William: Hello and welcome to Entertainment! I’m William Kremer.

Here at BBC Learning English dot com, we’re running a short season of

programmes marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

This significant anniversary hasn’t been ignored by Hollywood either. A new

film, Amazing Grace, tells the story of the campaign in the British parliament

for an end to the slave trade. It stars Ioan Gruffudd as William Wilberforce, the

British politician who is traditionally seen as largely responsible for stopping

the slave trade.

I say ‘traditionally’ because Wilberforce’s role in the campaign for abolition is

now quite controversial – some historians say that by always looking at British

politicians, we ignore the actions of the slaves themselves.

So, is it OK for Amazing Grace to focus on white politicians, or should it pay

more attention to the lives of the Black slaves?

Let’s listen now to the film critic Mark Kermode. As you listen, try to answer

this question: How is the story in Amazing Grace told?

Mark: It’s not a story told from the perspective of the slaves, it’s told from the

perspectives of the white Englishmen, who are debating the nature of slavery. 

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William: Listen again.

Mark: It’s not a story told from the perspective of the slaves, it’s told from the

perspectives of the white Englishmen, who are debating the nature of slavery.

William: Mark says that Amazing Grace is told from the perspective of white

Englishmen and not slaves. Perspective – this generally means a way of

thinking or a general view on life. We use it for expressing our opinions about

things. For example, you might say, ‘From my perspective, learning English is

a very important skill’ – this means it is your opinion, your view of the issue.

Note the use of ‘from’. ‘From your perspective’, ‘from my perspective’, ‘from

a scientific perspective’, ‘from a historical perspective’.

Now, if you want to say what the issue is that you’re talking about, you need to

say ‘on’. For example, ‘His perspective on international affairs is really

interesting.’

When we talk about perspective in films or books, we’re talking about the view

on life of the characters in the film – their opinions, experiences and feelings.

Mark Kermode says that story of Amazing Grace is told from the perspective

of white Englishmen, not slaves. So it’s their opinions and experiences which

are highlighted in the film.

Let’s listen to Mark again – this time, see if you can hear a word which means

the same as ‘perspective’:

Mark: It’s very easy to criticise a movie for what it isn’t, and there’s a big thing at the

moment about criticising movies about, you know, issues movies, that are seen 

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from the viewpoint of, you know, of white men – another example would be

Blood Diamond, for example.

William: ‘Viewpoint’ means the same as ‘perspective’ and we use it in much the same

way.

‘Viewpoint’ is a shortened form of a very common phrase, ‘point of view’.

Like ‘perspective’ and ‘viewpoint’, we use ‘point of view’ to talk about the

experiences of characters in books and films, and also to express opinions. For

example, you can talk about ‘a feminist point of view’ or ‘a scientific point of

view’ as well as your own point of view!

[STING]

William: So Mark Kermode says that recently there’s been quite a lot of criticism of

films like Amazing Grace and Blood Diamond, told from the viewpoint of

white men. But what’s his point of view on this issue?

Mark: Just because you’re making a movie work for a target audience… It’s clearly a

movie meant to have the widest possible audience, and it’s the kind of film

which if you were sort of trying to get a, you know, a school class to talk about

the issues of slavery and the slave trade, it's almost like a teaching tool kind of

film. It does not portray the horrors of the slave trade...

William: Mark says Amazing Grace is a movie ‘meant to have the widest possible

audience’. The audience of a film is the people who go to watch the film. You

can characterise your audience by saying ‘a young audience’, ‘an old audience’,

‘an educated audience’ and so on. If we say ‘a wide audience’ we mean that

people of all ages and backgrounds will want to go and see it. Mark is saying

that the makers of Amazing Grace are aiming for a very wide audience, which 

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means that they want young people to see the film and to talk about slavery,

maybe in school. This is what Mark calls the ‘target audience’ of the film. A

‘target audience’ is the audience which you want to come and see your film or

that you want to read your book or magazine. Listen again.

Mark: Just because you’re making a movie work for a target audience… It’s clearly a

movie meant to have the widest possible audience, and it’s the kind of film

which if you were sort of trying to get a, you know, a school class to talk about

the issues of slavery and the slave trade, it's almost like a teaching tool kind of

film. It does not portray the horrors of the slave trade...

William: So, because the target audience of Amazing Grace includes some young people,

Mark says they couldn’t show the horrors of the slave trade. So, Mark’s

viewpoint is that the film’s perspective is OK because it was made for a very

wide audience.

If you go to the Entertainment webpage on BBC Learning English dot com,

you can hear these words again, download this programme and also hear our

other programmes commemorating the abolition of the slave trade. Goodbye!