Amistad: Countering the Count

By Alexander Vernak, with comment by Ed Tabor

[1] Through the portrayal of the character of the Count in The Last Supper and John Quincy Adams in Amistad, clear distinctions can be made in the depictions of race relations in the two films. Furthermore, the imagery the Count chooses to ordain himself with, specifically, Jesus Christ seems better fit for the character of Adams in Amistad. The shared ambition of Adams and the other abolitionists in Amistad reveals that the dehumanization of the slaves in The Last Supper is more the plotting of a hypocritical count than a universal burden shared by all white property owners at the time these films portray.

[2] In The Last Supper, we are presented with a hypocritical Count who considers himself analogous to Christ. He shares a meal with twelve of his slaves in order to reenact the iconic scene of Christ’s Last Supper. Although he follows through with the duties implied by this gesture, most distinctly the washing of the feet, his ultimate motivations are soon discovered to be far from the self-sacrifice that is so distinctly inherent in the characterization of Christ’s interactions with his disciples. The Count in The Last Supper makes numerous claims concerning his own motivations and drunkenly makes promises that he would never even fathom keeping. Throughout his drunken rants, however, he reveals much about his character and his perspective on the humanity of the Africans who serve him. He is able to manipulate religious imagery for the purpose of further subjugating an already completely dehumanized people.

[3] During the supper the Count shares with his slaves, the theme of obedience is used to counter the slave’s claims of injustice. The slave Pascual asks, “Why must the black man take the overseer’s blows without protest?” The Count responds that these beatings are the will of God. “Because it is God’s will and God’s punishment!” he says. “God is merciful, but is pitiless with the disobedient.” Only through their obedience and acceptance of their condition, the Count argues, can they truly attain happiness. By addressing them as though they were his friends, he hopes to gain both respect and loyalty. This attempt by the Count to engender a feeling of camaraderie with his slaves is later shown to be only a façade. When his servant Emundo notices he is intoxicated and attempts to usher him off to sleep, the count reacts with rage. “And who are you to give me an order?” he says. “Are you forgetting the role you have to play? Your master! Understand? Your master! Clear off.”

[4] The entire charade that the Count puts on by staging his reenactment of the Last Supper reveals more about his view on racial relations than anything else. He says himself, addressing Sebastian, “Overseer orders, niggers must shut mouth and obey. This happens to nigger because they’re stupid. So the overseer is right to treat you like this.” He views the Africans who serve him as less than human. He commonly refers to their stupidity and their need to realize their role as servants to him. By the end of the film, however, his ruthless nature becomes clear. When the priest is on the verge of calling the Africans equal in death, the Count retorts “Equal! They’ve spent their life devouring one another . . . and now they’ve found our flesh is better, they want to devour us. What happened in Santo Domingo is not going to happen here! Martin Sanchez! Here is one of the twelve who sat at the Lord’s table. And him! There’s another for you. Show them no mercy. I want them dead, as examples. I just want their heads.” The Count views the passive aggressiveness of his welcoming the slaves to share in his self-divination as a gift to those who didn’t deserve it. By the end of the film he does play God and punishes with death the men he shared dinner with only a short while earlier. He sees this execution of the Africans as the will of God, a victory over “bestiality and savagery.”

[5] The character of John Quincy Adams in Amistad could not be in greater contrast to the Count. He is depicted as an aging former president that some even consider to be losing his mind. His moral compass on the issue of slavery, however, is revealed to be as acute as ever. Though he initially refuses overtures by the lawyers who are acting on behalf of the Africans, ultimately his sense of humanity gets the better of him. In The Last Supper, we were presented with masters who could not view their slaves as human. In Amistad we are presented with dignified white men who cannot bear to watch the injustices being enacted on people who they see as fellow humans.

[6] Throughout his spirited plea to the Supreme Court, Adams makes it clear that he cannot see how the law can distinguish men from one another. Drawing heavily on some of the most sacred documents in the history of the United States, he makes it clear that no law of the country prohibits any man from certain inalienable rights. While addressing the court, he makes explicitly clear the implications of the case they are ready to judge. “This is the most important case ever to come before this court,” he says. “Because what it in fact concerns is the very nature of man.” While the Count in The Last Supper seems unwilling or, perhaps more troubling, unable to recognize his slaves as human, Adams make it clear that this realization is at the very foundation of the legal argument they are undertaking. The recognition of the African captives as human is the only way Adams could see justice truly being served in the court of law. (see comment by Ed Tabor)

[7] In what is perhaps the most riveting segment of his deposition, Adams calls on the court to recognize the commonality between the plight of Cinque and that of our founding fathers when they were trying to liberate themselves from Britain. “Now, if he were white, he wouldn’t be standing before this court fighting for his life,” Adams says. “If he were white and his enslavers were British, he wouldn’t be standing, so heavy the weight of the medals and honors we would bestow on him.” Adams’ fundamental view of humanity, which he had to articulate to a court with many members who held slaves themselves, is most clear in this moment. Cinque was no different from the patriots written in the legacy of the United States of America. He fought only for his freedom when subjugated without a cause. “Yet, if the South is right,” he continues, “what are we to do with that embarrassing, annoying document, The Declaration of Independence? What of its conceits? ‘All men created equal,’ ‘inalienable rights,’ ‘life, liberty,’ and so on and so forth? What on Earth are we to do with this? I have a modest suggestion.” With those words, in a most powerful gesture, he tears the papers in his hand.

[8] Adams realized the inherent hypocrisy in the existence of the Declaration of Independence if it could not serve to aid the downtrodden. Its purposes were not to serve only the visionaries at the time it was written, but any man who sought to alienate himself from injustice. He did not view the Africans from the Amistad as less than human, but rather as analogous to the brave patriots who helped found the United States.

[9] As the contradictions between these two films reveals, the attitudes of the men involved concerning the condition of the African people is very different. In The Last Supper, a manipulative and hypocritical Count regards his slaves as nothing more than simple possessions. Even more troubling, the Count manipulates the manifestation of faith and a gesture of great humility into a vehicle for his own ends. In Amistad, an old politician realizes the plight of a persecuted people as a struggle similar to one suffered by his forefathers not very long before. He is able to inspire this same realization in the eyes of the court. Through his recognition of the hypocrisy inherent in prohibiting man from his fundamental rights, as described in the most hallowed documents in the history of the United States, he is able to preserve the humanity that others had attempted to take away from the African people.

[10] These contradictions make clear the true horror of The Last Supper. A man whose ego will not allow him to realize the great injustice set before him. His unwillingness to accept any form of commonality with the people who serve him prohibits him from fully understanding his actions over the course of the film. He shamelessly partakes in the recreation of an event with great spiritual impetus and turns it into self-glorification. Those who he calls his disciples and with whom he shares a meal are never more than disposable characters in his fanciful and twisted perception of himself as the good shepherd.

Comments

Ed Tabor 8/18/12

Another striking difference between the films is the total lack of objective law in The Last Supper. The only laws that exist are the esoteric laws of the church, and those appear to apply only when convenient. Many of the Count’s decisions fail to follow any laws of Spain or Cuba. John Mraz points out that the Count “encounters no legal obstacles to having his twelve [eleven?] ‘disciples’ cruelly executed” (117). Mraz goes on to point out that few slave laws existed and the portrayal of power by an overseer was accurate. He reports that “local power was absolute” and a mayoral on a plantation “could ignore the Count’s freeing of a slave and force him to remain in bondage”(117). A certain absurdity clearly reigns in a system that has a hierarchy but gives ultimate power to a low member. Yet, Amistad shows us that even an enlightened society with explicit laws may have difficulty seeing what is just and true. Adams at least has a concrete set of laws to follow, ones which will arguably be upheld by justice.