I searched a bit, didn’t find a previous thread … has anyone seen this movie? What did you think of it?
Had a date movie night with my wife (kid with the grandparents) - saw Belle, a period-piece about a half-Black woman raised by her very aristocratic paternal relations (her dad, a sea captain, dissapears from the scene & dies offstage).
As it turns out, her guardian is also the guardian of a fully white cousin of hers, and the two are basically brought up as sisters. Her guardian just happens to be the chief justice of England and makes some pivotal decisions about the status of slavery (in this movie, they only discuss the Zong case - a nasty bit of insurance fraud by which a slaveship crew deliberately murder their human cargo to claim insurance on them, because the slaves were sickly and would not sell).
In an interesting twist, the half-Black sister ends up an heiress when her dad leaves her a pile of cash in her will, while her fully-white cousin/sister is left penniless. Much match-making insanity ensues - the key theme here is the intersection of race and privilege (the protagonist is in the unusual situation of being, in a large sense, more free than her fully white cousin, because she has money - yet she is very visibly Black. Oh what to do?!).
The story is based in large part on reality, though the relations between the characters are fictional. It is true that the chief justice involved in pivotal slavery decisions raised a half-Black relation with his white one, and their portrait is a big influence on the movie.
Anyway, I enjoyed it very much - not too preachy, though naturally, there is some of that. Lots of nice period eye candy.
I saw it and agree with your observations. The acting and sets are very good and did a fine job of putting and keeping me in the time and place. It’d make a very good double-feature with the movie Amazing Grace, though this one concentrates more on the relationships. It explained the case well too (as did you) and made me want to read more about it, since it was pretty instrumental in the journey toward changing people’s perception about slavery (wow, they’re human beings??) and to slavery’s end in England.
What is interesting is that the Zong case isn’t even the most significant legal case this judge decided dealing with slavery. He had previously judged the Somerset case, which established that slavery was illegal in England itself.
In summary: a Black slave, enslaved somewhere else, escaped his master in England; his master caught him and intended carrying him off to be sold outside of England; the slave’s legal supporters sued, stating that he was illegally held; they won - because, as the judge ruled, imposing a state so “odious” as slavery has to be based on statute law (and not on the usual racist blather about Blacks being naturally inferiors or slaves, etc.), and no such laws exist in England.
It is easy to see how having a half-Black relation living in the judges’s own house and basically being brought up as his child would have had an impact on the reasoning in this case - he’d have personal experience that “… mere reasoning or inferences from any principles, natural or political …” could not support race-slavery.
It was this case in which the judge is said to have quoted to the litigants “Let justice be done though the heavens fall”. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, “The result of this case and its effect on English common law has been seen by some as one of the reasons for the American War of Independence, particularly in bringing the Southern states over to the patriot cause”.
Edit: it makes sense that they chose the Zong case for the movie - Belle was 11 years old during the Somerset case (and 20 during the Zong case).
