Thoughts on '12 Years...'

It was about a week ago since I watched ’12 Years a Slave’ for the first time (I’ve seen it twice), sometime during the day the scene when Solomon finally is rescued from Epps plantation, came to the forefront of my mind and I thought about Solomon looking back at Patsy, contrary to the reaction when the male slave is taken back by his slave owner and Solomon calls out to him but the man doesn’t even look back at Solomon. The male slave was just happy to be taken back with his slave owner. Solomon will never see Patsy again, he gets to leave behind those who still have to stay and suffer the pain and loss and rape and beatings and hangings on that plantation. I was deeply moved by this.  It’s said that whippings were heard from sun up to sun down on the Epps plantation. Solomon rides off in the carriage with mixed emotions I would think. Just that scene alone registers deeply in my conscious. I was always struck by that close up of Solomon. I wanted McQueen to keep that particular shot of Solomon a little bit longer on screen, but that’s okay, because the decisions made between him and his editor, Joe Walker, was incredible. The wide shot of Solomon hanging, it lingers on screen like a nightmarish painting. The beautiful trees over his head, and the mental state the slaves were in because as several saw Solomon hanging there none didn’t do anything about it because they would have been hung as well.

Where does one start to describe the total impact this film has on a viewer like myself? It’s not easy to make a good film and it’s almost impossible to make a great film. Since I’m a movie director as well, I know firsthand what it takes. However, with every film there’s going to be some that will love it and some that will not love it. For me this movie affected me in different ways. But what I admire about it, is that its fearless filmmaking in top form. I love when works of art is made with no fear; I get the sense that this movie was made that way by McQueen and his team.

I can write pages about the wonderful technical things about the movie that just blends so brilliantly throughout the movie. But with all of that, the faces is what lingers, the look in Patsy’s eyes as she looks up at Solomon as two black women tend to her deep bloody scars on her fragile back. The look she gives, with knowing the favor she asked from Solomon earlier in their encounter, it made me more aware of the psychology of the people back in those times. Just the exchange of looks between Patsy and Solomon says more than any words could say. The scene begins and ends with no words. It’s all told visually with performances that you can’t really make come to life on screen, you have to allow it too.

Mistress Shaw is a person I can’t recall seeing on the big screen before. A black woman owning slaves, a mistress to a slave owner, is only mentioned very briefly in Solomon’s autobiography, but Mcqueen suggested to the Oscar winning screenwriter, John Ridley, to expand Mistress Shaw’s presence in the story and rightly so. Nothing really seemed forced in the movie, McQueen wanted to serve this true story with respect.

Another thing that struck me was how McQueen and Sean Bobbitt decided to shoot the film. The story was shot like a nightmare, I felt as if I was literally watching a man live through a nightmare. It’s that kind of nightmare that just won’t end. And within this nightmare you find yourself watching people that aren’t as bad as you thought they would be. The camera directs the viewers eyes so plainly but complex at the same time, that it seems seamless and uninterrupted by nonsense. It seemed like  every shot was thought out carefully but not to the point where it felt artificial, far from that, but it felt like a masterstroke every time there was a cut, it went directly to something that needed to be seen in order to tell the story honestly.  

So too capture this nightmare, because slavery is a nightmare, there’s no other way to describe it, and this movie shows it that way without any shame, the timing, the pacing, is impeccable. The lighting without a doubt brings the atmosphere, that was charged with tension, to new heights.  

In addition to that, within this nightmare I find myself astonished by the beauty of this place. Louisiana. Because evil doesn’t see beauty, it can happen anywhere. The Louisiana soil seems to be soaked with tears and blood from those that suffered on those grounds. But like Solomon, they fought to live, not just survived but live with dignity, and learned not to deny their self worth and love for their family. In this case Solomon has a wife, a son and a daughter. A lovely family, a nice house to live in, food, nice clothes, things going well for this well respected violinist, but all of this is stripped away from him in a short matter of time. This transition from Solomon at the table drinking unknowingly with is abductors, to him waking up in the dark, chained, is a devastating look into what it possibly felt like to be living one way and then suddenly finding oneself in a dark hole with a city not too far away. But Solomon’s deep heartfelt cry isn’t heard. And I just thought of it now, pertaining to this scene, when Solomon screams for help from the barred bottom floor room, and the camera goes up and up and reveals what lies above and in the distance is a city full of people going about their business and not seeing or hearing the atrocities going on not too far from them, can’t help but think isn’t that what’s going on now? There are many horrific things people are doing to each other but it’s being ignored.

The mind games that the slave owners used against the slaves was written so well in this movie; and how Solomon goes on living above such ignorance and fear on behalf of his owners. Solomon denying his effort to writing letters to his family to Epps is a wonderful scene and this shows that lighting can be simple. The light from the lantern is the scenes main source of light and the way that serpent kind of man, Epps, tries to get Solomon to confess, is very interesting to see how Solomon is going to get himself out of this situation. And the following scene, him burning the letter, as if this was his only hope, but instead it burns up in the night is what makes the following scene so prominent and affective because we’re devastated with Solomon as well. Just watching Chiwetel in this movie is a revelation to how affective a performance can be, even though I forget it’s a performance, it’s to me a man with such weight of light inside him and it’s trying to be crushed by life’s circumstances, but he will not give up or allow these men and women (Epps wife especially) to make him fall into despair. 

Another thing the movie shows that is rare in a movie like this and how a slave must of felt after returning back home to their family and the possible guilt one must of felt for being away from the family for so long. For Solomon it was twelve years not seeing his children grow older, sharing tender moments with his wife, eating at the table with them, going shopping with them and seeing his first grandchild being born; to not be able to do these things, Solomon felt like he needed to apologize, possibly something many may have felt who were held captive. So when Solomon is told there’s nothing to forgive, it’s a form of releasing every person who has gone through that pain, that they no longer should feel like they owe anybody anything because it wasn’t and still isn’t any of their faults. If a viewer tries to hold themselves together while witnessing that last scene they’re doing themselves a disservice, because when you just let go and allow this movie to get deep inside you you’ll find that it’s okay to reflect and see what things were like, what our ancestors faced (and the greater devastation of this is that this isn’t half of what they went through), to allow us to live and talk about it now.