4.8.07
Amazing Grace.
Caught the movie today after its release here in Australia on the 26th of July. Urge everyone I know to go watch it! It's so inspiring and lifting. Definitely exceeded my expectations for a film based on a true story, ensuing to stick to the pages of history and deliver the poignant message. I'm sure many of you will agree that nowadays it is indeed rare to find a historic movie long on accuracy and short on titillation.
Catch the movie trailer right here.
Now halt
right here for those who haven't caught the show. The rest can proceed :)
After you've been touched and aroused by the truths delivered in succinct sentences throughout the movie, you may want to continue reading. The 1st link is extremely good.
Focusing on John Newton's (a former-slave-trader-turned-clergyman known today as the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace") letter to William Wilberforce when he was on the verge of giving up:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2007/001/1.40.htmlJust as Esther had been put in the palace of King Xerxes "for such a time as this," Newton wrote, "one may not be able to calculate all of the advantages that may result from your service in public life. The example, and even the presence of a consistent character, may have a powerful, though unobserved, effect upon others. You are in a place where many know Him not, and can show them the genuine fruits of the religion you are known to profess."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/special/131christians/wilberforce.html The official website is at
http://amazinggracemovie.com/.
Some exchanges I will never forget (apart from those already in the trailer).
Richard the Butler: You found God, sir?
William Wilberforce: I think He found me.
Richard the Butler: It is indeed sad to be known to all but unknown to yourself. Pitt the Younger: Why is it you only feel the thorns when you stop running?
William Wilberforce: Is that some sort of heavy metaphorical advice?
William Wilberforce: No one of our age has ever taken power.
Pitt the Younger: Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway.
Barbara Wilberforce: You still have passion! That matters more!
And yet after all that, the show is still holds virtue to being a work of quality art. Dancing between powerful public speeches to luscious private moments: the Prime Minister and his best-friend MP racing barefoot through the garden; the beautiful red-headed Barbara Spooner (played by Romola Garai) snorting into her dinner because of a private joke about botany; John Newton (Albert Finney) wearing sackcloth as he mops the stone floor of his very chilly- and Medieval-looking chapel. Suffering is not held at bay; the stench and sweat and death of slavery ripple painfully underneath at all times.
Ahh, I think there'd be no end to my recount. Shall just get the DVD when it's out! :)
i fluttered by;
6:11 PM
