Amistad movie corrections

Cinque is shown in the first scene of the film ripping a nail (to pick his shackles) from the lower deck of Amistad with his bare and bloody fingers during a storm. In fact, Cinque was topside one day, and simply stooped down to pick up a piece of metal he saw to use as a pick. (Not quite as dramatic, but true.) See more...

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Amistad (1997) - 6 corrections

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman (add more)

Genres: Drama, History, Mystery

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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The central character, the enslaved Cinque, was not seized in Africa and then immediately exported to Cuba out of the slave depot at Lomboko. Cinque was enslaved a few years earlier by black Africans (a common practice) and eventually sold to slave traders. [Even if this is correct (online biographies seem to disagree), Cinque's past history is only shown in short cuts and small portions during a flashback. The film makers merely chose to omit the parts that had no bearing on the story of the Amistad uprising, including Cinque's time in captivity while still in Africa.]

Corrected by Twotall

When the prosecution is questioning the British naval officer there is an orange, dusk coloured sky behind him, showing through the window. But when Cinque stands up it is broad daylight. [The shots that show the courtroom in orange light is seen through the eyes of Cinque, and is done deliberately to show how strange, confusing and scary the whole experience is to him. In addition to the light, voices occasionally fade away and rapid cuts are made between characters, with intermittent close-ups of Cinque's eyes and the sweat pouring down his brow. When he stands up to plea for freedom, the film goes back to showing the court room as it really is, in normal daylight.]

Corrected by Twotall

At the end when the ships blow up the fort, the fort they are blowing up is the "Fuerte San Felipe del Morro" which is in Puerto Rico, not Cuba. [The ships are blowing up the slave depot at Lomboko, which is in present day Sierra Leone.]

All through the movie they use a present day American flag, the problem was the movie is set in the early 1800's, so it should have fewer stars. [While they do use the wrong flag, it's not a present day flag. It should have 20 stars, not thirteen.]

During the scene with John Quincy Adams at the Capitol Building, there is a dome on the capitol. The movie takes place in 1839, but the dome wasn't completed until 1863. [The Capitol building had a dome before the 1860s only it was smaller. The film is quite accurate in showing this dome as smaller than the present one.]

Not to ruin the point of the whole movie, but the film fails to tell you what happened to Cinque after he went back to Africa: He became a slavetrader. [Although Cinque may have become a slavetrader, he died as a missionary and was buried with many others who came to Africa to help.]

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