Script 12 Years a Slave
This presentation takes as its
topic the contemporary views of the film. It explores reviews from a cross
section of the media industry and academic journals. The recent date of the
film’s production, 2013, means that it was the subject of a very wide response
from all news and social media. Therefore this presentation will focus on three
aspects which were discussed in the majority of the reviews. These concern
trajectory, character and incident. The final section ends with two further
viewpoints from academic sources.
Suggestions to help focus:
1. Choose one character from the
film who made the deepest impression on you.
2. Choose one incident or image
that stayed with you after the film.
There was a
noticeable level of consensus in the reviews about finally fully acknowledging
this aspect of the American story:
Steven Rea
describes the film as a tale of impossible cruelty and incredible survival, embodying
in microcosm, the long and shameful chapter of American history, when men,
women, and children, because of the color of their skin, were oppressed,
commodified, abused.
Manohla Dargis
writes that ‘ It’s at once a familiar, utterly strange and deeply American
story in which the period trappings long beloved by Hollywood — the
paternalistic gentry with their pretty plantations, their genteel manners and
all the fiddle-dee-dee rest — are the backdrop for an outrage.
Empireonline.com
In outline, 12 Years A Slave might sound like an attempt to wring a feel-good
movie out of one of history’s most feel-bad tragedies. The true story of
Solomon Northup, shanghaied from his family into slavery only to survive 12
years of unthinkable hardship, could be parlayed into an uplifting
triumph-over-adversity drama, filled with grandstanding moments, sweeping
strings and manipulative tear-jerking.
What other famous Southern film could this be referring to?
Several critics
expressed agreement on the way the narrative trajectory was handled which made
the film a powerful experience. (….)creating ‘with texture and sweep, scenes of slavery’s
extreme privations and cruelties but also its work rhythms and routines, sunup
to sundown, along with the unsettling intimacies it produced among the owners
and the owned.’ The narrative moves so fluidly and efficiently. ‘The audience
is so busy worrying about Solomon to linger long in emotions and ideas that the
film churns up.’
This viewpoint is
considered quite differently later by Erica Ball.
For John
Stauffer, the South is seen as a totalitarian state, corrupted by chattel
slavery with the film capturing the coercive psychology of slavery.
For Dargis, the
Epps plantation episode is where the film narrative trajectory ‘deepens and
then hardens.’ This is where the reality of enslavement is played out, ‘day
after day, decade after decade, generation after generation.’
What impact did the
juxtaposition of this narrative speed and pace have on the portrayal of Solomon?
The character of
Solomon.
One review
claimed Solomon’s ballast-like character gave something to cling onto,
especially during the frenzies of violence. There is strong focus on Solomon
and his view, in particular long close-up shots invite us into his
consciousness – going from stunned
bewilderment, disbelief and outrage to resignation and regret, from a
determination to win freedom to merely a determination to survive. This change
in Solomon as he experiences levels of misery and despair is palpable. Critics
agree that these close encounters seem to make the horrors of slavery all the
more powerful with the hanging incident appearing as a key incident in most reviews.
The hanging
incident.
For the film’s
photographer this was the most important visual and a turning point because
‘till then we know Solomon is a slave but with a seemingly benevolent Master –
we think he is going to be ok – but then suddenly we realize this is not OK,
not benevolent.’ This scene is also viewed as a powerful metaphor of the
slave’s humiliation, ’left to dangle, half way between stability and
annihilation – essentially his situation for a dozen long years.’ (Stauffer)
Critics also
noted that this scene of incredible pain and near death was made almost more
horrific by ordinary life going around the hanging body, people paying no
attention to Solomon.
Lastly the views
of two academic writers: one analysing the effects of the film and the other,
the producer’s particular use of violence.
Paula J. Massood asks, was the widespread
reaction of deep shock by spectators created by the knowledge of the slave
experience or was it due to the power of cinematic form to elicit this reaction
from audience members?
What do you
think?
Masood asserts it
is a combination of heightened, narrative emotion and complex musical scores which
can result in very intense, audience identification. In line with other
reviews, Masood suggests that the melodramatic trajectory is an effective
political device as spectators identify with the cruelty and injustice, making
slavery as a system even more intolerable.
In addition, Massood
argues that the cinematography and sound succeed in communicating deeper experiences:
from distant views of Washington in the early part to the sounds of the whip on
bare flesh. Massood states that the hanging scene is arguably disturbing and
affecting due to the cinematic effects: it last almost five minutes, with long
and medium shots edited to circle round Solomon’s hanging body and his literal
toehold on life. This is compounded by the sound design which is almost silent
with only the sound of wind, cicadas and children playing. These effects
compound the realisation that Solomon the slave is utterly alone.
Erica Ball,
writing about Slate.com critics who were
uncomfortable writing about the film, argues that conventional views of slavery
were unsettled by Mc Queens use of violence. It was not staged in expected,
reassuring ways – ie how slavery should look. It eschews melodrama. The
violence is sudden, sporadic and unpredictable, the slaves living with trauma
and perpetual terror. He uses violence to foreground the confusion and shock of
Solomon’s descent into chattel slavery- the obscenity of humans seen as
property.
Sources
Journal of
American History. Jun2014, Vol. 101 Issue 1, p357-360. 4p Paula J. Massood
doi: 10.1093/jahist/jau268
David Denby The
New Yorker October 21 2013
Manohla Dargis The
New York Times OCT. 17, 2013
History Extra.com
http://www.imdb.com/
TIME.com
The Atlantic.com
Stephen Rea,
Philly.com
John Stauffer
American Literary History Vol 26 No 2 Summer
2014 pp 317 – 325 Oxford University Press.
Erica L. Ball The
Unbearable Liminality of Blackness: Violence in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a
Slave. Transition, Issue 119,2016 pp 175-186
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