From thoughts into words

I found myself smiling as I read Michael Dequina’s review of Amistad ( http://aalbc.com/reviews/amistad.htm ). I did agree with him that the film was American-centered, especially with its focus on the courtroom drama; but that was to be expected. Amistad is an American film, directed and produced by Americans for an American audience. However, something about that film touched me. Language is of essence in Amistad . That the viewer had no clue what Sengbe Pieh and the other Africans were saying as they revolted was not accidental. The decision to exclude subtitles for the beginning portion of the film was a deliberate one. It made the men, women and children inscrutable figures to the viewer. Their silhouettes were only visible in the moonlight as they struck at their Spanish ‘masters’. Just as the distinguishing features and marks on their faces were invisible to the terror-stricken crew, they had to remain so to the viewer. Their humanity was thus masked, hidden fro...

Late last month the AIDS Memorial Quilt came to town, and I was one of several who went to look at it. Standing before the quilt and looking at the elaborate embroidery and patchwork, I felt peaceful. It was strange standing there, marveling at the beauty, and yet simultaneously aware that each piece marked a life lost, a human being painfully wrenched away from loved ones. How was it that several years of pain had been translated into soothing colors and boldly outlined words? I was awed at the power of the quilt to arrest my steps and to pull me in close enough to follow the stories of the young heroes and heroines. To one section of the quilt, friends and family had carefully sewn pictures of the woman they had loved and lost- pictures taken at different points in her life. My eyes moved from picture to picture, wondering whom she was smiling at in that picture, and why there was a twinkle in her eye in the next. Who had selected each picture? Was it her mother, whom I could see cr...