Episode 20: 12 Years A Slave
Justin:
Over the course of this episode, I truly hope we’ve made it clear just how powerful and moving Steve McQueen’s 12 YEARS A SLAVE is. The performances will leave you breathless, the images will haunt you well after the credits roll, and the triumphant return of Solomon to the embrace of his family will undoubtedly move you to tears.
But I’m going to suggest that the moment where our hero Solomon is discovered for who he really is and gets to escape from the grasp of his evil slave master (that’s redundant, I know) is actually the most heartbreaking moment of the entire movie. There are more dramatic and obvious instances of pain and suffering in the movie, be it Solomon having to whip Patsey, a mother and her children being torn apart like they were accessories at a shopping mall, or casual lynchings happening seemingly wherever a tree and a rope can be found. But the moment that Solomon runs toward the buggy of freedom, halts for a second at the sound of “Platt” coming from Patsey, and gives her a farewell embrace before hightailing it off the plantation, is the one that has stuck with me the most.
For Solomon, the story is going to shift. He gets his freedom back. He’ll be reunited with his wife and children once more. But for allllll the other slaves that he came in contact with, namely Patsey, this moment signals to them just how hopeless their situation truly is. All I could think about was how angry Epps would no doubt be upon losing his slave whom he called Platt and how that anger would no doubt be taken out on those who were just working side by side with him. And anything Epps would have done would have been “justified,” of course. Because as he says multiple times, he can do whatever he wants to with his property.
Property. Just like people staking their claim to a parcel of land. Only in this case… humans. And in this case… involuntary servitude. And in this case… all because of the color of their skin.
It is not a bold statement to declare slavery one of man’s most wretched deeds and to suggest that those who took part in enslaving an entire race of humans are the lowest of the low. It’s easy to say that and to also suggest that if you had been around in that time period, you’d have been an abolitionist and standing up for the freedom of the black slaves in chains across the South. But if in the same breath you’re cursing the Black Lives Matter movement, rationalizing the killing of innocent young men and women at the hands of police officers, suggesting to some high profile figures protesting racial injustice that their kneeling is unpatriotic or they should just “shut up and dribble,” or really at any point and time giving credence to the idea that white privilege does not exist or that the black man and woman haven’t had a HELL of a time in this country’s history, well… maybe you shouldn’t be so bold with proclaiming where you’d have stood 160 years ago… or 60 years ago… or even last May, when George Floyd was murdered by a police officer’s knee on his neck.
12 YEARS A SLAVE is essential viewing and will always be so, if only to remind white people about the horrendousness in our history and the wrongs that we better always be trying to right. When you think about it in its totality, Solomon Northup’s story has its beauty and its happiness but it is marred by so much that is enraging and ugly and devastating… which actually sounds a lot like America’s story, to be honest.
Pete:
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been struggling with how my genuine love for the way McQueen tells his story and frames his movie with a brutal, unflinching portrayal of the ugliest period in American history. Basically, what does it say about me that I LOVE a movie about slavery for reasons that have little to do with slavery? I wondered why I didn’t have a similar reaction to something like Django Unchained, which is far more stylized and air quotes “cool” than 12 Years A Slave.
I’ve gone back and forth about this quite a bit this week. I remember seeing the movie when it was released, and finding it so good I saw it again a few days later. The second time wasn’t because I wanted to go through seeing the horrors of slavery again on the big screen. It was the filmmaking. I was nerding out over my latest obsession. Watching it again this week, I had that same feeling. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I really haven’t sorted out how, exactly I feel about it, but I do feel like I’m aware that these are the kinds of pieces of art that get me excited. It’s the kind of movie that gets me excited about movies. How the medium can bring these two things together and allow me to consider them side by side, yet still at odds with one another.
Many of the interactions with the film’s white characters, especially early on, have this thin, gross veneer of respectability. The movie frequently frames these scenes in such a way that’s beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. I’m thinking specifically of that master shot through the slave auction where PG breaks up Eliza from her children. It’s all shot in one take weaving through white folks window shopping for slaves, and then settles and goes right into shooting the dialogue scene where Eliza’s children are taken from her. It’s a beautiful bit of filmmaking used to show us a truly horrible, gut wrenching event. It allows the beauty to sit right next to the brutality, and for both to be considered.
McQueen refuses to allow the evil and hate at the heart of it all to overtake the picture. Solomon may, but he never gives in to the despair. The sheer beauty with which he makes his film never takes a backseat to the horrendous world it’s depicting. It’s the cinematic equivalent to a slave song, hopeful in its defiance.
