I know I'm pretty late to this one, but I could only see so many movies in theaters so this one ended up at a local independent theater and then I jumped on it. I heard nothing but great things about this movie. Directed by Steve McQueen and produced largely by Brad Pitt, 12 Years A Slave is based off of a book of the same name about a free black man in 1841 New York being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south, where he spends, as you might imagine, 12 years as a slave.
The movie is brutal, physically and emotionally. It's exhausting to watch, as you do nothing but feel bad for Solomon Northup, our unfortunate main character. Normally I don't mind and can even joy violence and gore in movies, but in this one it was excruciating, and I believe that to be because in our minds we can generally separate in film was is real and not real. In this movie, sure, the violence and gore was not real, but it happened. That's the real pain of this film, it all happened. Everything feels that much worse because we know that that was how black people were treated in those times. As a white male, I left the movie feeling guilty about my ancestors, for things they did 170+ years ago. For how society as a whole treated a whole race of people. As a society, we now accept that people of all races are equal human beings, which for me made me cringe every time a black person was treated as inferior. It made me sad that there was a time in our cultural history, that didn't even really end until about 40 years ago, that people of a different skin color were treated so inhumanely.
The cinematography of the film is absolutely beautiful, and McQueen does a terrific job directing, as do all the actors, specifically Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o as Solomon Northup and Patsey. Michael Fassbender does a terrific job of being a despicable villain, as well as Benedict Cumberbatch for being the decent guy who is a part of a bad time in history. There were scenes in this film that will linger with me for years to come. One particuarly devastating shot in particular which was a long, continuous shot that went for at least 3-4 minutes had Solomon being partially hung from a tree after picking a fight with one of the plantation hands. They string him up in the tree and are just about to hang him when they get chased off by another plantation hand. But he decides that it's the owner who has to cut him down, so they go off to fetch him. In this time, Solomon is just left hanging there, with the tips of his toes just barely touching the ground as he chokes from the noose. If his toes leave the ground he will die, so it's just one long shot of Solomon swaying back and forth trying as hard as he can to keep his toes on the ground while the other slaves go about their business and the wife of the owner just standing there watching him. It's truly devastating to watch.
As brutal as this film is, I'm incredibly happy that it's already being chosen to be aired in schools as a part of US history. While we often learn about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman in school, we don't learn about the story of Solomon Northup. While Douglass and Tubman achieved many a great thing in their time, they present just one side of the slavery injustice. They were born into slavery and escaped it to provide the world with great accomplishments. Solomon Northup however was born a free man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Twelve years later he escapes and writes the memoir this book is based on and tries to take the people who kidnapped him to court. However, since black people were not allowed to testify in court he lost his cases. Over the years, I think it's safe to say that the way we're taught about slavery, we forget that there were free people living at the same time as slaves. The idea that someone could be born free and then sold into slavery is a truly haunting tale that we don't hear as often as we should.
Overall I loved the film, however, I don't plan on watching it again. It was beautiful and tragic, an amazing film with a powerful story, but I have no desire to ever revisit the film. It's one you should watch, it's one you should remember. Remember how far we've come in nearly 200 years, and don't let anything drag us back down that path.
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