Is he a “fundamentalist”? a “fanatic”? or…?

Last updated on: February 26, 2007 at 10:35 am by Peter T. Chattaway

Is he a “fundamentalist”? a “fanatic”? or…? 2007-02-26T10:35:00-08:00 Peter T. Chattaway

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I’ve been away from the computer for at least 40 hours, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

In the meantime, I just want to note two comments on Amazing Grace, a film which was #10 in “North America” this past weekend, though it does not come to Canada for almost four weeks.

First, Beliefnet’s Charlotte Allen writes at OpinionJournal.com:

It is rare that a Hollywood film takes up a subject like William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the British parliamentarian who devoted nearly his entire 45-year political career to banning the British slave trade. Alas, a lot of people watching “Amazing Grace,” Michael Apted’s just-released film, may get the impression–perhaps deliberately fostered by Mr. Apted–that Wilberforce was a mostly secular humanitarian whose main passion was not Christian faith but politics and social justice. Along the way, they may also get the impression that the hymn “Amazing Grace” is no more than an uplifting piece of music that sounds especially rousing on the bagpipes.

In fact, William Wilberforce was driven by a version of Christianity that today would be derided as “fundamentalist.” One of his sons, sharing his father’s outlook, was the Anglican bishop Samuel Wilberforce, who wrote a passionate critique of “The Origin of the Species,” arguing that Darwin’s then-new theory could not fully account for the emergence of human beings. William Wilberforce himself, as a student at Cambridge University in the 1770s and as a young member of Parliament soon after, had no more than a nominal sense of faith. Then, in 1785, he began reading evangelical treatises and underwent what he called “the Great Change,” almost dropping out of politics to study for the ministry until friends persuaded him that he could do more good where he was.

And he did a great deal of good, as Mr. Apted’s movie shows. His relentless campaign eventually led Parliament to ban the slave trade, in 1807, and to pass a law shortly after his death in 1833, making the entire institution of slavery illegal. But it is impossible to understand Wilberforce’s long antislavery campaign without seeing it as part of a larger Christian impulse. The man who prodded Parliament so famously also wrote theological tracts, sponsored missionary and charitable works, and fought for what he called the “reformation of manners,” a campaign against vice. This is the Wilberforce that Mr. Apted has played down.

Second, Manohla Dargis writes in The New York Times:

“Amazing Grace,” a prettified take on the life and times of the 18th-century reformer William Wilberforce, carries a strong whiff of piety. It isn’t a bad smell; there are notes of roses and treacle in the mix, but also elements of sweat and pain. Wilberforce, born in 1759, was an abolitionist for much of his adult life and helped bring about the end of the slave trade in the British Empire and then slavery itself. He was an evangelical Christian and social conservative who rallied for animal rights and against trade unions, which makes him a tough nut to crack. It’s no wonder he makes a first-rate movie saint.

Serious-minded and squeaky clean, “Amazing Grace” is an imperfect look at an imperfect soul. It has been confidently directed by Michael Apted, who invests Wilberforce’s fight with a strong sense of conviction, and written by Steven Knight, whose other credits include “Dirty Pretty Things.” The overall effect is part BBC-style biography, part Hollywood-like hagiography, and generally pleasing and often moving, even when the story wobbles off the historical rails or becomes bogged down in dopey romance. Wilberforce often comes across as too good to be true, which may be why the fine Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, doubtless with the encouragement of his socially minded director, plays him with a hint of madness in his eyes. . . .

Biographical films are generally tricky, since the on-screen personality rarely matches the real one; they’re even trickier when the subject is shrouded in misty time and debate. In some quarters, “Amazing Grace” will succeed better as a diversion than as a nuanced record of Wilberforce’s life. Historians have been divided on his legacy, with one damning him as “the mouthpiece of the party of order and of the business world.” A contemporary asked Wilberforce, after he introduced a law that set back the cause of trade unions, why he paid more attention to African slaves than to Britain’s working poor, whose interests he probably helped obstruct for years. Religious writers, not surprisingly, are more charitably disposed toward him.

It’s equally unsurprising that the filmmakers don’t address these sharper criticisms. The film’s Wilberforce is a fanatic, a true believer, a crusader, a man of action and God, of stirring principle and tireless will. He’s at once pure and seductive, a dashing, romantic figure with a long black coat who talks to God while lying in his garden and keeps rabbits for pets. This matinee idol version might be wildly simplistic, even borderline caricature, but there is also something unfailingly attractive about a film character so wholly devoted to good. The screenplay doesn’t poke into the nature of that good — whether Wilberforce’s fight against slavery was truly selfless or flattered a sense of moral superiority — but it does make you think.

Both critiques agree that the film has “prettified” the historical Wilberforce, but they seem to disagree on the question of how the film treats Wilberforce’s religion. The religious writer seems to think the film has hidden Wilberforce’s more “fundamentalist” side and could stand to include more of the religious stuff, while the secular writer seems to think the character is a “fanatic” and the film may have enough religion as it is thank you very much.

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