: Study Questions: Week Four

From Entertainment to Social Engagement.

The Color Purple (1985)

Amistad (1997)

1. What is the thematic and symbolic significance of "the color purple"? How does the film emphasize this significance visually?

2. In what ways does Celie's (Whoopi Goldberg) father exemplify the behavior of men throughout the film? Which would you say is more heavily emphasized in the film, racism or domestic violence?

3. What is the significance of Albert's (Danny Glover) mailbox which reappears many times during the film? How do its changes reflect changes in Albert and Celie's life?

4. Nettie (Akousa Busia) teaches Celie to read, and they read Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. How does the fate of Dickens' hero parallel the fate of Celie?

5. What is wrong with Celie advising Harpo (Willard Pugh) to beat his wife Sophia (Oprah Winfrey)? How does she betray herself by doing so?

6. How does Celie's relationship with Shug (Margaret Avery) open up a new world for her? Give two examples.

7. Why has Shug's father rejected her. Be specific.

8. What is the thematic significance of the African sequences? Consider especially the first sight of the wild animals and the arrival of the road builders.

9. Is the conclusion of the film believable? Consider the revelation of the identity of Celie's father, the almost magical reunion of the family, Celie inheriting her own home.

10. Should the film be seen as a realistic portrayal of rural black culture before WWII, as a parable of endurance, as a bit of both? Why? Why not?

11. Amistad opens in the dark with only occasional images (all of pain and confinement) flashing on the screen. Cinque and his fellow slaves speak in their native language with no subtitles. Why, in your opinion, has Spielberg chosen to keep the audience from seeing the revolt more clearly -- as it would have been done in most Hollywood films? Why does he wait to show the horror of the middle passage late in the film? What dramatic purpose is served? Think about the appearance of the shark in Jaws.

12. What impression is given of the Spanish government by focussing on the childish behavior of Isabella II?

13. What is the position of President Martin Van Buren on the 44 prisoners? Why does he embrace that opinion? Give two reasons.

14. The court proceedings turn on the question of the prisoners being "property." Why does Spielberg make a point of contrasting the property lawyer Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughy) with the abolitionists (whom the prisoners describe as looking "miserable"). How does the contrast contrast the value of effective action as opposed to "making a statement"?

15. What influences the judge's decision not to release the prisoners? How does this influence reflect a suspicion of institutions of authority evident throughout the film?

16. How does the meeting between Cinque and John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) in Adams' greenhouse allow Spielberg to establish a common humanity shared by all human beings? And how is the importance of a common language essential to revealing that humanity?

17. Why, in your opinion, does Spielberg allow John C. Calhoon, a defender of slavery, to be so eloquent in its defense at the presidential dinner? How might he be contrasted to the rhetorically limited but essentially noble Cinque? Note the way Spielberg often uses similar contrasts to make a point in his films.

18. What is the thematic function of Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman) in Amistad? Consider his journey into the hold of the slave ship.

19. How effective if Anthony Hopkins portrayal of Adams? On what specific evidence do you base your judgment?

20. How does the destruction of the slave fortress by the British navy and Cinque's sad homecoming foreshadow the events which took place in the United States two decades after the Amistad incident?