Movie of the Week: Belle
Jun. 26th, 2014 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyNot our usual type of movie event - no SF for two weeks running - but oh how this made up for the appalling A Million Ways to Die in the West which we saw last week.
Insipred by a painting from 1779 - the first known to show a black person on the same eyeline level and therefore equal to an aristocratic white person - and based on a true story, this is a fictional account of a few years in the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral who is raised by her aristocratic great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England. Set in the late 1700s.
Dido grows up in his household, becomes the de-facto sister and best friend of his other ward, Elizabeth. There's an entirely fictional love story, nicely paced and nicely played, between Dido and a young lawyer. The setting is almost a character in itself, beautifully filmed with excellent costumes.
Good performances, too. Gugu Mbatha Raw is delightful as Dido, Sam Reid plays Davinier, Dido's love interest. Special mention to Tom Wilkinson as the sometimes stiff, but always human Murray and the wonderful Penelope Wilton (Harriet Jones, Prime Minister from Dr Who amongst other things) as the spinster Lady Mary
The film is purely fictional, but speculates how the presence of Dido in his household might have influenced Murray's ruling on the Zong massacre. The case was between the insurance company and the ship owners who claimed compensation for the loss of a cargo of slaves who were thrown overboard to drown, supposedly because of a dangerous lack of water, but in reality because they'd been kept in such poor conditions that they were diseased and had no resale value. The ship owners claimed £30 per head for 'spoiled cargo' which the insurance company contested.
Murray's ruling helped to open up the way for the abolitionist movement. It's interesting to note that, although the film makes no reference to it, it was also Murray who ruled on the earier Somersett case in 1772, which held that slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, and that a person, whatever his status, could not be removed from England against his will. This was one of the significant milestones in the fight to abolish slavery.
I didn't see Twelve Years a Slave, but in a quietly authoritative way Belle makes significant points about the history and horrors of the slave trade and the first steps to overturn it. Well worth seeing.
Insipred by a painting from 1779 - the first known to show a black person on the same eyeline level and therefore equal to an aristocratic white person - and based on a true story, this is a fictional account of a few years in the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral who is raised by her aristocratic great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England. Set in the late 1700s.Dido grows up in his household, becomes the de-facto sister and best friend of his other ward, Elizabeth. There's an entirely fictional love story, nicely paced and nicely played, between Dido and a young lawyer. The setting is almost a character in itself, beautifully filmed with excellent costumes.
Good performances, too. Gugu Mbatha Raw is delightful as Dido, Sam Reid plays Davinier, Dido's love interest. Special mention to Tom Wilkinson as the sometimes stiff, but always human Murray and the wonderful Penelope Wilton (Harriet Jones, Prime Minister from Dr Who amongst other things) as the spinster Lady Mary
The film is purely fictional, but speculates how the presence of Dido in his household might have influenced Murray's ruling on the Zong massacre. The case was between the insurance company and the ship owners who claimed compensation for the loss of a cargo of slaves who were thrown overboard to drown, supposedly because of a dangerous lack of water, but in reality because they'd been kept in such poor conditions that they were diseased and had no resale value. The ship owners claimed £30 per head for 'spoiled cargo' which the insurance company contested.
Murray's ruling helped to open up the way for the abolitionist movement. It's interesting to note that, although the film makes no reference to it, it was also Murray who ruled on the earier Somersett case in 1772, which held that slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, and that a person, whatever his status, could not be removed from England against his will. This was one of the significant milestones in the fight to abolish slavery.
I didn't see Twelve Years a Slave, but in a quietly authoritative way Belle makes significant points about the history and horrors of the slave trade and the first steps to overturn it. Well worth seeing.
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Date: Jun. 26th, 2014 05:18 pm (UTC)I await the film about Mary Seacole (if anyone ever makes it) with interest!
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Date: Jun. 26th, 2014 08:49 pm (UTC)