12 Years a Slave

We saw this tonight, and I have to admit that I am ambivalent. All the hype has it as greatest movie ever, certain Oscar winner, etc. It was excellently acted and the cinematography is vividly realistic and beautiful in its stark and violent way. The direction is firm, economical and to the point.

The story was adapted from the true story of a free black family man who was scammed and abducted by con-men who sold him into slavery in what was the worst of places to be a slave, a cane plantation in Louisiana. Somehow he survives 12 years of abuse before a Canadian guy manages to intervene someway that gets him freed. In short everything about the movie was right as far as it went.

What bothered me, however, was that the story is somewhat too much like a history lesson, a checklist of horrors intended to convince me that slavery is bad (not that I would deny that). As many bad things as can be squeezed into two and a half hours happens...one after the other. Being a history geek when I am not going to the movies, the story was quite familiar to me. A fair number of audience members seemed shocked enough that they had to leave the room during some of the more graphic sequences (it does NOT minimize the horrors). The shortcoming, however, is that the movie doesn't really go much past the awful things that happened to this unfortunate guy and his fellow slaves. I would have appreciated more consideration given to what it was about him that allowed him to survive his 12 years in hell and what it was about the slaves who were NOT rescued that allowed THEM to survive. The cavalcade of horrors is only half of the story.

Man...that's scary....

I guess it beats Django unchained by a long mile in graphic shots of slaves being treated brutally .

Django is just a revenge movie that never really happened, kinda like Inglorious Bastards where they get to kill Hitler. 12 years is much closer to being real especially since it is based on a real story and the plantation goes on after Solomon Northup is released.

Pretty sure that's not what happened in The Inglorious Bastards.

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In the movie they do. I'll give this new film a look, but so far I think McQueen is a crummy writer/director.

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Do they? I haven't actually seen The Inglorious Bastards.

The comment and wink was in reference to the fact that the OP used the wrong movie title. (Tarantino's movie with dead Hitler is Inglourious Basterds, which I have seen, while The Inglorious Bastards was directed by Enzo G. Catellari and released in 1978)

OK. Damn Tarentenno.

I saw 12 Years a Slave a few days ago. I thought it was really good. I would have preferred more of an actual storyline rather than random events (which is what I thought the movie felt like), but I still really liked the film overall.

It's strange, I know this is one of those "must see" films, but I don't really want to. I know parts of history were horrifying, and I don't really want to spend 10-12 dollars and two hours of my time on a movie that will not be enjoyable. It seems like taking medicine rather than a nice night out at the cinema to me. I know that sounds awful, but it's just how I feel.

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That's how felt going in. My wife wanted to see it and I figured that we would go sooner or later and since there wasn't much else that interested me enough to do a counter-proposal, I decided to get it over with. I know enough about history, don't need to see that part of history for entertainment.

I'm dying to see Chewy in a suit at the Oscars - I already know he can rock a dress and heels

I read the book and the movie is almost totally inaccurate.This book was mandatory reading for all students who attended university in a former communist country.

I can see your beef with it just being a bunch of random events during his 12 years. But what really sucked me in was watching his soul get sucked out of him gradually. At first when he gets abducted wants to offer his talents and tell people his name. He was still a proud man. As the film wears on you can just see the life being sucked out of him as he keeps his head down and just tries too survive. Alot of parallels from people stuck in crappy jobs just trying to survive in today's age. (of course not to the extent of slavery that's just in a whole other ballpark of oppression) That was the most heart wrenching part of the movie watching the man become half of what he was.

But my favorite scene is when Fassenbender's character is quoting the bible on slavery. Quoting the passage which states if they don't obey their Lord (a.k.a him) they will be whipped. (I'd have to go back and watch it to get the right passage) Then he finishes with "that's scripture". haha sorry for the religious out there, I just did a flip of joy inside when I saw that scene because I despise the bible.

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12 Years A Slave is a fantastic movie and a lot of people will compare this to Django Unchained just cause it released a year earlier. With that being said, this movie shed light on what I could not stand about Django Unchained and that is that it made a light hearted situation of something that was an absolutely terrible era in history. It was a good movie for what it was but 12 Years A Slave made a lot of black slavery movies look like kid's movies in comparison. It's powerful, it's intense but overall, it's the movie that needs to be seen to get true perspective on or at least as close as we have possibly gotten to a slavery movie that refused to hold back in the sense of brutality and events slaves would have to endure on a daily basis

It's pretty hard to boil 12 years down into 3 hours, and for that I think McQueen did an excellent job. This was a powerful movie and certain to win some major awards.

For Mark F: Have you seen Hunger? I can appreciate not liking a certain director/writer, but I appreciate the work McQueen has done.

Okay, just seen this. I thought it was good, but I really don't get what is so 'great' about it, I think it's because it has strong production values, everything looks realistic and some of the scenes are quite graphic, although not as graphic as I was expecting.

I agree with most of what Mark posted in the Movie Tab. This movie is supposed to represent 12 years of this man's life and it feels nothing like it? There's nothing really to indicate such a long period of time has taken place but for the title and end scene. Without that I would have guessed it would have been a year perhaps.

Once he leaves Benedict Cumberbatch's plantation it kind of goes down hill for me, I thought it was very strong before then. Michael Fassbender's character seems like he is purely created (I know... it's based on a book) and used to showcase how poorly slaves were treated, it gets repetitive after a while when its just abuse after abuse by the same character. Lupita Nyng'o is the character used to be on the receiving end of Fassbender's character's horrible treatment, and she does it very convincingly, I was impressed with her performance and would say that she displays suffering much great than Ejiofor who I didn't care about as much once he reached Fassbender's plantation.

The ending was good, but could have been better had we actually felt him suffering for 12 years better. I felt some of the earlier scenes were the best (not most enjoyable, but well done/effective) - his initial capturing, on the boat with Michael K. Williams, the guy getting freed after the boat journey, the fight between Ejiofor and Dano, and a lot of the scenes with Cumberbatch.

Little edit: Maybe I'm being too harsh, I dunno, it just wasn't as powerful as I think it could have been despite what everyone's saying, maybe if I saw it in better conditions I would enjoy it more, will have to watch it again in the future.

Probably give it

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Hmmm interesting take Daniel. I do agree that maybe the movie didn't quite show the passage of time efficiently, but I personally found the film extremely powerful nonetheless. I thought the acting was superb, the cinematography crisp, and I loved that the movie didn't lean towards sentimentality.I praise McQueen for not holding back when showing the horrors of slavery.

It's a good point and I would say I agree, but it also doesn't take away from the film's power. It's powerful in a way that really sneaked up on me. The horrors that it depicts and the manner in which they are depicted had a sort of numbing effect, and it was only the brilliant, truthful and deeply felt outpouring of emotion of the final scene that made me realise how affecting the previous 2 hours had actually been.

Showing the horrors of slavery is easy. What isn't easy is to show slavery in a light that doesn't make villains and heroes. The slaves are under the oppression of evil white people but are saved/helped by the good white people who listen to them kind of bit that summarizes most Hollywood films about slavery. That's not what institutionalized racism is. It lacks psychological depth and any level headed approach to the material.

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