In some ways I can see why 12 Years A Slave is viewed as ‘revolutionary’ by critics and audiences alike but in all honesty I don’t think I’m ready to jump on the bandwagon. The film is being lauded and praised for a variety of reasons; it’s a beautifully visceral drama wonderfully directed by Steve McQueen, with the almost impeccable acting  from a multitude of some of the best actors currently working today and the expert research of scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr obvious in every frame of the film. It is a film seeping with skill and dedication worthy of the title ‘masterpiece’.

However it is not my masterpiece. I’ve seen this film twice now and I’ve found for every new thing to appreciate (I was blown away by the sound design the second time round) there is also something else to doesn’t quite work (the progression of time is a little clumsy which I will go into later and Brad Pitt and his goatee’s appearance still as distracting as it was the first time around). These issues are minor in comparison to the film’s accomplishments but they are still there and as a film still should be judged. I fear in the rush to praise the film for its purpose it negates any room for criticisms of the film as a film. Essentially the film’s worthiness has been conflated with technical excellence which in my view are not the same thing and does a disservice for objective film criticism. There is much to be lauded about this film and much to value but there is equally room to critique it’s function as a  film.

Direction:

Clarity of vision is my definition of McQueen’s style and like Hunger and Shame, this style is in abundance. With a single-minded passion and confidence in direction rarely comparible in recent film, in every frame, the personal importance this story has to McQueen is evident.

Like all of McQueen’s feature, there are elements of his artistic background flickering throughout the film adding to the visceral appeal of his works. Predominantly the mise-en-scene is the most evident of that. Like Hunger, the set is as important as the script. The world created is meticulous in detail and all enveloping in execution. Hunger, Shame and 12 Years all explore the theme of imprisonment in various forms. Hunger looks at physical incarceration, Shame at emotional imprisonment and 12 Years combines the two. 12 Years has the physical symbol of the denial of freedom in the shackles Solomon wakes up to find himself in the beginning of the film. The main focus though is the psychological imprisonment Solomon and his fellow slaves endure. 12 Years is the most “out doorsy” of McQueen’s three, with the luscious setting of the South being the world Solomon is confined to for 12 years and while the slaves spend most of their times outside in the fields, they are just as confined as Bobby Sands in his cell in Hunger. McQueen direction in the look of the film, the sound and his actors recreates the spirit and feel of a world uncomfortable but essential for the cannon of human history.

Narrative:

I’ve read only extracts of the original source, but from the little that I have read, there is a faithfulness of the film to the book is paramount in what is shown on screen. As previously mentioned, McQueen is all about visceral experience, what cannot be translated in words, he creates in setting and narrative structure. The outcome is that what is not said is as important as to what is. In achieving this the film is actually much more complex than first assumed. I am not only glad I had the chance to catch a repeated view as well as be able to discuss the film with both filmmakers and people who had read the book to properly see the textuality of the film and to understand parts what McQueen was doing.

As previously mentioned, I had slight issues with how the passage of time was treated in the film. There was a sense displacement, as up to the very end the audience doesn’t know how much time has passed, the only real indication being the hint of grey in Solomon’s hair. Having a recent discussion with huge fans of the film, they found it to be a fantastic indicator of how Solomon must have felt. Up until his rescue, he had no sense of time, when or if his nightmare would end. The audience has as much sense about the passing of time as he does. Upon reflection, it’s a classic McQueen technique that I should have recognised and kick myself still for not getting. It might be a case of this being Mc Queen’s most conventional commercial film yet, if one can call it that, that one assumes the techniques would follow suit. I’m glad I was proved wrong.

I’ve heard disgruntled viewers felt that the “stakes weren’t high enough” because the audience weren’t allowed the time to relate to Solomon as a family man before he was kidnapped. My response is simple: if a person think that being kidnapped, beaten and sold into a life of degradation doesn’t have enough stakes for any living person, regardless of if they have family or not, then we have not progressed as a civilisation as much as I thought it should. Such comments should encourage some real self reflection.

This is ever more sad to hear when considering the such bittersweet ending. Like the many characters who make the briefest of appearances, their stories are left open-ended. Some like Solomon may escape their nightmare but overwhelmingly more often than not the Patseys, and Elizas of the world have a lifetime of hell ahead of them. However, this is essentially one man’s story. While I found myself wondering about the stories of some of the other slaves, and also wondering about the communities that would have arose amongst the slaves, I had to remind myself that these were flights of fancies irrelevant to this specific story. The faithfulness to the story of Solomon Northrop is what drives the film and it is something the film rarely strays from.

Cinematography:

McQueen’s work is full of symbolism and one has to know that he is a true follower of the filmmaker’s mantra “Show, Don’t Tell”. The world of slavery is fully defined and the violence that permeated that era is ever present if not spoken of. The effect is that the audience feels as well as sees what’s on screen. Solomon desperately trying to find his footing while hanging precariously from a tree after an aborted lynching attempt is a scene that perfectly encapsulates McQueen’s style. The scene is inordinately lengthy, the back drop devastatingly beautiful, the only sound being the birds and the bustle and the singular rustle of Solomon trying not to hang himself. The slaves and nature goes on with their life in spite of the horrors happening just feet away from them, in the case of nature it is oblivious but in the case of the other slaves, it’s the only thing they can do to save themselves. A lone woman slave quickly runs up to give Solomon water and just as quickly runs away. Her act of giving him water is a small token of resistance and humanity,  a bold move that could potentially have devastating consequences if seen by the wrong eyes. That is the psychological prison in which slaves live. Violence and death is a permanent back drop to their lives.

For those who have read the book, Solomon Northup describes how when sent to Edwin Epps’ cotton plantation,  the sound of the whip was a permanent fixture from dawn to dusk. McQueen perfectly captures how banal this evil becomes by having much of the violence in the background with the camera focussed on something entirely different in the foreground. The scenes of Patsey quietly humming while making dolls out of grass, and slaves sorting cotton while slightly off camera, other slaves are being whipped creates a world in which the sound of screams and violence is as common place as birdsong.

There have been some criticisms of the depiction of violence in the film. Dismissive terms such as “torture porn” have been affiliated with 12 Years which is both an appropriate and perplexing thing to take away from the film (it’s all the more confounding when the same people who use this term for 12 Years proclaim that the original Robocop, a beacon of unnecessary and gratuitous film violence is one of their favorite films). This term is an inappropriate term to use for the basic reason, the term’s definition has no relation to this particular film. The term “torture film” insinuates that there is some pleasure derived from the violence being committed. Unless you’re Edwin Epps I’m not seeing how this term is applicable. If the violence has such an effect, you have bigger issues at hand. The fact that this term has been used by those visibly upset by what they saw on the film suggests not only that they don’t understand the term they’re using but that maybe they are struggling to understand the emotional impact the film has on them.

Some are saying that the violence shown in the film is a propaganda tool used by McQueen to make white people feel guilty for events happened in the past. They too are wrong. They are also usually the same people who think one film addressing slavery is one too many so…It saddens me that McQueen has had to repeatedly defend his motives. Such reactions to the violence in the film points to a wider attitude to the subject of slavery as discussed in my previous post about the subject of slavery.

It also seems there’s a deliberate effort to ignore McQueen’s obvious intention. In my humble opinion, McQueen’s depiction of the violence is much more restrained than what I was expecting. McQueen has a somewhat confrontational style, combined with some of the narratives I had read about the barbaric treatment of slaves I had read over the years I was expecting a much more unrelentingly violent film. However, his faithfulness to the source and respect for the people his story is about results in the emotional punches from the film emanating instead from the poignancy of the characters and the performances. The constant violence that Solomon wrote up alluded to rather than depicted and when it is, it is graphic rather than gratuitous.  These moments occur sparingly and with purpose.

Sound and soundtrack:

The tonal theme that runs throughout all of McQueen’s work both artist and film work is the idea of immersion. All three films in my opinion have been immersive sensory experiences, and while not as artistically ambitious as Hunger, there are certainly moments in 12 Years that are quintessentially McQueen in artist mode demanding the audience not only watch but sense what is going on. Before attending my first screening of 12 Years, a colleague who still to this day has not actually seen a Steve McQueen film recounted that she has attended an exhibition called Documenta 11 in 2002 where a specific art project had disarmed her so:

“Western Deep (2002), commissioned for documenta 11, constitutes a powerful exploration of the sensory experience of the TauTona Gold Mine in South Africa, showing migrant labourers working in dark, claustrophobic environments and the ear-splitting noise of drilling” – Wikipedia

Western Deep was the work of Steve McQueen and its immersive nature (guests are led into a pitch black room and exposed to the sound of drilling so loud it dislodges the bone as it was described)  had such an impact on my colleague was so much she can’t find the nerve to watch any of his films.

While I wouldn’t describe 12 Years having quite the same effect, there are flashes of inspiration that create similar effects  of Western Deep. The sound of the spinning turbines as the ship makes it way to New Orleans is a stand out. The methodic pounding against the water is supremely loud. It is so deliberately loud it pounds the audience in their seats adding to the sense of foreboding as Solomon’s nightmare truly begins.

Sound in the film is as integral at times as the visuals. Paul Dano singing “Run Nigger Run” not only highlights his perfect acting skills but is used to add to the depiction of the banality of evil. The cruelty is relentless and if the audience doesn’t see it happening, then they can certainly hear it instead.

However there were times where it was hard to understand what everyone was saying and because I saw the film in two different venues, with supremely good sound systems, I cannot blame it on the venues. I’m also still undecided about the Hans Zimmer score, which I admit the first time I heard it reminded me so much of another Zimmer score – 2011’s Inception – I was momentarily taken aback. Of course the score is more nuanced than that and has been adapted to fit the poignancy of the film. Still, the involuntary reminder of a van full of people very s-l-o-w-l-y falling off a bridge for an hour is all very disorientating.

Acting

Regardless of how much screen time dedicated to the large cast across the board (bar one culprit) each creates and executes such skill in economically creating fully fleshed people, I don’t know whether to attribute that to either excellent actor directing or clever casting.

On my first viewing, although appreciative of his subtle lead performance, treading the line perfectly between subtlety and passivity, I felt Chiwetel Ejiofor’s portrayal of Solomon Northup was more a competent but not outstanding . When I watched the film the second time it was just after having seen The Butler, comparing the lead performance of Forest Whittaker, it became ever more evident just how expertly Ejiofor portrays powerful grace in the face of diversity. While I thought Whittaker sleepwalked through his role in the Butler, Ejiofor, in a performance remnant of Julianne Moore’s  as Laura Brown in The Hours, portrays a character similar in temperance but more memorable and poignant in execution. Chiwetel gives a distinguished performance in bringing to life Solomon Northup and his 12-year nightmare where in the face of such soul destroying adversity, he quietly maintains his humanity and hope

Lupita Nyong’o

What can I say about Lupita’s portrayal of Patsey other than it was one of the most arresting and poignant performances of the year.  Born to endure a life of degradation and terror, Patsey’s tale is all the more devastating as there was no resolution to her story. Her nightmare like the millions before and after her,  was something  endured to their death. For female slaves, an added dimension that slave owners implemented and society encouraged to break slave’s spirits was sexual degradation and violence.  The last shot of her fainting just out of frame as Solomon rides away to freedom, stayed with me for days because there was an actual Patsey, many Patseys in fact, who lived and died in circumstances I could never comprehend.

Patsey’s story is the heart of the film in some ways. The fact that Patsey’s story is significant in the original book implies great importance to the novel’s author as well as to the film’s adaptation. To look at the cast list it would be assumed that there the integral role would automatically go to a recognisable face, a dependable talent? How wonderfully wrong that assumption was and what a wonderful experience to be fully corrected. Because despite this being Nyong’o’s first film role – not even a breakout film role, but first film role – I was completely engrossed in her self assured revelatory performance. She looked on the screen to have had as much acting experience as everyone else. More than holding her own with the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor and McQueen’s main man Michael Fassbender, I was so convinced by her performanceI had to do some research after the film on Nyong’o that this in deed was her first role.

I only hope she is given the time to enjoy the praise and to ignore the pressure that comes with it. Like Carey Mulligan, I fear that the bar has been set extremely high for Nyong’o, and anything less will be unreasonably criticised. Regardless, I will be sure to watch her future work for sure. Even if that next venture is the world’s away Non-Stop…

Michael Fassbender & Sarah Paulson

Probably one of my favorite roles in a seemingly impeccable career of masterful acting (ignoring the misstep that was The Counsellor), I will admit I was a little afraid Fassbender’s portrayal of the mercifully cruel slave owner Edwin Epps might become a schlocky villainous parody  because there is something so irredeemable about this chap. He is possibly the most unsympathetic antithesis of humanity portrayed in drama in years.  In the hands of a less capable actor and director, he could have become laughably evil cartoon villain. But because we are in a the hands of a capable and gifted actor who has a seemingly perfect film marriage with Steve McQueen, so that the character of Edwin Epps manifests as an incomprehensibly cruel master, terrible in character but grounded in reality because of his complexities, his sexual infatuation with Patsey and the conflict that creates in his marriage to Sarah Paulson’s Mistress Epps highlights this. In carefully towing the line in this character portrayal, the attention is less about him but in exploring the larger realities of slavery in that time. Through this “triangle” we explore, power dynamics of race and gender between slave and owner, husband and wife and most interestingly to me the relationships between women slaves and their female owners.

The quite rage with flashes of malicious violence lends a malevolence to Paulson’s Mistress Epps that I found more dangerous and unsetting than Edwin Epps. He is after all the king of his castle in a sense. He doesn’t answer to anyone. Mistress Epps although holding more status than the slaves by virtue of her skin colour and marriage is in actual fact, like women of that time, powerless. There is a simple exchange that perfectly encapsulates this:

Mistress Epps: You will remove that black bitch from this property, or I’ll take myself back to Cheneyville.

Edwin Epps: Back to the hogs’s trough where I found you? Do not set yourself against Patsy, my dear. Cos I will rid myself of you well before I do away with her.

– (IMDB)

And answers why Mistress Epps has such bottomless hatred for Patsey. The little power/status she has is constantly threatened by Patsey’s presense. Her husband’s infatuation with the latter, is an unwelcome reality for both women and Epps wanton violence to Patsey is her way of showing this. In understanding this about her makes her in no way an even slightly sympathetic character. She is as reprehensible as her husband but her presence in the film and Paulson’s quite but powerful performance addresses a theme oft unexplored in slave literature. The presence of women in slavery.

Slave narratives often seem male orientated, a struggle between the male slave and the male slave owner, when referring to the later, its often assumed that slavery was created and supported purely by men. When, as the film demonstrates, although without rights of their own, the wives supported and benefited from slavery as much as their husbands. There is also the added tension between the women as owners often engaged in sexual relationships with their female slaves with their wives powerless to do anything. The hatred pervading these relationships are no longer relegated to just racial terms, but as women too.

Again Paulson’s Mistress Epps is not just a one-note witch. Her interactions with Solomon border show an intrigue or even faint attraction to him, she sees something in him (maybe the same thing that makes him a target to Edwin Epps) and while she quietly rages at Patsey, she is more thoughtful about Solomon, trusting him to run errands, suspicious that he is literate but not letting her concerns be known to her husband.

Paul Dano and the rest

The film is littered with brief appearances from  a litany of talent from the big and small screen. However short their time on screen, they are fleeting encounters in one man’s long tale), their performances live a lasting impression. In particular, I was drawn to the slimy Tibeats, meticulously played by Paul Dano. Pathetic and dangerous in equal measure, I enjoyed every moment Dano was on screen but hated his character deeply such was the excellence in which he portrayed him. I was also impressed with Paul Giamatti as the remorseless slave trader Freeman (yes, that was his name) and Adepero Oduye as grieving mother Eliza.

Don’t worry. This isn’t a lovefest. I was put off by the presence of a well known actor. I like Brad Pitt. I have always have. But I do not like him in this. At all. As a producer it’s inevitable that he’d want to make an appearance in what he knew would be an important film, but I don’t agree that this plum role of Solomon’s savior should have been it. Despite only being in the film for less than ten minutes, I couldn’t ignore just how distracting it was to have Brad Pitt, essentially be Brad Pitt. In a film that had worked so hard to recreate a period time it was distressing to see it slowly unravel by Brad Pitt making minimal effort to commit like the rest.

It’s been stated that as the filmmakers and researchers didn’t know how people sounded at that time, McQueen decided the script should reflect the tone and rhythm of the King James Bible. The effect is like that of reading Shakespeare, at first a little hard to get into, but once you do, you’re hooked. It seems that everyone else got the memo and adjusted their accents to accommodate the style and the region in which they’re character is from. This request apparently didn’t reach Pitt. In his most perfect surfer boy accent he waxes lyrically about his noble abolition views and how he has those views because he’s from Canada. Now I don’t know what Canada sounded like back then, but hearing Canadians now,I can safely it’s not that. Despite being the good guy who helps set in motion Solomon’s freedom, I was  resentful of Pitt’s performance I found myself not as interested in his character as I should have been and really couldn’t wait for him to get off the screen. That’s sad because I do normally like me some Brad Pitt. He has a certain charm I can appreciate. Normally. But alas not in this.

Historical accuracy:

It’s notoriety along with the exposure of it’s source material inevitably invites criticism of authenticity as has the original book. While a few moments seem to try to appease to the sensibilities of the 21st century mind of both the director and his audience, I would like to think these changes were made primarily to elevate the film’s narrative function.  These slight changes do invariably raise questions and it is right to point them out, however,  do not diminish the quality and passion evident in the film. These are not the changes of a flippant or lazy filmmaker, even if their inclusion raises questions. But it’s this kind of nitpicking that can be expected from such a film that has the double whammy pleasure of not only being about a controversial subject  but has that has also lauded such universal acclaim. Fault has to be found somewhere. It has to be taken down a peg or two.

Conclusions:

I know this review seems like universal praise and therefore in direct conflict with my opening sentence of my feeling that this film isn’t quite a masterpiece. I stand by this statement. I completely understand why this film is seen as a masterpiece. It’s direction, narrative, acting. The execution of all these elements are practically flawless. But my feelings towards the film are purely instinctual and guttural. In being true to such instincts all I can say is that, I liked this film very much, there are elements of it I love, moments of cinematic genius. However, I feel great affection and gratitude to the film rather than reverence. It’s a film that should be lauded for it’s ambition, execution and rightfully placed as an important historical film to be referred to in the future.

It’s significance as a historical film that exults this film.  It’s importance in terms of opening new discussions and looking at the changing face of filmmaking my recommendations for this film are boundless. The subject matter may be difficult, but it is essential viewing and if you want an example of why we shouldn’t give up on filmmaking in 2014, you’d be hard-pressed to not reasons for this in 12 Years A Slave. It’s a film of firsts for black filmmaking talent, for films about slavery and rightly deserves the attention and accolades it’s getting.

Where can I see this?

Still in cinemas in the UK and will be throughout Awards season.

Next Up:

Wolf of Wall Street & Inside Llewyn Davis