Twelve Years A Slave
Solomon Northup was a free man. He had a wife and two children, a life in Saratoga Springs, New York and made a living as a violin player who was respected and treated as an equal in the community in which he lived. At least as much as a African American man could be treated equally in 1841. Twelve Years a Slave is a powerful story. One that shouldn’t have happened and yet it isn’t the story of one man, it is the story of slavery in general. As a white man I am embarrassed and ashamed at the treatment of people purchased into slavery. It shames me to my core and yet the point of Twelve Years a Slave is not to point a finger at the white devil but to show this shameful and sad part of American history. When I set out to write these reviews of all the Best Picture nominees, I was scared of watching Twelve Years a Slave. Like many movies that show a disgraceful moment in history, I was scared of being bummed out. Simple as that. Yet the movie itself is not a bummer of a movie. It deals with a horrific story and the shameful acts of people in the South but it is a story of survival and the ability of all men to suffer horrific acts put upon them and to endure.
The story opens with Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor in an Oscar worthy performance) living as a free man in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children, who earns a living as a violinist. He is respected in the community and happy. Sadly this will be one of the few happy moments in the film. When his wife goes on a three week job, cooking, she takes his children and Solomon tells her that he will not be idle while she is gone. Shortly after seeing them off, he meets two men who are looking for a violin player to play their “circus” down to Washington and then they will pay his way back to New York. Instead he finds himself drugged and sold into slavery in the deep south under the name Platt, the name of a runaway slave who bore a resemblance to him. After being beaten and witnessing the death of another slave, he decides that cooperation is the only way to survive. He is sold to a man named Ford (played by Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch) who is kinder than most and impressed with Solomon’s work sets him up with a more pleasant ( I shudder at using the word pleasant) life on the plantation. After a bad incident with an overseer, Ford is forced to sell him to another plantation run by the chilling Edwin Epps (played ferociously by Michael Fassbender) and he is driven further into the world of slavery in the South.
Facing the cruelty of Epps, Solomon attempts to send word to his family and free himself but every effort is thwarted by Epps or the general notions of the world he lived in. He is less than a man and therefore as property of Edwin Epps, he is forced to the whims of a madman. Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong’o, receives the worst of Epps and his whims. Throughout the film Solomon struggles to not only stay alive, but to retain that shadow of the man he once was. Finally after presumably twelve years at the mercy of this system of corruption, cruelty and despair, Solomon meets up with a Canadian abolitionist (played by a Quaker bearded Brad Pitt) who listens to his story and though scared for his own well being, offers to help Solomon.
Ejiofor is an actor that can play any scene and tell you what he feels with very little dialogue. Here he seems to watch from outside his body the calamity that has become of his life. There is little he can do to change his fate but try to survive. He fights hard to retain the free man inside of him and succeeds in telling Solomon’s story. Every moment of his life in this film is a horror that he can only look upon with incredulity. The same can be said for Michael Fassbender’s Epps. He convinces you of Epps’ belief that the men and women he bought are his property and therfore his to use. Perhaps the most powerful moments involve Nyong’o and his absolute love of a woman who despises him. Every touch adds a new level of his growing hatred for her. Nyong’o , for her part, is capable to stand with these actors and deliver powerful moment after powerful moment. Through the film, she is the helplessness that Solomon feels and the inability to change where you are and what you must do to survive.
Twelve Years a Slave is a shocking and powerful movie that pulls no punches when it comes to slavery. Every horror and tragedy is examined and brought to light. This is a movie that should be seen. It isn’t a pleasant romp or a great love story or a tale of triumph in impossible odds. Solomon Northup’s life was robbed. Every slave in the South was robbed of the ability to be free and the right to be treated as a human being. This story needed to be told. I, for one, am better and more compassionate for having seen this film. Facing intolerable cruelty (personified by Michael Fassbender), Solomon Northup struggles through 12 years of trying to stay alive and retain his humanity. Some had to live their entire life in the shadow of cruelty and misery. Twelve Years A Slave is a story everyone should see and one that I will root for as the Best Picture of 2013. I haven’t seen many of Steve McQueen’s films but now I will search out for them because he so powerfully and painfully moved me. I hope that everyone who reads this will go to see this movie. Solomon Northup was a hero and his story deserves to be told to anyone and everyone. Thanks to Twelve Years A Slave (the book and the movie), no one will ever forget it.
Mr. Unhappy sez: In the race for Best picture, Twelve Years a Slave should win. It is a movie that deserves to win, has a story that needs to be seen and in the end is the only movie I’ve seen in this group that personifies the term “Best Picture”. I still love “Her” and personally it will be my best picture but Twelve Years a Slave should be the world’s Best Picture.
The story opens with Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor in an Oscar worthy performance) living as a free man in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children, who earns a living as a violinist. He is respected in the community and happy. Sadly this will be one of the few happy moments in the film. When his wife goes on a three week job, cooking, she takes his children and Solomon tells her that he will not be idle while she is gone. Shortly after seeing them off, he meets two men who are looking for a violin player to play their “circus” down to Washington and then they will pay his way back to New York. Instead he finds himself drugged and sold into slavery in the deep south under the name Platt, the name of a runaway slave who bore a resemblance to him. After being beaten and witnessing the death of another slave, he decides that cooperation is the only way to survive. He is sold to a man named Ford (played by Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch) who is kinder than most and impressed with Solomon’s work sets him up with a more pleasant ( I shudder at using the word pleasant) life on the plantation. After a bad incident with an overseer, Ford is forced to sell him to another plantation run by the chilling Edwin Epps (played ferociously by Michael Fassbender) and he is driven further into the world of slavery in the South.
Facing the cruelty of Epps, Solomon attempts to send word to his family and free himself but every effort is thwarted by Epps or the general notions of the world he lived in. He is less than a man and therefore as property of Edwin Epps, he is forced to the whims of a madman. Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong’o, receives the worst of Epps and his whims. Throughout the film Solomon struggles to not only stay alive, but to retain that shadow of the man he once was. Finally after presumably twelve years at the mercy of this system of corruption, cruelty and despair, Solomon meets up with a Canadian abolitionist (played by a Quaker bearded Brad Pitt) who listens to his story and though scared for his own well being, offers to help Solomon.
Ejiofor is an actor that can play any scene and tell you what he feels with very little dialogue. Here he seems to watch from outside his body the calamity that has become of his life. There is little he can do to change his fate but try to survive. He fights hard to retain the free man inside of him and succeeds in telling Solomon’s story. Every moment of his life in this film is a horror that he can only look upon with incredulity. The same can be said for Michael Fassbender’s Epps. He convinces you of Epps’ belief that the men and women he bought are his property and therfore his to use. Perhaps the most powerful moments involve Nyong’o and his absolute love of a woman who despises him. Every touch adds a new level of his growing hatred for her. Nyong’o , for her part, is capable to stand with these actors and deliver powerful moment after powerful moment. Through the film, she is the helplessness that Solomon feels and the inability to change where you are and what you must do to survive.
Twelve Years a Slave is a shocking and powerful movie that pulls no punches when it comes to slavery. Every horror and tragedy is examined and brought to light. This is a movie that should be seen. It isn’t a pleasant romp or a great love story or a tale of triumph in impossible odds. Solomon Northup’s life was robbed. Every slave in the South was robbed of the ability to be free and the right to be treated as a human being. This story needed to be told. I, for one, am better and more compassionate for having seen this film. Facing intolerable cruelty (personified by Michael Fassbender), Solomon Northup struggles through 12 years of trying to stay alive and retain his humanity. Some had to live their entire life in the shadow of cruelty and misery. Twelve Years A Slave is a story everyone should see and one that I will root for as the Best Picture of 2013. I haven’t seen many of Steve McQueen’s films but now I will search out for them because he so powerfully and painfully moved me. I hope that everyone who reads this will go to see this movie. Solomon Northup was a hero and his story deserves to be told to anyone and everyone. Thanks to Twelve Years A Slave (the book and the movie), no one will ever forget it.
Mr. Unhappy sez: In the race for Best picture, Twelve Years a Slave should win. It is a movie that deserves to win, has a story that needs to be seen and in the end is the only movie I’ve seen in this group that personifies the term “Best Picture”. I still love “Her” and personally it will be my best picture but Twelve Years a Slave should be the world’s Best Picture.
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