Directed by arguably the most popular director of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and starring some of the best known actors, this film examines the 1839 mutiny on the slave ship Amistad, and the ensuing court case in the U.S. We will use it to as an entry point for a discussion of how the traumatic Middle Passage (from Africa to the Americas) was imagined, as well as how resistance to slavery is conceptualized today. Among others, we will consider questions such as: What does Spielberg want his audience to think about America's relationship to slavery? How does he try to achieve his goals? How are some of the moral quandaries of slavery resolved in the movie? How can we properly understand the violence of the slave ship?
