12 Years a Slave is a great movie. I never want to see it again.
This harrowing film, based on the memoirs of escaped slave Solomon Northup, brings to life the cruelty and inhumanity of the antebellum South through a faithful recreation of Northup’s luring away from his New York home, subsequent enslavement, and eventual repatriation to the land of the free.
The recreation is served by the production designer’s careful attention to detail, scarring performances on the part of the cast, and careful direction and photography that highlight the jarring cruelty of slavery by showing just how routine that cruelty had become.
The production design is immaculate. From period construction equipment to architecture to clothing, 12 Years a Slave is better than a museum: it doesn’t just show us where people lived and what they used and wore; it shows us how they lived there, how they used the materials to hand, how the clothes they wore actually looked in motion.
The cast, well, it’s remarkable. Lupita Nyong'o as a fellow slave trying to maintain some humanity provides an unforgettable performance. Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender, as slaveholders of variable degrees of humanity, provide contrasting images of the corruption of absolute power. Paul Dano, as a foreman who, though below Cumberbatch and Fassbender on the social ladder, absolutely assumes his God-given superiority over the slaves under his dominion, creates a character of both weakness and power – a difficult, but important, station to portray. The anchor, as he is for so many films, is the great Chiwetel Ejiofor, who Can Do No Wrong. His intelligence, his humanity, his fear, and his desperation provide both a hero for the film and an audience identification character. From Dirty Pretty Things to Kinky Boots and now to 12 Years a Slave, Ejiofor is putting together a filmography that’s marking him as one of the most compelling actors working today.
Of course, without the right director and photographer, all this hard work would come to naught. Director Steve McQueen and DP Sean Bobbitt, however, are up to the task. Watching their film, one can almost feel the heat and humidity of the Louisiana Bayou. One can almost smell the stench of a slave quarters. Most importantly, one can understand how life goes on even as men and women are captured, tortured, raped, murdered, and buried in shallow graves time and again, year after year.
And of course, this is all part of our American heritage, as much a part of the fabric of our country as the rockets’ red glare or the New Deal. It’s a part of our heritage we know about, but kind of gloss over because it’s so painful to contemplate. That pain is why I don’t want to see 12 Years a Slave again, though I’m glad I saw it once. Do not miss 12 Years a Slave.
The recreation is served by the production designer’s careful attention to detail, scarring performances on the part of the cast, and careful direction and photography that highlight the jarring cruelty of slavery by showing just how routine that cruelty had become.
The production design is immaculate. From period construction equipment to architecture to clothing, 12 Years a Slave is better than a museum: it doesn’t just show us where people lived and what they used and wore; it shows us how they lived there, how they used the materials to hand, how the clothes they wore actually looked in motion.
The cast, well, it’s remarkable. Lupita Nyong'o as a fellow slave trying to maintain some humanity provides an unforgettable performance. Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender, as slaveholders of variable degrees of humanity, provide contrasting images of the corruption of absolute power. Paul Dano, as a foreman who, though below Cumberbatch and Fassbender on the social ladder, absolutely assumes his God-given superiority over the slaves under his dominion, creates a character of both weakness and power – a difficult, but important, station to portray. The anchor, as he is for so many films, is the great Chiwetel Ejiofor, who Can Do No Wrong. His intelligence, his humanity, his fear, and his desperation provide both a hero for the film and an audience identification character. From Dirty Pretty Things to Kinky Boots and now to 12 Years a Slave, Ejiofor is putting together a filmography that’s marking him as one of the most compelling actors working today.
Of course, without the right director and photographer, all this hard work would come to naught. Director Steve McQueen and DP Sean Bobbitt, however, are up to the task. Watching their film, one can almost feel the heat and humidity of the Louisiana Bayou. One can almost smell the stench of a slave quarters. Most importantly, one can understand how life goes on even as men and women are captured, tortured, raped, murdered, and buried in shallow graves time and again, year after year.
And of course, this is all part of our American heritage, as much a part of the fabric of our country as the rockets’ red glare or the New Deal. It’s a part of our heritage we know about, but kind of gloss over because it’s so painful to contemplate. That pain is why I don’t want to see 12 Years a Slave again, though I’m glad I saw it once. Do not miss 12 Years a Slave.
