12 YEARS A SLAVE

US/UK, 2013, 134 minutes, Colour.
Chiwitel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, Lupita Nyong’o, Alfre Woodard, Michael K. Willilams, Sarah Paulson, Scoot Mc Nairy, Bill Camp, Garret Dillahunt, Quvenzhane Wallis.
Directed by Steve Mc Queen.

It is surprising to find that the story on which this film is based was first published in 1853, the memoir of Solomon Northup, who had been abducted from Washington DC and transported into slavery in the South. He spent 12 years, 1841-1852, as a slave, working in cotton fields, on cane fields, on menial tasks as well as engineering work. It seemed impossible that he would be released and ever see his wife and children, living in Saratoga in New York State, ever again. Through the intervention of a Canadian working in the South, his friends were able to come and effect his release. After writing his book and in succeeding years, he worked for the Underground Railway, enabling the escape of slaves from the South to come to Freedom in the North.

This is a most worthy story as well as a reminder, not often presented in films, of the racist presuppositions of the slave-owners, the slaves not being humans but their possessions, and the humiliation of the slaves as persons as well is the deprivation of their freedom. This is presented strikingly and most forcefully in this film.

The film opens with scenes of Solomon working in the cane fields, herded with other slaves in the mass sleeping quarters. And then it goes back to his past, to his freedom in the North, in his status as a citizen of Saratoga and his being well received by the town’s people, especially the store owner who will come to his aid at the end. He has a wife and two children. Accepting the invitation to play the violin, which he does very well, for a circus and three weeks engagement, he is drugged and imprisoned, treated shamefully and brutally, and sent for sale in New Orleans.

The screenplay has frequent flashbacks to Solomon’s life, highlighting his anguish.

The pathos is emphasised a young woman being tricked as she sought out her children who were taken and they are all sold as slaves, her children being separated from her, and her continued depression at their loss.

The first landowner is comparatively benign though he still thinks of his slaves as his possessions. He is impressed by Solomon who now goes under the name of Platt, and shows his skill in improving the transport of goods along the river. But he falls foul of an overseer and fights with him, thus forfeiting his right to stay on the plantation and he is sold then to a ruthless landowner, who is sadistic in his treatment of his slaves, resorts to brutality and whippings, humiliates Solomon, and exploits a female slave, Patsy, as his mistress, to the haughty anger of his wife. Both plantation owners are pictured gathering the slaves together and reading the Bible to them – and later the plantation owner interpreting the Scriptures to bolster his interpretation of possessions.

This mere description does not do justice to the visuals of the life of slavery, the effect on the men and women themselves, the psychological oppression, the physical and psychological violence which is up there, sometimes relentlessly, on the screen.

Director, Steve Mc Queen, began his career as an artist, a painter, and this is evident in the visual style of the film. As with the silent film directors, he uses a fixed camera for most of the sequences, letting the action happen within the frame. Sometimes he moves the camera, tracking as people walk. He has long takes, like paintings, while the audience has time to contemplate what is happening.

The film is blessed with a strong cast, led by stage and screen actor from Britain, Chiwitel Ejiofor, who has had a successful career in the United States. The more kindly plantation owner is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, while the sadistic and tyrannical owner is played by Michael Fassbender, star of Mc Queen’s previous films, Hunger and Shame. There are smaller roles, dramatically significant, for Paul Giamatti as the auctioneer in New Orleans, for Paul Dano as a jealous overseer, for Brad Pitt, who produce the film, as a Canadian who takes on Solomon’s cause. The film introduces the Lupita Nyong’o, whose performance as Patsy, requires her to experience humiliation and great physical pain as she is flogged. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

The film will be seen as important in its time, dramatising the experience of the slaves in the American South, a story and treatment which remind audiences of the continued slavery in different parts of the world.

1. Acclaim for the film? Slavery in the United States? Presence and absence in cinema? The shock value of this film? For American audiences? The challenge? For all audiences?

2. Steve Mc Queen and his career, tackling of issues? His art and painting background? The influence? The film as pictorial? The use of fixed camera, action within the frame, tracking shots for walking, the long takes, editing? Contemplative approach?

3. The visuals, the period, the 19th century, costumes and decor, New York State, the homes, shops, hotels? Washington?

4. The contrast with the South, prison, the auction centre, the plantations, the mansions, the sheds for the slaves? The fields, cotton, cane? Costumes and decor? The buildings?

5. The musical score, the variety of moods?

6. The structure: seeing Solomon in the cane field, in the shed with the others, the flashbacks, the visuals, the explanation, the abduction, the consequences? The continuing flashbacks giving information, Solomon’s feelings, regrets loss?

7. Solomon in Saratoga, his family, the respect, the home, wealth, his expertise and work, his status, the shopping sequence, the park and the offer of the job, his violin-playing, the proposal, his acceptance?

8. With the two men, their friendship, drinking and talking, drugs, taken upstairs, abducted? The payment for the slave-smugglers?

9. Chained, ill-treated, the physical cruelty, the boy, his mother relieved to find him, her being trapped with children? travelling to the South? The auction? The auctioneer, his treatment of the slaves, advertising and promoting them, the issue of the separation of the mother and children, Mr Ford acquiescing in this? The cash payments? The callous treatment? Mr Ford and his buying Solomon? Robert and his advice to Solomon about not revealing his identity, not revealing that he could read or write? Solomon and his outbursts, later following the advice? Robert’s master arriving and saving him – and his not looking back?

10. The status of slaves as mere possessions, no freedom, humiliated, labour, punishment?

11. Solomon as Platt, bought, transported, in the common house with the men and the women? Sexual comfort? The mother and her weeping for her lost children, Solomon telling her to move on? Her reminding him that he was missing his children and she was entitled to grieve? The slaves all assembling and listening to the plantation masters and their reading of the Bible? Their fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, especially about property? Work, the canefields and the instructions, the supervision, the clash with the supervisor, in the fields, the slats on the building, his bitterness, getting revenge, the fight? Solomon and his talking with Mr Ford? Mrs Ford and her attitude towards the slaves, possessions? The entertainment? The violin? The ideas for business, the raft, the transport of goods? Success?

12. The fight, Mr Ford and his having to forfeit the ownership? His ambiguous attitudes towards the slaves?

13. The sale to Epps? His personality, the cotton fields, supervising the picking, the number of buckets, flogging those who did not measure up? The introduction to Patsy, as a slave, subservient to Epps, her picking the cotton? Solomon and his not meeting the quota, flogged?

14. Mrs Epps, her jealousy of Patsy, wanting her husband to get rid of her, his humiliating his wife, threatening to send her back?

15. Patsy, her role as a slave, as the mistress of the plantation owner, the sexual use of her, the dresses, her picking the cotton? Her going to the plantation and the gift of the soap? Her pleading her cause? Epps and his sadism, his wife watching, forcing Solomon to whip Patsy?

16. Epps, sadistic, Biblical interpretation of his ownership? His watching his slaves?

17. The visit to the neighbouring plantation, the white man and installing the slave as the mistress? Her entertaining Solomon? Patsy? Patsy getting the soap? Epps and his contempt for them?

18. Solomon, being sent to the shopping, witnessing the lynching, thinking about escape? At the shop, returning with the goods? Taking the foolscap?

19. The years, his suffering, his almost being hanged, Mr Ford cutting him loose, having to keep his feet in continual motion on the ground to avoid hanging? The other slaves, especially women, all going about their jobs and ignoring him?

20. Armsby, seeming friendship, his ambitions, Solomon and he is seconding the paper, making the ink, writing the letter, asking Armsby about posting it? His betraying Solomon to Epps? Burning the letter?

21. Bass, the work, Bass from Canada, listening to Solomon’s story, his own fears about helping Solomon?

22. The shopkeeper coming from the North, the documents about Solomon’s freedom, the sheriff identifying him with Solomon answering the questions? Epps and his upset, talking about his rights?

23. Solomon, the pathos of meeting his family again, his daughter, her marriage, the grandson, his wife?

24. The aftermath, writing his story, helping on the Underground Railway? No further information about his life or death?