“87 years ago, our fathers created a new nation on this continent, conceived in freedom and consecrated to the premise that all men are created equal.”
The Gettysburg Address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, is a crucial part of American history. But, in the middle of 2021, he revives in the voice of Pedro Pascal, who in Amendment: The Fight for Equality in America interprets monologues of the father of the country corresponding to that troubled time.
The production delves into six episodes on what it means to be a citizen in North America, stopping at the racism and segregation that to this day shakes the nation, with problems such as white supremacism and police brutality (which were forcibly exposed last year that took over the Black Lives Matter movement).
The framework of the series conducted by Will Smith – released this Wednesday, February 17 on Netflix – is the Fourteenth Amendment, which enshrines all those born in the country as citizens of the same and was ratified in 1968 under the administration of the 16th president of its history despite the resistance of conservative sectors.
Pascal intervenes in the first episode as a Lincoln who, while he ended up abolishing slavery, was not always in favor of the cause. His gaze contrasts with that of the abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass, a historical figure who remains in the hands of actor Mahershala Ali in the production.
At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln summons in 1861 a group of African-American leaders to the White House to raise the difficulty of freeing the slaves from the south of the country, which is already configured as the Confederation.
“I understand that their race suffers the worst evil that can be caused to anyone, but even if they stopped being slaves, they would still be very far from equal conditions with the white race,” says the president in the appointment that – always without characterization nor makeup – resurfaces in the actor’s interpretation of Narcos.
Appearances like his alternate with Smith’s leadership and with opinions of experts in the field, which give context to opinions and facts that almost always look aberrant in the light of today. Pascal himself in the second chapter (entitled Endurance, in reference to the opposition of part of the country and even authorities to accept the Fourteenth Amendment) is in charge of another character of those years, John Archibald Campbell, judge of the Supreme Court between 1853 and 1861.
An infamous quote is remembered of him: “Darkness is the fashionable color in these regions. We have Africans all around us. They are jurors, postal employees, customs officers ”.
Produced by Will Smith, and created by Robe Imbriano and Tom Yellin, Amendment: The Fight for Equality in America He has the ability to incorporate those phrases and characters with perspective and broadening the view regarding the segregation and violence of the last two centuries of the country.
A good part of his commitment is in the voices and figures that he brings together, starting with a large number of African-American actors (Samuel L. Jackson is Martin Luther Ling, Sterling K. Brown is Malcolm X and Laverne Cox is James Balwin), but also interpreters of Asian descent (Randall Park is Robert F. Kennedy) and Latino. He chooses Pascal, of Chilean parents and born in Santiago in 1975, but has lived in the US for four decades and with nationality, the role of who is considered the father of the country.
A whole declaration of intentions that, for the actor’s career, is yet another impulse at his best, as the protagonist of The Mandalorian, from the upcoming Judd Apatow comedy, and the HBO adaptation of The last of us.
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