SOURCE: Cash, William. “Spielberg Slips on the Celluloid Deck.” Spectator 279, no. 8837 (13 December 1997): 12-13.

In the following review, Cash contrasts Spielberg's treatment of the Holocaust in Schindler's List with his portrayal of slavery in Amistad, contending that Amistad is both an insensitive and patronizing fictionalization of the era of slavery.

For Steven Spielberg, who once shocked Alice Walker, the black author of The Color Purple, by breezing that Gone with the Wind was his ‘favourite movie of all time’, slavery may seem an odd choice as the subject of his first film for the new Dreamworks studio. But December is the start of the Academy Award season, and Spielberg—recently ranked Hollywood's number one most powerful ‘director-partner-godhead’ by Entertainment Weekly in its annual Power List—is eager for another taste of Oscar's golden chalice, adding to his trophy haul for Schindler's List.

Amistad is a ＄70 million epic about a...