“12 Years a Slave” (2013) is a film based on the 1853 book of the same name by Solomon Northup, a free Black American man sold into slavery in the South. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup and Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey. Alfre Woodard appears, briefly, as great as ever. Steve McQueen directs.
It won three Oscars:
- Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong’o),
- Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) and
- Best Picture, the first black-made film to win that award.
I have already done a post on Solomon Northup, based on the book, so this post will be about the film only.
The last 20 minutes of the film, from the soap scene to when Northup is reunited with his family, is one of the best things I have seen in years:
- Lupita Nyong’o was amazing. She has the power to make you feel what her character feels. A great new talent.
- The moment Northup discovers he is free was better in the book, but McQueen made up for it with the farewell scene between Northup and Patsey and the way he had Northup ride away.
Wow. Amazing.
The rest of the film, though, was not so good. It is arguably the best film on slavery since “Roots” (1977). It makes “Django Unchained” (2012) look like a joke. But that is not saying much.
While Northup’s book presents an unsparing, historically accurate picture of slavery, McQueen presents a sanitized picture.
McQueen’s slaves have furniture, like it was no big deal. They get off work before sundown. They get meal breaks. There are no worms in their food. They do not talk about freedom, try to run away or plot against their masters. Even evil masters are handsome and charming and only go overboard because of mean wives, too much drink or backward moral notions. Poor things!
In the book Northup runs away twice. In the film he never makes a serious attempt – despite what the movie poster would lead you to believe.
Eliza (Adepero Oduye), a slave woman whose cries endlessly over her children who have been sold away, one of them to become a sex slave, is seen as – annoying! We never find out that she died of a broken heart.
We do not know about Uncle Abram – till he falls over dead in the fields. All his lines in the book are cut out.
Most Black characters are just sort of there and say nothing, like they were animals, though on occasion they sing. Only 15% of the dialogue is between Black characters.
If you want to know what slavery was like, read the book. The film is next to worthless for that. John Ridley, by the way, helped to write “Red Tails” (2012), also sanitized.
On the other hand, the film was good at showing the casual dehumanization of Blacks, like they were things, not people. It also makes you wonder how White people could practise slavery for hundreds of years and not have their culture seriously warped by it.
See also:
- Solomon Northup
- Lupita Nyong’o
- Django Unchained
- Red Tails
- Precious
- American slavery
- The most gorgeous black men in the world – Chiwetel Ejiofor is #3
Abagond 
Was Northup as aristocratic as portrayed by Ejiofor in the movie? Put another way was he as comfortable with middle class whites as the movie portends?
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“It also makes you wonder how White people could practise slavery for hundreds of years and not have their culture seriously warped by it.”
Seriously? You must not live in America
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Chiwetel Ejiofor is a great actor love him he has majestic presence, but what moved me was the performance of Lupita N’yongo as Patsy. That was just heartbreaking and it left me kind of numb. My friend and i were a little emotional. Chewetel Ejiofor’s facial expressions tell the whole story even if he doesn’t speak. He is quite gifted. I have seen him in other roles and he is good. “Kinky Boots” “Talk To Me”. I hope to see Lupita N”yongo and hope she has longevity in Hollywood.
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“The rest of the film, though, was not so good. It is arguably the best film on slavery since “Roots” (1976).”
When Roots was released it was portrayed as historical. However, it soon became clear that it contained many historical inaccuracies and was even fraudulent. Alex Haley was even sued for plagiarism for stealing segments from the novels of other black authors.
Twelve Years should similarly be taken with a grain of salt. Although there is a court case involving Northup, most of the details from the book are unsubstantiated. Furthermore, its writing was funded by a group of radical abolitionists only a year after Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a best-seller. So we have to consider the possibility of it being politically motivated propaganda.
Abagond considers it realistic and an accurate depiction of slavery because of confirmation bias. He wants to believe the worst.
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This book is now on my list of books to read.
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Abagond, I would love for you to review the movie ‘Goodbye Uncle Tom’
It’s the most gut-wrenching eery slave depictions I’ve ever seen… very intereseted to hear your thoughts on it
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Abagond, Eliza annoyed you?
Django Unchained was significantly diminished after watching this film.
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I have to read the book.
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Da jokah
Can you make one post that does not begin and end with what abagond believes? I mean it is a creepy little obsession that equals stalking lover in my book. As for confirmation bias….it is nice that you like to recognize your actions by projecting them on to others.
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i have the pdf of the book and the movie on my computer, haven’t had time, well, up to now, i reckon
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https://archive.org/details/twelveyearsasla01nortgoog
it’s free…
Twelve years a slave (1968)
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If you want to know what slavery was like, read the book. The film is next to worthless for that. John Ridley, by the way, helped to write “Red Tails” (2012), also sanitized.
WSWS thought it sucked!
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/18/twel-o18.html
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Everybody is a critic. LOL!
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Meh.
It wasn’t anything monumental to me either. As a matter of fact, for me it was one of those “watch-it-and-forget-about-it” movies. A oneshot deal.
The fact that it is about slavery doesn’t mean the film itself is in any way excellent.
I’ve read brief slave narratives that are much more evocative and fleshed out than this movie.
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[…] “12 Years a Slave” (2013) is a film based on the 1853 book of the same name by Solomon Northup, a free Black American man sold into slavery in the South. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup and Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey. Alfre Woodard appears, briefly, as great as ever. Steve McQueen directs.It won three Oscars:Best Supporting Actress(Lupita Nyong’o),Best Adapted Screenplay(John Ridley) andBest Picture, the first black-made film to win that award….The last 20 minutes of the film, from the soap scene to when Northup is reunited with his family, is one of the best things I have seen in years:" […]
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Having not seen the film yet though at some point I will do,there are just too many issues that have already filled our heads with mistrust,prejudice,fear and suspicion that to watch another film that is harrowing and so emotive is the last thing that I would watch right now..
But I suspect Mc queen left out certain details for obvious reasons,the era we are in now ,how gruesome and soul destroying it can be for sensitive people so he more or less scratched the surface and let out the rather unforgettable poignant bits out,
I don’t think he wants to cause that kind of uncomfortable reaction from viewers as it already proved unwatchable for some.
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“It also makes you wonder how White people could practise slavery for hundreds of years and not have their culture seriously warped by it.”
Why do you think white culture is not seriously warped?
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@ Blanc2 @ S
I think their culture is seriously warped by it.
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@ solesearch
Eliza did not annoy me in the book, but the film made her seem that way. I assumed McQueen would make her a sympathetic character, particularly since splitting up families was a huge fear slaves had. Instead he did not even let us know how she died.
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@ Legion
That is an interesting WSWS review. Thanks.
I see what they mean by McQueen practising slavery porn, BUT compared to the source material he was very restrained. Slavery was violent and ugly. There is no honest way to pretty it up. McQueen, as quoted in their review, gave the audience about as much as he thought they could handle. They are right that McQueen did not give much historical context, but then neither did Northup.
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Abagond,
I thought she came off as very sympathetic. Her owners were annoyed by her crying but that reflected badly on them not her. The scene where she was begging for her children not to be sold away from her was heartbreaking.
I don’t see how you being annoyed by her indicates the director’s intent.
If seeing her live a life of misery didn’t move you I don’t know why her death would.
I cried the entire time so I find your annoyance strange. I do cry very easily(when other people are crying) so it could just be me.
Is that the typical response?
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That Jokah said:
However, it soon became clear that it contained many historical inaccuracies and was even fraudulent. Alex Haley was even sued for plagiarism for stealing segments from the novels of other black authors.
I thought that the innacuracies were to do with the story he told about his lineage – I did not know that the whole thing was questionable. Can anyone clarify this?
Also, just because he ‘stole’ segments from other authors, does it make what was portrayed any less true?
Abagond considers it realistic and an accurate depiction of slavery because of confirmation bias. He wants to believe the worst
Ok, what is the REAL unbiased version then?
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I have not read the Northrup book,however I have read several autobiographies of the formerly enslaved.Frederick Douglass,who was enslaved on the Eastern shore of Maryland,had no shoes and barely any clothes, even in the winter.The enslaved in 12 years were fully clothed and had shoes in the heat of La.Look closely at the background of some scenes in 12 yrs and it looks like negroes are having a picnic.The truth is that Dec. 25 was the only day off for the enslaved.
It is not uncommon to read about labor in salt mines or having open wounds festering with maggots .Hollywood will never portray the horror of the trade.
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Glad I refused to see this garbage. Hollywood will always do what it was created to do: fool the fools.
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@ Abagond
Yeah it is an interesting review, much better than mainstream stuff. They criticize McQueen but they absolutely can’t stand Tarantino, which endears me to them. 😀
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I would recommend that young people go and watch this film – Black and white. For many it would probably be the first real introduction into slavery conditions outside of a distorted and basic exploitative for entertainment movie like D’jango
In comparison to this Ego manic Tarantino’s obsessed nig@er expletive endeavor Steve McQueen’s effort is probably the best depiction of slavery that’s been on the Hollywood screen, particularly in two instances:
Firstly, it shows the incessant, unrelenting aspect of slavery as work, as actual, day to day, grinding, routine labor in captivity, which is as much surrounded by the mundane as it is by anxiety. Secondly, it shows the routine, normalization of the power relations of slavery in inescapable displays of self-subordination and the ever present threat of violation and violence that can punctuate and disrupt any degraded achievement of reliability of meaning in the slave environment at any time.
Both these aspects were conveyed without portraying slavery on a grand epic scale of the massive plantation (which did not exist in the US), or losing the texture of the longevity of slavery in a people’s lives by focusing on other dramas that push it into the background (eg ‘Amistad’,’Grace’). This made the look of slavery, very domestic, very personalized, very unsanitized. One of the more remarkable things about the movie I felt was its use of long silences, where nothing is said, environmental noises dominant, images on the screen are maintained for long stretches without change, forcing the viewer into a contemplation of those moments of things not changing, preventing the easy option of moving on, or relief from the psychological assault of irrepressible brutality on the senses, which of course is not available to the bodies of the enslaved.
The movie provides little opportunity not to talk about slavery if one is committed to talk about the movie. It is rare for movies about slavery to achieve that since they usually pander at some point to making whiteness find some form of comfort with itself. Here the only outlet was Brad Pitt as an abolitionist sympathizer, yet even here (as I have since investigated) the movie was remaining true to the story it depicted.
The fact that it was directed by and starred a Black British director and actor, and did something that has managed to elude many African American film makers, is also astonishing given how difficult it is get these kinds of artistic and black thoughtful movies financed and distributed.
This in itself (not reflected in your blog piece Abagond) should at least be given some respect and recognition for its achievement.
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I’ve read the book, I haven’t seen the movie. Not sure if I want to, given the book was so heart wrenching. I often think about the slaves that never got away like Patsy and also how many other Solomon Northups there actually were that didn’t get to ever taste freedom again.
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hi, i’m a first-time commenter on this blog and may i say what a superbly written and informative site it is too – in its neutral and evenly measured style – and i will definitely be recommending your archive, especially to the younger generations. by the way, although essentially a point entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand, i would be curious to know whether your posts attract a both a black and white readership – as they certainly make for a most compulsive and educational reading experience, thank you – and may i also mention that yours is the only properly critical review of the above film which i have encountered and has made me feel at all interested in watching it.
as regards slavery, i’m siding with a commenter further up the page, and extremely suspicious of all this good-slave-master bad-slave-master crapola – because for someone to actually buy or sell another human being isn’t exactly a favourable character indicator, is it?
anyway i haven’t seen the film or experienced slavery, but i personally, i believe that the film 12 years a slave has too many white actors in it – and surely, given the deference-inducing dictums of the period, and the fact that this story is told from the perspective of a slave, the only thing we should really see of white people during this movie is their shoes.
i’m also aghast at the utter gall displayed by the white actors, producers and writers, in their in insistence on being publicly credited and even remunerated for their various technical and artistic contributions to the project – when by rights all their earnings should have gone straight into the reparations and apologies kitty…
…so white folks are still profiting from slavery, it would seem.
frankly, i’m gutted to have lost out to chiwetel ejiofor in casting for the part of solomon northup, although i nevertheless sympathize deeply with the serious professional hurdles he had to overcome in performing this emotionally challenging role – primarily the problem of being upstaged by little miss curvy-cups – but of course, if i’d been in the picture, i would never have allowed any of those shenanigans to have occurred, since my stature as an artist would have undoubtedly prevailed and i would have filled every shot…
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@ Kwamla
You have a point.
Are the foreigners interlopers? That question must have been raised, because
neither the director and the actor will entertain the idea.
Chwetel Ejiofor says:
“I suppose in terms of my family background, I feel very connected to the story because of the diaspora experience of slavery. I’m Igbo (an ethnic group in Nigeria) and 100s of 1000s of Igbos were taken out of Nigeria and brought to America and South America and the West Indies, I felt very connected to that.
I know that Steve came from the West Indies, where there was such a brutal slave trade and he was connected to THAT experience. So I always thought of it in a slightly more international sense than anything based on one specific nationality.
“This is a very American story in a way but it also has a wider thing because slavery itself did. It speaks to the things that connect us all. And connect ALL the people of the African diaspora to the story in a clear way. That’s what slavery meant GLOBALLY to black people. I didn’t feel at all outside of that.
“But I did feel a responsibility, not being American, to get the story of Solomon Northrup as current as I could.… I’ve been very grateful to show the film to his descendants and see them be so proud of it.”
From here:
http://www.buffalonews.com/columns/jeff-simon/chiwetel-ejiofor-on-one-of-the-great-film-performances-of-2013-in-12-years-a-slave-20131103
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typo: neither the director nor the actor
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Michael Fassbender’s character Epps was especially disturbing, there is a scene in the film where Epps is walking around carrying a young black female child, and you know that this monster is getting her ready to be the next Patsy. That was disturbing to me.
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@ Bulanik
It does seem to me, which most of the comments coming from African-Americans here testify to. That because it came from the mainly contributions of Black, non-African-Americans. This film is not really worth watching much.
But that still leaves my central question unanswered: Why are there no similar or comparable attempts to produce an authentic filmed slave narrative, which would stand up to most criticisms about the film here, from African-Americans?
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@ Kwamla
😦 Yes.
There’s so much to share between the different communities.
I am fond of this blog for how much it has taught me, and continues to teach, about the US, especially. But, like you, there are times I have to wonder at the “worthlessness” (or worse) sometimes assigned to non-Americans and their contributions. You see this, and other commenters from England, (Demerera, David, Maureen), used to see it, too, before they gave up and ceased to visit.
I don’t know what the answer(s) might be to your question.
But it’s an important question! This is a such a HUGE part of our shared history, and present. And to my mind, the Americans are probably the best-placed and, frankly, most adept at bringing some of those narratives to screen.
I can understand if there is a protectiveness towards this history, and towards the 100s of slave narratives that exist in the US about the enslaved Africans that came to those shores. I noticed a similar reaction in the thread about Solomon Northup last year. This was after a parallel about — the non-American — Robert Wedderburn’s experience of slavery with Solomon’s narrative was drawn:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/solomon-northup/#comment-200016
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@ Kwamla, if memory serves this is the 2nd time Solomon’s narrative has been filmed. I remember seeing a snippet of a version with the black actor from “Deep Space Nine”.
I don’t think it got the recognition it deserved though.
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Solomon Northup’s Odyssey:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX3upbRPBnU)
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1984 “Solomon Northrupt Odyssey with Avery Brooks.
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I just finished reading Bulanik’s comment which featured a description of the life of Robert Wedderburn. Thank you, Bulanik, for providing the story itself and linking back to it. I do, as a matter of fact, recall scanning your comment at the time it was posted, and telling myself that I’d get back to it when I had more time, but did not until now.
As to my opinion on 12 Years A Slave, while, and as I’ve already stated, my personal view is that it is not a great film, my reason for stating this has nothing to do with the nationality of anyone involved in the film. I was after all speaking of the film itself and did not make any mention of any personality.
I must add, as well, that, although I have long been aware that actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (who did excellent work emotively, and with the sparse dialogue he was given…and is quite easy on the eyes) is not an American, I was not aware at the time of viewing the film itself that it is not an American one. If mention was made of this, well then, I missed it.
The nationality of actors and filmmakers doesn’t matter to me anyway. I’ve watched and enjoyed a wide variety of foreign films, including British ones, and have long felt a sense of kinship to my Caribbean brothers and sisters, of which I have spoken under a previous username.
With regards to the movie it is nothing less than flattering that a non-American Black individual would pull a page out of Black American history and present it as a film, especially when their own rich history might instead be their focus. I would love to view movies concerning the histories of Blacks in the Caribbean as well as Britain. There has been a Black presence in England itself for many centuries.
In my own estimation, it has long been time that the story of Toussaint L’Ouverture be told in English; to that end, I would love it if the story of this Haitian revolutionary (and I am not of known Haitian descent) were to be told by Black American filmmakers. I would be happy to view a faithful re-telling of it as well by anyone, of any nationality.
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P.S. I admired commenter “Demerera”. She was as “sharp as a tack” / witty. I was sorry to see that she left and never returned.
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Avery Brooks is a fine actor and didn’t get the recognition he deserved for his work in this.
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@ Kiwi
I would say say so. I randomly sampled dialogue evenly throughout the film. Only 15% was between Black characters and nearly all of that was about White people in some form. The main exceptions were at the very beginning and end of the film when Northup is with his family.
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@ Solesearch
I agree that she was sympathetic at first, so I was surprised at how McQueen “disposed” of her. I think it is “director’s intent” and not me because I read the book where she presented in a much more sympathetic way. Not showing anything about her death is a decision that McQueen made, not me.
McQueen handled Uncle Abram in the same way but the other way round:. there we do see his death – but up to that point we know nothing about him! He is “just some slave” who dropped dead, not a real person. That is NOT how he was portrayed in the book. AGAIN, a decision that McQueen made.
Unlike in “Roots”, the slaves in this film have almost no life of their own. They are all puppets on a string. So much so that McQueen’s Solomon Northup never even tries to run away!!!
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I recently watched this film and my emotions ranged from sadness (the poor mother wailing over her lost children and Patsey being raped and whipped) to anger (poor Solomon hanging for hours by the edge of his feet and slaves being whipped if they didn’t meet the cotton quota) to joy (when Solomon lashed out at the overseer and he was reunited finally with his family for the first time in years). Truly, it broke my heart knowing slaves suffered terribly. I wanted to punch someone.
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Abagond – don’t let me see you write another review unless you’ve read what Armond Wite as to say.
http://www.nyfcc.com/2013/10/3450/
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Damn. My ‘h’ is screwed up.
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I’ve read the book now, and honestly you’re right. It was MUCH better than the film. It made more sense why he rode away, because he didn’t know Patsey at all – not excusing the leaving her behind but it’s more understandable. And the running away, that was absolutely amazing! Outrunning the dogs, why the raas did McQueen leave that out?!?
@ Da Joker, befitting username.
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