Brake alert: This story contains major spoilers for the finale From “Emancipation,” currently streaming on Apple TV.
Will Smith’s “Emancipation” almost had an alternate ending.
Cinematographer Robert Richardson revealed further ideas for director Antoine Fuqua during a Zoom conversation.
The film based on the historical picture “Whipped Peter” follows Smith’s journey as a runaway slave. Peter hears of Lincoln’s declaration that all slaves should be freed, but his owner has no plans to do so. Peter and a few others flee through the treacherous swamps of Louisiana while pursued by ranchers.
If only they could get to Baton Rouge, which the Union had captured, they would be free.
Much of the film centers on Peter’s determination to be released and reunited with his family after he is separated from them. Peter’s love for his family and determination is what keeps him going and gives him the will to survive all the time.
And when he finally makes it to Baton Rouge and an army camp, viewers see the deep brutality of slavery as he filmed—his back covered in flogging and scars from torture at the hands of his companions.
Discussions are about whether he is fit enough to fight in the union army and it is decided that he could.
This is where Richardson says Fuqua called an alternate landscape. Richardson explains, “We’ve been talking aggressively about ending it on the battlefield and killing it, and that’s the end of it.”
A darker ending, Richardson says, would have made the film an eye-opener. “If Antoine had his way in the beginning, there would be a question mark of what happened to Peter? There would be no end otherwise.”
But with the film deeply rooted in spirituality, hope, and endurance, the film’s ending plays out differently. The cinematographer reveals that he was not sure at what point the choice was made. But he shares that Smith “felt the necessity of family…and so did Antoine when he broke it off.”
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