12 Years a Slave (2013)
12 Years a Slave is a tough movie to watch. It’s also the ideal companion to Gone with the Wind, offering a much-needed antidote to the all-too-commonly romanticized vision of the Old South. Gone are the rose-colored glasses and golden gilt. What we’re left with is a realistic, eye-witness account that isn’t told from the perspective of a fictional White person; instead, it’s based on an actual 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a free, Northern, Black musician who was kidnapped and sold into slavery for more than a decade. It recounts his horrifying journey from free Northerner to plantation slave to free man once more. Through Solomon’s eyes, we experience the brutal, systematic torture of African Americans who were treated as property and savages in this nation during the mid-1800s.
Northup is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and he delivers a moving central performance. Working as a violinist and living in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife (Kelsey Scott) and young children (Quvenzhané Wallis and Cameron Zeigler), he is offered a job in Washington, D.C., by two White men (Scoot McNairy and Taran Killam) who end up drugging his wine at dinner shortly after their arrival. Solomon wakes up in a slave pen, completely disoriented. Despite his freedom, he receives a brutal beating before he is transferred on a ship with several other captured Black men, women, and children to a port in New Orleans. A slave trader (Paul Giamatti) invents a new identity and name for him. Solomon will be known as “Platt,” a runaway slave from Georgia, and he is told that if he wants to remain alive, he won’t let anyone know he is a free man from the North who can read and write.
Northup is sold to William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who takes a liking to his new slave once he realizes he is educated and cultured. This infuriates the overseer John Tibeats (Paul Dano), who sets out to teach Northup a lesson. During an attempted whipping, Northup strikes back and beats the overseer. Tibeats and two others try to lynch him in retaliation, and Northup barely survives by standing on his toes for hours, supporting just enough of his own weight to breathe, before being cut loose by his master. Ford is forced to sell Northup to save his life. When Northup confesses his freedom, Ford, who owes a large debt for buying him, refuses to listen or do anything about it. Northup is sold to Edwin Epps (Oscar-nominee Micahel Fassbender), a sadistic, drunken monster with a small cotton plantation.
Northup soon meets Patsey (Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o in her powerful screen debut). She is the master’s favorite who can pick twice as much cotton as any slave—man or woman. Patsey is raped on a regular basis by Epps, whose jealous wife Mary (Sarah Paulson) is well aware of her husband’s “unnatural” interest in the woman. Mary often humiliates and physically harms Patsey in front of everyone, demanding that she be sold, but Epps refuses in defiance. The performances by Fassbender and Paulson as a warring couple who take out their aggressions on Patsey are truly frightening and deeply disturbing.
After an infestation of worms destroys much of the season’s crop, Epps leases several of his slaves to Judge Turner (Bryan Batt) on a neighboring plantation. Turner discovers Northup’s talent on the fiddle and allows him to play at a party and keep his own earnings. Northup eventually returns to Epps’s farm and uses the money to pay a White field hand to mail a letter he’s written over time and in secret to his friends in New York. The field hand betrays him to Epps, and it’s only through clever thinking that Northup convinces Epps not to kill him. Northup then burns the letter, fearing Epps would eventually discover it.
A while later, Patsey visits Harriet Shaw (Alfre Woodard), her new friend on a neighboring plantation. Harriet is the mistress of her White master. She lives in the house and is treated with “privilege,” unlike anything Patsey has seen. And it’s returning from one of these secret getaways that Patsey is caught by her own master. This leads to the film’s darkest and most brutal scene. Patsey has a small cake of soap with her, a private gift from Harriet, because Mary Epps has been refusing to let her bathe with any soap, hoping the foul stench will keep her husband away. At the taunting and ridcule of his wife, Epps orders Northup to punish Patsey by whipping her, but the drunken Epps soon takes over and nearly beats her to death. I can barely watch this scene as the skin comes off Patsey’s back and the blood and flesh fly from her naked body. It’s the most graphic whipping scene I’ve ever seen, made all the more heart-wrenching and horrifying by the strong acting from Nyong’o, Fassbender, and Ejiofor.
At some point in the future, while working on the construction of a gazebo near the main house, Northup meets a Canadian laborer named Samuel Bass (Brad Pitt). Bass’s strong faith and open disdain for the mistreatment of Epps’s slaves leads Northup to once more confess about his kidnapping and hidden status as a free man. He asks for Bass’s help getting a letter to New York. Bass is hesitant, due to the enormous risk involved, but ultimately he agrees.
While Northup is working in the fields one day, we see a carriage pull up with the local sheriff and another man that Northup recognizes from his past. It’s Mr. Parker (Rob Steinberg), a shopkeeper he knew in Saratoga Springs. Through a series of questions, along with Parker’s personal confirmation, “Platt” is positively identified as Solomon Northup, a free man. Northup bids an emotional farewell to Patsey. And as the enraged Epps protests and tries to prevent the men from leaving, Northup rides off, away from the plantation and from his twelve-year existence as an enslaved human.
The final scene of this film makes me sob. It’s the awakening from a nightmare that can never be shaken or fully resolved. Northup arrives on the doorstep of his home and reintroduces himself to his wife, his grown son and daughter, and his daughter’s husband and their new baby. He humbly apologizes to his family for being away while they do their best to comfort him. The title cards at the end tell us how Northup unsuccessfully sued the men who captured and sold him into slavery and how his published memoir helped further the abolitionist movement. It also informs us of the lack of information or any details surrounding Northup’s death and burial—something I find unsettling and tragic. While there is speculation he was captured and sold back into slavery, this theory is unlikely, due to his age and “undesirable worth” to the market at that time. Northup lectured for a few years, but based on recovered records in connection with his daughter’s obituary, it’s probable he died a broken, penniless, and forgotten man. I wonder what he would think of his place in history today and the significance of his well-documented journey.
12 Years a Slave is an important story to tell, just as it was in 1853 when Northup’s book was first published. History is interpreted from many perspectives, but a great disservice is done by glossing over the truth and hiding facts about America’s beginnings as a nation. I’m grateful this film was made by so many talented people whose main goal was to keep Northup’s story alive. With expert direction, writing, and acting, plus all technical and artistic aspects of filmmaking, 12 Years a Slave is a most worthy choice for Best Picture of the year.
12 Years a Slave
Director | Steve McQueen |
Primary Cast | Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Bryan Batt, Quvenzhané Wallis, Bill Camp |
Familiar Faces | Scoot McNairy from Argo |
Firsts | First Best Picture directed and co-produced by a Black filmmaker (Steve McQueen), first movie to win Best Picture from a Black screenwriter (John Ridley), feature film debut of Lupita Nyong’o |
Total Wins | 3 (Picture, Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, Screenplay: Adapted) |
Total Nominations | 9 (Picture, Director, Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender, Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, Screenplay: Adapted, Production Design, Costume Design, Editing) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |
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