A battered slave hangs by the neck from a tree, his feet barely touching the ground enough to keep him alive. Behind him, other slaves go about their day. Some work, some play. In front of him, an overseer paces deliberately, shotgun in hand, watching him intently. "Django Unchained" this is not. "12 Years A Slave" is the gut-wrenching, unapologetic true life account of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man that was kidnapped and sold into slavery in antebellum America. Director Steve McQueen (who should seriously consider tossing a middle initial into his professional name) branches out from his usual style of small, personal stories, and churns out an epic tale with far-reaching implications without forfeiting that trademark intimacy.
Solomon Northup lives as a free man in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children. A talented fiddler, Solomon is presented with a too-good-to-be-true opportunity to earn some money for a two-week tour with a pair of artists. The tour turns out to be a ruse, however, and those seemingly friendly artists steal Solomon away and sell him as a slave. What we soon realize is that McQueen is doing the exact same thing to us. While he doesn't pretend to be bringing us to a happy film, he does rip us from our blissful ignorance in our current world and forces us to witness the atrocities that took place on our soil barely 150 years ago. As Solomon sees the life of a slave for the first time (in the form of him being whipped mercilessly before he is even sold), so do we for the first time comprehend the treatment of African-Americans not that long ago. Many films have depicted the horror of slavery, but not many as brutal and graphic as "12 Years A Slave".
Solomon is first bought by plantation owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is actually a pretty nice guy. You know, as far as slave owners go. Ford treats Solomon - who's name has been changed to Platt by the man who sold him, Theophilus Freeman (Paul Giamatti) - with a modicum of respect. He listens to Solomon when he recommends new working techniques, and he even buys him his own fiddle. But a confrontation between Solomon and overseer John Tibeats (Paul Dano) makes Ford's plantation a dangerous place for the slave, and so Ford sells him in order to keep him safe. Unfortunately, the only man who would buy him is the deeply malevolent Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), who fancies himself a real slave-breaker.
Kudos to McQueen for not portraying all slave owners as evil individuals from surface to core. Not to say that any slave owner was a good person, but many of them owned slaves because of the economy of the times. McQueen himself said, at a recent press conference, that there were plenty of people in the South during slavery that didn't approve of it, but felt they couldn't change anything because it was too big for them. Cumberbatch's Ford is representative of that, as it's clear that he sees slaves as people, not property. Cumberbatch is wonderful in the part, even if the Brit does labor a bit with his Southern accent. He's sympathetic, but not to an extreme amount.
When it comes time to show brutality, though, McQueen lets the whip fly. The director has expressed exhaustion by constantly being questioned by journalists about the level of violence in "12 Years A Slave". He says that if you're going to make a movie about slavery, you have to show the violence because it is what actually happened. To hide it in any way would be to lessen the truth of the situation. McQueen's point is well taken, and his execution of the bloodshed is done without feeling exploitative or unnecessary. The intensity of many of these moments is heightened by Fassbender, who is typically brilliant and can strike fear in anyone if called on to do so.
Collaborating once again with cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, McQueen continues his streak of deliberate and meaningful imagery. The composition of each shot is so well-planned in the director's mind that he says he doesn't bother shooting coverage for the sake of having coverage. When he shoots a wide shot that lasts for a full minute, he knows that that's what will appear in the final product, unedited.
What makes "12 Years A Slave" so much more than a broad statement about slavery is the affecting performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup. Ejiofor humorously says that as an actor, you wait your whole life for that great script and a great character that you can really sink your teeth into. When he finally found that in "12 Years A Slave", he suddenly found himself worried that he wouldn't be able to pull it off. Well Mr. Ejiofor, stop worrying, because you nailed it. As our extreme outward emotions react to the grotesqueness of slavery, Ejiofor focuses our inner intimate feelings with the personal struggle of Solomon. Ejiofor beautifully and subtly captures the transformation of a free man that slowly learns that to survive slavery, he must become a slave.
There is one thing that feels out of place here, and that is Brad Pitt's small role as a Canadian abolitionist. Pitt produced "12 Years A Slave", and so it's not too shocking that he would take some part in it. But since Pitt is such a huge star, his presence throws off the independent feel of the film. Though Fassbender, Giamatti, Dano, and Cumberbatch are relatively well known, they are still able to appear in specialized supporting roles without bringing attention to themselves. But Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt and when he shows up in a role where he gets to state the message of the film outright, it all feels very planned and insincere. The role would have been better suited to someone less universally known, in keeping with the low-key tone of the rest of the piece.
"12 Years A Slave" should be required viewing for history classes, and the book (written by Solomon Northup in 1853 following his ordeal) should be required reading. I've seen a lot of historical movies, and this might be the first time that I feel I've actually learned something. "12 Years A Slave" succeeds as both a large tale of a horrid period in US history, and a small love story about a man striving to hold his family once again.
