Based upon the autobiography 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northrup
Screenplay Written by John Ridley
Directed by Steve McQueen
**** (four stars)
Dear readers, at this time I want for you to take some moments and think, really think about what it means to be free. Take as many moments as you wish and return to this posting later if need be but I do want for you to think about this concept very seriously.
This afternoon, I took in a screening of Director Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" an adaptation of the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free African-American man in 1841 who was kidnapped and sold into slavery for the duration depicted in the title. Throughout, the concepts of freedom, slavery and all that exists in between were firmly placed front and center on screen and within my own thoughts and emotions as I looked upon my place in the world as an African-American male in the 21st century. And frankly, how could I not? Here I am, a black man, able to leave my home, drive in my car across the city in which I live, use my own money from my own wages to purchase a ticket to a movie just like my Caucasian counterparts, and sit in that theater seat to view a depiction of the very issue that still sits at the core of our country's tentative and increasingly turbulent race relations with such unblinking ferocity, sublime poetry and voluminous humanity. This undeniable fact was not the least bit lost on me. That said, I also know, only too depressingly well, that although I am a college educated man, as well as a husband, teacher, writer, tax payer, home owner, productive member of society, I could lose absolutely all that I have spent my life earning and achieving, and most frighteningly, my life itself, if I just happen to cross the wrong path of another individual who will hate and fear me upon sight solely due to my skin color. The story and film that is "12 Years A Slave" would function as the most horrifying "Twilight Zone" episode ever made or as an unrelenting Kafka-esque nightmare only if this story were not a true one. Knowing that this story is a true one makes it all the more devastating.
In a performance that should definitely earn copious amounts of attention, recognition and awards, the great Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northrup, a free, educated African-American man who earns his living as an accomplished violinist and lives in his Saratoga Springs, New York home with his wife and two young children. One day, Solomon is lured by two men (played by Scoot McNairy and SNL's Taran Killam) into taking part with a highly lucrative touring job, which Solomon accepts. After an evening of fine dining and drinks, Solomon awakens the following day to discover that he has been drugged, kidnapped, chained, and soon to be sold into slavery in the Antebellum South despite his vehement protests which are met with brutal beatings and the enforced re-naming of himself as "Platt."
Solomon is first sold to the somewhat benevolent plantation owner and Baptist preacher William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), and consistently runs afoul of the vicious plantation overseer John Tibeats (Paul Dano) as he desperately attempts to keep the validity of his identity and his education a secret in order to survive. The bulk of the film involves the second plantation to which Solomon Northrup is sold. Run by the raging, alcoholic, abusive and reptilian Edwin Epps (an extraordinary Michael Fassbender) and his equally deplorable and enraged wife Mary Epps (Sarah Paulson), Solomon is forced to work as a cotton picker with the demands of collecting 200 pounds of cotton a day or else risk violent retribution if the daily goals are not met. Solomon befriends Patsey (an outstanding and crushing Lupita Nyong'o), a slave who out picks cotton by 300 pounds alongside the male slaves and who has also become the primary object of affection for Edwin Epps and the bottomless scorn of his wife, Mary.
As Solomon expresses to another slave early in the film, "I don't want to survive. I want to live." And therein lies the existential crux of "12 Years A Slave" for how can one live if not able to survive and how can one survive if not able to live?
While it may be presumptuous to make this sort of an announcement, especially as I will undoubtedly be seeing 2013 film releases through mid January 2014, Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" is hands down the movie of the year. I know that I will see greatness again over these next couple of months, I am highly uncertain if I will see anything else that contains this level of power, grace, fury and artistry. "12 Years A Slave" is a crisply photographed, gorgeously filmed, unflinchingly written by veteran screenwriter John Ridley and sumptuously acted piece of work that demands to be seen, re-seen and re-seen again. To go perhaps even one step further, like Director Lee Daniels' "The Butler" from this summer, I feel that "12 Years A Slave" should be required viewing in all schools across the country so younger generations, and especially those in the African-American community, truly gather a sense of this undeniable and unquestionable American tragedy from which we still have not recovered from and to really begin to explore what does the concept of freedom for ALL people even means in the 21st century.
Although "12 Years A Slave" takes place in 1841, it is also film that speaks precisely to this point in time in 2013. In fact, I believe that with this film, alongside "The Butler" and Director Ryan Coogler's "Fruitvale Station," we now have three films released in one year that truly depicts the status of the African-American male over three distinctive eras in our nation's history, providing all of us with the crucial opportunity to really perform some serious self-examination and ponder how much has changed and unfortunately, how much has not changed...and how our nation is even heading backwards at this point in time.
For instance, I loved how McQueen showcased the full religious hypocrisy exhibited by the film's racists, plantation owners and members of the slavery business industry as they utilize the Bible and the perceived word of God as weapons and as forms of severe subjugation and the stomach churning process of reducing human beings to mere objects of possession to be sold, mistreated, abused and discarded. One sequence, where William Ford is leading an outdoor church service, is juxtaposed with the vindictive John Tibeats singing "Run Nigger Run" to his new slaves, including Solomon, all the while forcing them to clap out the beat in time. In several other scenes, we see how Edwin Epps consistently holds out the Bible as his religiously sanctioned "proof" validating his bigotry, violence and sense of overall superiority. And then, there are all of the other scenes where scriptures are being read while African-American children are being wrestled from their families only to be sold like cattle into bondage.
Watching this film and those sequences in particular, how could I not think about a certain sector of our nation's current congress who proudly and sanctimoniously tout the Bible and utilize it to justify the inhuman laws they wish to pass? While we do currently have an African-American man as President of the United States (who is routinely disrespected to increasingly alarming and seemingly endless degrees), we also currently have a legal system in place, run by those very same self-righteous Bible thumping individuals, that will allow the dismantling the sanctity of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the race baiting forcing of American citizens to carry papers confirming citizenship lest be arrested, detained or deported and more disturbingly, the freedom of a child murderer who shot an unarmed teenager walking home, bothering absolutely nobody anywhere but just had the misfortune to have been born an African-American? The more things change...
What is also amazing to me is that "12 Years A Slave" arrives nearly one year after Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino's highest achievement, the slavery epic "Django Unchained" (2012), and there is actually much that both films actually share that makes them work as companion pieces to each other. Like Tarantino, Steve McQueen's film never flinches, never blinks and never softens the physical, verbal and psychological brutality of slavery for even one instance. "12 Years A Slave" is not easy viewing in the least and nor should it be as it has to depict slavery as exactly it was: a holocaust. The difference, and a massive one, between "Django Unchained" and "12 Years A Slave" is that with Tarantino's film, we are indeed operating within some realms of fantasy despite his obvious and unprecedented moral outrage. With "Django Unchaned," there is superior catharsis. By contrast, there is no element of fantasy to be seen whatsoever in "12 Years A Slave," and therefore, there is no catharsis. Just endless suffering and tragedy, all with the stunning backdrop of the Southern plantations, and the glorious nature and wildlife that surrounds them.
The silence that McQueen utilizes often throughout the film is profoundly striking, especially during scenes of violence. In one section, Solomon is nearly lynched by John Tibeats yet after Tibeats is run off by other plantation workers, Solomon remains hung in the tree, his toes barely touching the ground and with soft, strangled gurgles emitting from his throat. McQueen allows this sequence, where Solomon is strung to the branch, to play out for a lengthy period and while there was this part of me just wishing that Django himself would ride onto the scene to save him, the reality is that there is no one. Life and time move onwards, without concern, care or judgement and the slaves continue on with their duties unless being strung upwards right next to him. Although one slave woman covertly arrives to provide Solomon with a quick drink of water before scurrying off again, the day journeys onwards and almost into evening before William Ford himself discovers Solomon and cuts him down. Yes, McQueen has delivered a sequence that is wrenching and unbearable but it is not gratuitous in the least and this is our history and we cannot be afraid of it if we are to move forwards.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is simply phenomenal as Solomon Northrup, a man trapped in a world he never made, never expected to find himself and forced into hiding his intelligence and pretending he is something he is not just in order to live another day and to hopefully, one day find himself back with his family again. It is incredible to me to regard the controlled and devastating power he accomplished, especially in the film;'s many scenes where he says not even one word. Late in the film, the fullness of his brutal plight is beautifully and heartbreakingly portrayed as McQueen just holds the camera on his emotionally complex and expressive eyes and face. Ejiofor says nothing. None of Composer Hans Zimmer's evocative score is heard. Just the sounds of nature and the sight of Chiwetel Ejiofor lost in existential horror and dwindling hope regarding his fate and how it is even possible that he could have ever ended up in a situation such as this. Ejiofor conveys strength, conviction, intelligence, cleverness, rage, crippling sorrow, and a world's worth of empathy and pathos, making this performance his personal best. What would thrill me once the Oscar season heats up is to see Ejiofor and Forest Whitaker from "The Butler" both nominated in the Best Actor category, an unprecedented event, too terribly long in the making, yet completely deserving for both of these fine, fine actors.
Michael Fassbender is a beast! He takes what could be a stock cardboard villain and fills him with a fullness of life, making him a true representative from America's dark past. The character of Edwin Epps is a cauldron of wrath, fueled by racism and alcohol and this brutal mixture of forbidden love/possession for his slave Patsey and how those emotions stir the jealousy he feels once Solomon arrives upon his plantation and the scorn he feels for his wife as she grows more enraged with Patsey's presence. As Patsey, Lupita Nyong'o is fearless for all she has to endure within this role as her character is terrorized and dehumanized from one end to the other yet, Nyong'o always ensures that Patsey's dignity is never sacrificed. Once Ejiofor, Fassbender and Nyong'o are together, the movie simply erupts to an nearly unbearable degree. One extended section, involving all three actors, a whip and a bar of soap is easily the most shattering piece of film that I have seen all year long and to that end Fassbender and Nyong'o should be up for awards and large amounts of recognition as well.
As I write and remember, it has dawned upon me that 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." I recall how the world embraced that film. How it was upheld and awarded and sent to school across the country and discussed over and again, with the full purpose of never forgetting the atrocities humankind has endured and just barely survived. It would be my biggest wish that Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" receives a similar public embrace because here is a film that shows us how nothing is for certain in this world, how that proverbial rug can be pulled out from under you so instantly and without warning that you may find yourself in a situation that you could have never fathomed yourself existing in. That the freedoms that we all may take for granted just suddenly may not exist one day. Now, I certainly do not mean for you to read that statement with any sense of hyperbole. Just take a look at what is happening politically right now and ask yourself is this is the world that you were raised in, if this is indeed the world you wish to continue living in or for those of you with children, is this the world you wish to raise your children? I have believed for several years now that we have entered a stage where what is happening in our country is not about politics anymore. That what is happening right now speaks to our collective humanity and overall sense of morality. For all of the moral grayness in life, something are simply right and some things are simply wrong and in regards to our past, there is absolutely no way we can define slavery as anything but the ultimate of wrongs, as the internal damage from that chapter resonates to this day. The only way forwards is through honest and unmerciful discussion and endless compassion.
Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" forces all of us to really think about how we treat each other, how we defend each other, regard each other, and despite all of our prejudices, how do we recognize that we are all human beings deserving of tolerance, respect and dignity. For me, freedom is about being free of the need to be free...and as far as I am concerned, we have a long way to go before we truly reach the glory of freedom for all.
Even so, may none of us lose what we have already been given.
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