship owner who had his own religious awakening. When Wilberforce meets him he is a slightly demented monk who urges him to pursue the cause. Newton is driven by nightmares and visions of his former life and one can appreciate the sentiments of the song because his turn around is so dramatic. Perhaps only the transcendent intervention of Grace could account for it.

Wilberforce is a very single minded and driven character with intractable confidence in the rightness of his ideals. When Barbara Spooner, who became his wife, first turned her heavy eyelids and "pouty" mouth towards him by the light of the fireplace and asked "Tell me about your last speech in Parliament", he tells her about his last speech in Parliament!

Faced with the question of whether to pursue a life of prayer or a life of political activism, Wilberforce chose both and thereby demonstrated that politics can be a noble pursuit when combined with morality and passion.

The implicit message of the film and indeed the story of the anti-slavery movement, is that the impassioned idealist is as capable of shaping history as prime ministers and generals. Christians championed the anti-slavery cause and in March 1807 were successful in England and in 1833 in the whole British Empire. Ultimately it was not the morality of the practice but the uneconomic outcome of the slave trade that won the day.

Christians of conscience have championed anti-slavery, anti-pornography, anti-war and anti-death penalty movements. We have led movements that are pro-feminist, pro gay rights and pro-choice. However, it is obvious that Christians have often been on both sides of all these issues and this has had devastating effects on the Christian community as well as the communities in which we all live. These are not simply matters of preference ("you say tomayto and I say tomahto"). The overall trend in these movements is in the direction of inclusion and liberty. The anti-slavery movement has become a paradigm of movements towards freedom and inclusion. There are many links between the story in Amazing Grace and contemporary movements driven by values of inclusion and liberty.