Movie Corner

Frankly, I looked this movie up because it was lauded among Christian Conservatives as something to show the crucial role Christianity played in abolishing the slave trade. But, with no offense to my Christian friends, the move does nothing of the kind. Clearly religion is a central part of the life of the main character, Wilberforce, but the real movie centers around three plot points: (1) the romance between Wilberforce and Barbara Spooner, who is a strong-willed women attempting to put the heart back into a sick and sickened Wilberforce after years of unsuccessful crusading; (2) the friendship and conflict between Wilberforce and William Pitt, whose more pragmatic approach to politics clashes with Wilberforce’s zeal; (3) the conflict between Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, who is a revolutionary dreaming of a Jacobin overthrow of all institutions, whereas Wilberforce remains loyal to the social order he wants to improve.

Being something of a romantic myself, I was most interested in the romance. I thought the young actress selected for the role particularly fetching, especially in her Big Historical Hat:

Reviews had led me to expect a movie with a strong pro-Christian theme. That is not what I saw: to me, the Christianity was the background issue, no more intrusive than mentions of Jupiter would be in a movie set in Ancient Rome, or mentions of the Great God Tao in a movie set on planet Mongo.

On thing that surprises me about the movie is that I do not recall a great fanfare and applause among the political Left when it came out. This man, Wilberforce, should by rights be one of their foremost heroes, a secular saint. He is an activist of the purest quill, a model for every crusading world-changer and world-improver to come after him. Unlike a majority of modern crusaders, his crusade was a success: the Holy Land, so to speak, was taken. I don’t think a serious argument can be made against the idea that William Wilberforce did much more to improve the condition of blacks in the world than did Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or the interracial space-kiss between Kirk and Uhura. Maybe there was a huge hurrah on the Left when this film came out, and a shower of rewards, but, if so, I did not hear a peep of it. Aren’t they in favor of Abolition?

I found the movie by turns charming, moving, romantic, witty, and poignant. The gentle humor of the old married couple trying to play match-maker with bachelor Wilberforce delighted me. The grim scenes with the old slaver ship captain, John Newton (who wrote the hymn whose name graces the film), a man haunted by the thousands of ghosts of the slaved killed aboard his ships were both effective and affecting. When it is revealed that Barbara Spooner admired and hero-worshipped Wilberforce since age fourteen, when she gave up sugar, or when the pair are trying to discover what they do not have in common, was romantic without being forced or erotic. The banter with William Pitt, and the speeches in Parliament, showed the wit and force of their characters. The depiction of conditions aboard slave ships, even today, has the power to shock the conscience.

The abolition of slavery is without parallel. It is the single shining moral achievement in the long, sad history of mankind. The institution existed since time immemorial, and no ancient philosopher, sage or holy man condemned it.

This abolition was done against all custom and against the economic self-interest of the British Empire. It was done for reasons of pure conscience, and not for any earthly reward.

First the slave-trade, and then all slavery, was eliminated in France, in other European Countries, and in the Americas not long after. British warships blockaded Turkey to put an end to the Muslim traffic in human slaves, which was larger than Christian traffic had been. China and Japan followed suit, and abolished slavery in their attempts to Westernize. Only in recent years have we seen the slave trade making a come-back, now that Western power is in decline, and now that Westerners have convinced the world that ours ways are not the way to progress and happiness.

Even Christianity, the only religion ever to take a stand against slavery, did not begin to abolish it in Europe until after the fall of the Empire. (The African slave-trade, ironically enough, was a Sixteenth Century phenomena, the time of the Enlightenment. The Dark Ages was the true anti-slavery age, with the practice being outlawed and abolished and anathematized bit by bit, across Christendom.)

When I was young, I read Heinlein’s HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL. There is a climactic scene where the human race is put on trial, and the alien super-beings meditate on human history to determine if our species holds more promise or more potential threat. In one of the author’s few missteps in this otherwise engaging book, he has his main character defy and threaten the aliens; in effect, he was confessing that mankind was indeed too dangerous to the civilized galaxy to be allowed to spread. Rereading it with adult eyes, I find the scene to be absurd and incongruous. When an alien superbeing asks you if your race is civilized enough to justify not destroying your whole planet immediately, you say “Yes.”

Had it been me on trial for humanity, I would have called William Wilberforce as my star witness. Even a harsh judge of our world might spare us merely because of this one monumental moral accomplishment.

The movie to praise the memory of the author of this titanic achievement in human felicity is long overdue.