Runtime: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Steve McQueen
Quick Impressions:
I was so impressed with Steve McQueen’s last feature, Shame, that when I heard he was reteaming with Michael Fassbender to direct a historical drama starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, I got incredibly excited.
Ejiofor and Fassbender are two of my favorite actors working today. They both project effortless intensity. I’d probably pay to watch Michael Fassbender take apart a vacuum cleaner. He has some of the most cinematic eyes and cheekbones around, and obviously the rest of his body has attracted its share of attention, too. Everything he does looks like it really matters. Normally I would not be reaching for my wallet to see an android watch Lawrence of Arabia, an angry guy walk to a driven baseline, or a sex addict listen to his sad sister sing. But I’m telling you, no matter how mundane, any activity is worth watching when it’s Michael Fassbendered. He needs to take a page from Tilda Swinton and lie in a glass box all day, charging admission to museum visitors. He’d make a fortune (from me alone).
Okay, so I’ll admit I’m fascinated with Michael Fassbender (but I’m clearly not the only one. He’s made about 500 major films in the past two years). I also love Chiwetel Ejiofor. When we left the theater after watching Serenity all those years ago, my now husband was like, “Maybe we should try watching Firefly,” and I was like, “Who was that guy chasing them? How do you say that name? When can I see him again?” (I had actually already seen him in Love Actually, but he isn’t as menacing and captivating in that. He mainly hangs around quietly not showing up in his own wedding videos.) (My husband likes Chiwetel Ejiofor, too. Before the movie tonight, he was saying, “He has the coolest name in the world. I wish my name were Chiwetel Ejiofor.”)
If you’re not a fan of Ejiofor and Fassbender, then see 12 Years a Slave, and you probably will be. Both men give impressive performances here. I’d expect Oscar nominations for both of them, though with so many outstanding performances this year, it’s impossible to be sure. Lupita Nyong’o should get a nomination, too, as should Steve McQueen and cinematographer Sean Bobbit. I’m sure it will get a nod for picture. It could even win.
The Good:
As I watched brutal horror after brutal horror unfolding on the screen before me, I kept thinking, Wow, my little sister would love this movie. She’s getting a PhD in history and has no end of cringe-worthy true stories about gruesome, alarming atrocities that happened in the past. She’s always trying to turn me onto medical history books about experiments, contagious disease, epidemics, sketchy vaccinations, witch doctors, historical figures with incurable eye infections (“He would intimidate people with his squirting eye!”), botched surgeries, sexism and racial discrimination in treatment. Her complaint about most movies set in the past is that what they’re depicting is not awful enough to be real. (And I’m not saying she’s wrong. I mean, try watching The Help and then reading through newspaper archives about Emmett Till. Clearly much of the history we get at the box office is watered down and sugar coated, made more palatable for the popcorn munching crowd.)
Unlike most mainstream movies about slavery, this movie does not shy away from raw brutality at all. Not being an American historian myself, I have no knowledge of Solomon Northup independent from the film, but though I’m very likely to read the kindle edition of his actual memoir (also titled 12 Years a Slave), I’m not particularly motivated to scour the internet for every last detail about his real life at this moment. The movie feels real. And whether it gets every detail right is immaterial. Even if this film does take license with Northup’s source material (and I’m not saying that it does, but it would be highly unusual if it didn’t), still events like the ones we see on the screen definitely did happen (if not to Northup then to somebody).
On paper, what happens in the film doesn’t seem so shocking. But when it’s happening right before your eyes, it’s another story. My husband remarked after the movie, “That was hard to watch. I mean, you always know that these things happened, but you don’t usually see them.” The whippings, in particular, are quite graphic, and the film definitely earns its R rating (though personally, if we’re thinking of the children, I think it’s more harmful to show violence and then pretend it has no consequences, no effect on a flesh-and-blood body. If you give someone’s bare back even a few lashes with a whip, the result is going to be a torn, red, gory, bloody, raw mess that will eventually scar. If you don’t like seeing that—well, then maybe when you grow up you shouldn’t whip people.
I’m quite sure that slavery existed in this country for so long because many people could not see the horrific, gruesome consequences of their reliance on slave labor. All of that ugliness was held at arm’s length, kept out of the eye of polite society. (I’m aware that slavery still exists, and consumers still tend to ignore where and how their clothing was manufactured—as just one example—in the interest of saving a few dollars. But I’m talking about slavery as a way of life in the antebellum South.)
The most sympathetic white character in the story (played by Brad Pitt who is perhaps not so coincidentally also one of the film’s producers) has an attitude toward slavery most in line with the average American movie goer today. Pitt plays a character who (like the audience) comes from outside the system of Southern culture. (He’s from Canada. We’re from the future.) Pitt argues that slavery is an affront to God and logic and the natural order and basically everything, and of course, we all totally agree with him, but the only sympathy he gets onscreen is from Solomon and the other slaves.
On the way home from the theater, my husband remarked, “It’s so odd to think that there was a time when people in this country thought slavery was moral and normal and even remotely acceptable. And it’s also weird that if you think about it, there’s always been slavery, but it wasn’t always specific to one race. What made us start thinking that our slaves were somehow so inferior that they were subhuman?”
I speculated that slaves would have to be subhuman if you were making the argument that all humans are created equal. You can’t possibly expect to throw off the yoke of a king and have a thriving, independent republic if you count your unpaid workforce as humans with rights and thereby throw a huge region of your new country into complete economic crisis. Most of the founding fathers knew they were hypocrites when it came to the slavery question, but how many wars can you possibly hope to fight all at once? It would be impossible to keep a fledgling nation stable if you upended the entire economy.
That’s just speculation on my part. It’s very hard to try to put myself into the disorienting role of a slave owner. It’s impossible to see any part of the past through the same eyes that people then saw themselves. Just like them, we see the world through the lens of our own present moment, our own culture. But I think it’s particularly difficult to imagine being a slave owner. (In fact, it’s easier to imagine being a slave.)
One point that this movie makes very well is that slavery not only hurts the slaves, it also hurts the masters (not physically, I mean, but psychologically, spiritually). Imagine how bizarre it must be to be born into a system where you own other human beings and are told that it’s your right (possibly even your duty) to manage them like property and to do with them what you see fit. What a strange world! How can anybody be good when society tells them to do what is wrong? How many people committed unspeakable acts of horror in the interest of doing what society told them was “right”? After all, we can’t all have the natural conscience and moral courage of Huckleberry Finn. (I mean, for pete’s sake, he’s a fictional character!)
It’s much easier to sympathize (even empathize) with the slaves because they are victims of perpetual suffering, and we all have suffered. (I’m not suggesting that anyone I know has suffered as much as a slave on a cotton plantation. I’m just saying that all human beings experience and relate to suffering, whereas very few people tells stories that begin, “Back when I was a crazy millionaire and owned one-hundred-and-thirty-nine people…”)
Solomon Northup’s particular brand of suffering is most unusual, though. Born a free man and clearly from an educated Northern family, Solomon probably saw little connection between himself and Southern slaves before his terrible adventures began. Maybe this particular (rather novel) angle is what I like about the film the most. Just about all of us (who can afford to go to movies in this country today) can relate to Solomon. We all wake up every morning relatively secure in our place in the world, probably never once wondering, “Will I get kidnapped and sold into slavery today?” But as Solomon’s experiences show, if something can happen, then it can happen to you. If some people can be sold into slavery and essentially stripped of their human dignity, then what’s to stop it from happening to any one of us? If anybody can be a slave, then no one is free.
Solomon’s frightening (and unexpected) sojourn in South really resonated with me. When I was in college, I had some serious personal problems that led me to realize (with a rush of terror) how precarious my place in the world is. This probably sounds melodramatic, but once you fall out of your place in society, once you slip through the cracks, it’s really impossible to know how far you may fall. One minute, you’re a citizen, a friend, a neighbor, a respected member of society. The next minute, you’re nobody. All it takes is one bad experience. (In Solomon’s case, a kidnapping.) As a child, I heard people say casually all the time, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” On the day I realized what that really meant (and that it’s true for everyone), I really wasn’t a child anymore. No child ever says, “When I grow up, I want to live in a box and hold up a sign on the street corner,” or “I’d like to be turned out of a state hospital and wander psychotic through the streets,” or “I hope to become a slave and work on a cotton plantation where my master will rape and abuse me.” But the world is not always kind.
Early on, as Solomon protests that he’s not a slave, he’s a free man, I found myself thinking, What a tragic story! A free man kidnapped and forced into slavery. Then pretty quickly I reminded myself, That doesn’t really make him different from all the other slaves. All of them were either free men once or descended from people who were free men once. That’s how slavery works. It’s not like the original slaves were a bunch of bright-eyed, eager volunteers.
As these meditations on slavery probably suggest, this film is full of food for thought and should be great for launching post-movie discussions. It’s very well written. The story is compelling with good pacing and several memorable characters.
Aside from my reflections on slavery, my biggest impression on watching 12 Years a Slave was, “If you’re crazy in the North, nobody cares. You’re just another indigent immigrant prisoner or factory worker. But when people go crazy in the South, they do it in such spectacular fashion!” Nobody does crazy like the antebellum American South! It helps that by virtue of its unsustainable way of life, the entire place was doomed from its inception.
Southern literature is all so rich and riveting because the South does nothing halfway. All the characters are either poor and desperate or extravagant and doomed. Consider the Northern novel Moby Dick. Think of the scope, complexity, unhinged characters, oceanic chaos, occasional cannibals, monomaniacal captains, overbearing religion, and assorted bits of whale anatomy. Now cram all of that into a tiny, fancy parlor where everyone’s dancing the Virginia reel, and imagine it recounted by multiple incompetent narrators and an author who is obviously intoxicated. (I’m not trying to insult the South, incidentally. I find its tragic grandeur immensely captivating.)
After being sold into slavery, Northup changes hands several times, passing through the clutches of owners who grow progressively more insane. By the end, we are dealing with some of the craziest characters ever put on film, and they’re certainly memorable and compelling to watch. But I really like the nuance the story permits. 12 Years a Slave doesn’t gloss over the ugly, harsh conditions endured by slaves of a demented master, but neither does it suggest that every master is similarly demented. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a relatively decent and fair-minded guy. (He’s still unpardonably morally weak and part of a corrupt and corrupting system, but as an individual, he’s not a monster.) Paul Dano is also good (at being bad) as an overseer who is clearly cruel and troubled (but not in the same league as Fassbender’s character in terms of his threat level or his insanity). Dano’s playing someone not unlike his character in Cowboys and Aliens. I hope he doesn’t get typecast into this kind of role. (He’s very good at it, but for such a young actor, more opportunities to show range would be better.)
Paul Giamatti, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam—they all play awful people (and well), but they’re not the same kind of awful as Michael Fassbender.
Fassbender’s Edwin Epps is larger-than-life. He’s obsessed with quoting scripture and superstitiously over interprets every aspect of his environment. He has delusions of grandeur and behaves like a villain of Biblical proportions. He’s not going to be content with forcing slaves to work for him for free under harsh conditions. He’s more the Salomé dancing for the head of John the Batpist or Herod killing all the children under two type. He’s all about the grand gesture. He’s the sort of person most people’s God would condemn and renounce, but in his disturbed world, he’s the hero, the prophet, the king guided by divine intervention. Unlike some of his peers, his sins don’t seem to be caused exclusively by the evils of his society. He would probably be the same type of man under any circumstances. In another life, he might have been Caligula.
This is the kind of character that wins a good actor Oscars and deprives a bad actor of a further career. A superb actor, Michael Fassbender is amazing here. He and his wife (played by Sarah Paulson) are such a pair of sadomasochistic maniacs that you find yourself thinking, “These two deserve each other,” “How can such people exist?” and “Why are people like this always in charge?” at least once or twice every minute.
But for all the grandiose evil in the movie, not every immoral person is depicted as being evil in the same way or to the same degree, which I think is a good thing. I also appreciated the way that the movie allows the slaves their individuality. Just because they’re being persecuted, they’re not all saints. They’re very human, and they all react to their suffering differently. (Lupita Nyong’o is Best Supporting Actress good, but Alfre Woodard and Nicole Collins also do fine work as very different characters.)
Even though the story is good and the acting is superb, my favorite parts of the movie were non-verbal (or at least non-narrative). I love the cinematography in this film, the way the camera captures the haunting, grandiose beauty of the landscape of the old South. We see nature framing so many shots (the tops of trees, the details of the cotton in the field, sunsets, water). It all looks like a very pleasant dream. But of course, what’s happening there is the stuff of the very worst nightmares. I certainly hope that Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography gets Oscar attention. I’ve seen so much excellent and captivating cinematography this year (at least by my inexpert standards).
What I liked best about the movie was the use of the a cappella work songs and spirituals, the hum of the plantation. I’ve heard some of these songs before, but they seem so much more powerful in their proper context. These moments (and the way they highlight the almost paradoxical contrast between what is natural and what is perverse) strengthen the movie immeasurably and make it all the more affecting and memorable.
Best Scene:
My favorite scene in the movie is the funeral, the moment when Solomon joins in the song. Its powerful even before he begins to sing, but his sudden surrender into participation changes the scene. What’s a poignant moment becomes a key transition, a defining act for Solomon and a change in his view of his world and his place within it. Chiwetel Ejiofor is great here, absolutely fantastic, and so is the woman leading the singing.
Best Scene Visually:
What a beautiful movie about such ugly things! Almost every shot is like a work of art. I’m always fond of off-center close-ups of cinematic faces with beautiful scenery or key places in softer focus behind them. This movie does that a lot. I also love the way it makes use of the swaying, draping branches of trees.
But beyond the beauty, there’s also a lot going on here nonverbally. Certainly there are tons of visual correlations and connections that go unexplained. (All those lovely, waving tree branches, all those scarred, torn up backs.) And don’t get me started on the worms in the cotton!
Probably the most effective use of visuals to aid in telling the emotional story of Solomon’s journey are the back to back scenes of the destruction of the violin, hyper-charged with meaning and emotion when paired with the scene that comes just before it.
Another scene you don’t soon forget is the almost hanging.
Best Action Sequence:
In terms of suspense, the best action sequence is the fight between Solomon and Tibeats. I could not believe what happens there. I kept thinking, “This is how you keep your head down? Have you lost your mind?” I couldn’t see how the situation could end well, yet I knew the movie had barely started. I definitely didn’t see this scene coming.
Another great scene is the first time Solomon is awakened for the dance party, again because this is so surprising. Even though I’ve heard several accounts similar to this, I still found myself thinking, “This seems so bizarre! Is he for real?”
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Chiwetel Ejiofor):
We spend a lot of time lingering on Ejiofor’s face, and it’s time well spent. He gives an exceptional performance as Solomon, even (maybe even especially) during the moments when he’s not speaking. Just before the resolution of the movie, we get this long, lingering shot of Ejiofor’s face. Starting here, his performance until the end of the movie is incredibly stirring. Both my husband and I were in tears until the end credits rolled. What really gets me is the last thing Solomon says. (I think it’s the last thing.)
Ejiofor deserves at least a nomination for Best Actor. I’d love to see him win (but I’m also rooting for Bruce Dern and Tom Hanks (in that order) and there are so many undoubtedly great performances I still haven’t seen).
I’d make his Oscar clip either the end of the movie or his performance in the spiritual at the funeral. The last big whipping scene is absolutely phenomenal, too, but you certainly couldn’t show that on network TV, and some people might find it too hard to watch.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Lupita Nyong’o):
Patsey is so important to this story. For one thing, she’s important because she’s there suffering, and yet she’s not Solomon, so she’s a key foil for the protagonist. She’s also useful for revealing the character of the antagonist and his wife Cruella DeVil. (Actually, Cruella DeVil was much more enchanting than Mistress Epps. At least Cruella had good fashion sense.)
But beyond that, she’s important because she’s real. So often movies about slavery omit or gloss over the true depth and full extent of the suffering of so many countless people. (Women in particular often get overlooked.) Everybody knows that plantation owners often took advantage of their female slaves, but if we ever get a movie daring to touch on that subject, it’s usually something like Jefferson in Paris. And (though Thandie Newton’s very winning in that role), let’s face it Patsey is not experiencing an interracial relationship with her master the same way Sally Hemings did. Patsey’s situation has got to be the more common (though the less discussed). I’d like to think Epps and his wife are atypically over-the-top evil and more extreme than most, but I’m really not sure that that’s true. Besides, if someone is regularly raping you just because he can does it really matter if apart from that he’s a nice guy?
Patsey clearly has the worst life of anyone in this movie, and Nyong’o plays her magnificently. The scene with the bar of soap is her best, though because of what comes afterward, the scene where she begs Solomon to do her a favor in the middle of the night might be safer to use to show off her talents to Oscar voters.
I’ve never seen Nyong’o in anything else, but if her work here is any indication, she’s a very gifted, powerful actress. I hope she does get nominated. Patsey is a fantastic part, but the wrong actress could definitely screw it up and make herself forgettable. Nyong’o plays it just right.
She has to make us care about her, and she succeeds. In a way, Patsey’s there as a reminder that a story like this can never really have a simple, happy ending. Even if Solomon is saved and goes back to his family, what about Patsey? And there are so many Patseys. Hundreds, thousands, more maybe. The only happy ending to this story ends in the successful abolition of slavery. (And it probably doesn’t even end there.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Michael Fassbender):
I’m very fond of the scene when Epps chases Solomon around the yard and ends up slipping through the pig pen. Why I find this particular scene so strangely captivating is anybody’s guess. Maybe because it shows just how out of control and driven by passion and torment Epps is. The late intervention of his wife allows plenty of well-played tension, too.
All of Fassbender’s scenes are good, and his character builds as the movie progresses. Other moments that stand out for me are the first moonlight dance, the sex scene, the confrontation about the letter, the return of the slaves (featuring the little girl), and, of course, the fight about the soap.
Leonardo DiCaprio failed to get a nomination playing for playing a crazy plantation owner. (That was a crime because his was a better supporting performance than any of the ones nominated.) I like Fassbender’s odds of a nomination, though, because he plays a less cartoonish crazy plantation owner. The trouble with DiCaprio’s character is that he was bizarrely likable and charismatic. Epps is more straight up evil (though I will grant you there’s a good mix of tormented crazy in there, too). Fassbender should have been nominated for Shame, and he’s fantastic in every movie he’s in. I really hope he does pull off a supporting nomination here.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Sarah Paulson):
I don’t think Sarah Paulson will be nominated because Lupita Nyong’o is better in a showier part and there’s an unusual amount of competition in Supporting Actress this year. But if she were somehow nominated, I would not be shocked. (If the film becomes frontrunner or dark horse for Best Picture, then a bunch of acting nominations seems highly feasible.)
My favorite scene with Paulson is when she throws the brandy decanter (or whatever it is). I like her there because in the same moment, we both hate and pity her. She’s so wretched and awful. How in the world did she end up in such a predicament, and is her behavior the only behavior that makes sense? (I’d say no, but in fairness, she is pretty crazy.) I also like the scene when she first sends Solomon to the store. This is a woman who uses kindness only as a means to achieve greater and more perfect cruelty. She may be a monster created by circumstance. On the other hand, she may just be a monster.
I did find myself wondering all throughout the film about Epps and his wife, “Are these people fun at dinner parties?” I mean, we see them only from the point of view of Solomon and the other slaves, but when they mix with their peers at social gatherings are they like completely different people? I’m genuinely curious.
The Negatives:
The best thing I can say about Hans Zimmer’s score is that it’s unobtrusive. I’m not saying that I disliked it, merely that I barely noticed it. In a year when I have noticed so many great scores, I would guess “unobtrusive” is not exactly a compliment. The music performed by the cast in the movie is fantastic, one of the best things about 12 Years a Slave. The score meanwhile is just sort of forgettable. (At least it was for me, but—I will readily admit—I have no relevant training in music. Zimmer could still get an Oscar nomination for this, particularly because he’s famous and the movie is going to get a lot of positive attention already. Best Picture nominees do tend to get nominations for score. In my opinion, not all of the ones that get the nomination deserve it, so clearly there’s a lot I don’t know about what makes an ideal score.)
This piece of criticism is more like a backhanded compliment, but I was frustrated by how quickly famous faces disappeared from the cast. Dwight Henry and Quvenzhané Wallis are in this movie! Both are underutilized as are several other notable actors. (They all pass through the story so quickly.)
The film’s harsh content will be enough to deter some movie goers. It’s not for children, and it may give adults nightmares. Interestingly, though, the sex scenes are not particularly graphic, and there’s less bad language than you might fear, although of course it uses racial slurs. I actually particularly liked the way the film shows Paul Dano’s character and his cronies performing their song. I’ve heard people defend similar songs because they’re up tempo and cheerful and “didn’t mean any harm at the time.” When you see such a song performed in context, it’s pretty hard to say they don’t mean any harm with a straight face. But even though this is all very well done, it may be upsetting to some viewers. At moments, 12 Years a Slave is very difficult to watch.
I also find that the movie becomes increasingly captivating as the story progresses. For whatever reason, the world of the plantation feels more real and authentic than the early scenes in New York and Washington. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m more used to seeing stories set in that era that take place in the Deep South. I’m really not sure. Also, for what it’s worth, although I like Brad Pitt and I like Brad Pitt’s character, I think he gives one of the weaker featured performances in the film.
Overall:
12 Years a Slave is a very good film by a talented director and featuring a superb cast. It deserves several Oscar nominations and will probably get them. If you’re already a fan of Steve McQueen (the one who’s a living director), then you shouldn’t find this movie any more shocking, real, or depressing than the rest of his work. This sounds like an odd-thing to say about a gritty, realistic, R-rated drama about slavery, but in all honesty, this movie probably has more mainstream appeal than the director’s previous work. If you’re interested in history, Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor, discovering great new actresses, the natural beauty of the Southern landscape, sociology, or the Academy Awards, then you should probably find a sitter for your kids and buy a ticket to 12 Years a Slave. You may not be up to a second viewing for a while, but trust me, you’ll be glad you saw it.