Amazing Grace - Kilted

[Dirka Skene]

Woah! Goosebumplies! I know what I'm doing this weekend.

[Gaisgeil]

I'm in a pipe band and I've heard Amazing Grace more times than I can count. Sometimes it gets to be a bore, but if it's well done it still gives me the chills. At a funeral though, it's just gut wrenching.

Hopefully I won't need to worry about it for a long, long time but when I pass, I want "In Celtic Times" played, it's a suite of about 8 tunes that have a similar effect as Amazing Grace. It was on the 78th Fraser Highlanders CD "Flame of Wrath" Good stuff.

That movie looks awesome, I think I'll have to check that one out. Thanks!

[cavscout]

Saw the movie last night. It was very well done. Because of the period the movie is set in there are many monumental events happening around the world and therefore in the British Empire. Many of these event are mentioned since the movie is set in Parliament but the producers and directors did a great job of keeping the movie on topic and focused on the main story line. The scenery and sound track were very good and the acting was great as well. Not a lot of big names but several familiar faces. I highly recommend the movie, I don't however recommend the $9.50 admission, catch the matinee. We tried to do that but apparently matinees start at 3:00 PM

As far as kilts in the movie go, you have to wait to the very end of the movie and the final scene is of a Highland Regiment band playing Amazing Grace in a court yard. A lone piper starts the music while marching forward in a "pause step" (not sure what you call it). As he approaches the rest of the pipers, they join in and play in mass and they all march forward together. They then approach the rest of the band (horns, drums....) and they all play in mass. The lone piper continues to march up the middle of the entire band as they all play and the camera withdraws up into the air as it fades to black...Roll Credits I believe the tartan to be the Black Watch.

The only thing that would have made it better would have been for the rest of the band to have dropped out and return to the lone piper playing by himself. That effect always hits me right in the gut.

[McClef]

Ioan Grufudd is gettting as much work as fellow Welshman, Anthony Hopkins!

But the film brings back memories as I spent a year in Kingston Upon Hull back in the 70s and visited Wilberforce House Museum several times - a fascinating place of the history of slavery and Wilberforce's part in its abolition within the British Empire.

John Newton, who wrote the words of the hymn, once worked in the slave trade himself.

I look forward to the DVD!

[Splash_4]

My wife and I saw this movie last weekend as well. It is extremely well done, although I have a personal problem with Ioan Grufudd as an actor..... I keep seeing him as Horatio Hornblower!

None the less, this is an excellent movie and he does a fine job in the lead.

[Erisianmonkey]

I've already recorded the CD soundtrack for my funeral and gave it to my wife. At the beginning of mass they are to play a traditional pipe version of Amazing Grace, then at Communion they will play a version of Amazing Grace by a group called Five Blind Boys From Alabama and then at exit it will be a much more rocking version done by The Dropkick Murphy's. It all builds up but they are all favorites of mine.

At my "funeral," I want it to kick off with "Parting Glass," followed by "Isn't It Grand Boys, To Be Bloody Well Dead." After that, upbeat happy stuff, because I want it to be an after party for my life, not a mourning that it's over.

[jordanjm]

I'm going to have to see this one.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

The only complaint I have heard yet about the film is that it reportedly portrays Wilberforce as somewhat of a secular humanist and tends to downplay the deep religious motivation he had for abolishing the British slave trade. I haven't seen the film, so I cannot comment, but if it is true then it is one more sad effort to re-write our noble history.
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0306.htm

Aye,
Matt

[cavscout]

Matt, I can see where someone might make that interpretation but I feel it may be an unfair conclusion. Possibly they hoped for a more religious tone to the movie but the movie made several references to the theological aspects of his motives. While not a bright colored thread that ran through the movie, it was a prominent thread.

[O'Cathain]

Chills Indeed. It makes one ponder on life. We get caught-up in so many little things. And I worry what people think when I wear my kilt.