12 Years A Slave is a remarkably emotive epic/biopic (bi-epic) about Solomon Northupp,
highly tipped for Academy Awards in March and, less frivolously, an important testament
to a period of recent history that is rarely the subject of cinema. Solomon – a
real person who wrote about this series of unfortunate events in a book, and here
played by Englishman Chiwetel Ejiofor – is a free black man in a world of 19th
century American slavery. Whilst temporarily away from his New York family Solomon
gets captured and winds up being sold – falsely – as a slave by Paul Giamatti
to, first, Benedict Cumberbatch and then Michael Fassbender.
Director Steve McQueen is one of the most
talented filmmaking men around (his two previous pictures were Shame and
Hunger) whose artistic preferences bring various subjects to vitality,
conjuring art from the artifices of others. Alongside his regular
cinematographer partner Sean Bobbitt they usually make highly visual films that
are Impressionistically brushed. McQueen and Bobbitt tone down the photographic
flair for 12 Years and paint a more pragmatic rendering, an uptight more
realistic dalliance with conventionality though this remains an art film of high
integrity and dignity.
Crossing the hapless extent of humid
Southern, slavery characters we – the audience – retch at the sweaty perversion
of Edwin Epps (Fassbender), the meek collusion of William Ford (Cumberbatch),
and the pipsqueaky Tibeats (convincingly enunciated by Paul Dano), until we are
absolved by the long-coiffured Canadian saviour Brad Pitt. McQueen’s eclectic
assortment of characters lyrically cover any and every angle of personality
that survived in the early 19th century American slavery culture. And
we are subjected utterly to the story of Solomon; we are entirely invested in
his redemption, and then saturated emotionally when he is rescued from the
plough fields of despair. Yet there is a lingering gnat of doubt that we are
self-conscious of: Solomon was only one among millions saved; imagine the
plight of those other poor souls inexplicably left to rot in those barbaric
trades. McQueen leaves this despairing seed intentionally.
It’s an A-star cast list mixed with newer
and very talented blood, like Lupita Nyong’o. And they all bring a heft to
their respective roles, all ensuring their parts are sufficiently embedded
within the tapestry McQueen constructs. There are no scene-stealing characters
because the very concept of such a character is an individualised, decadent
affectation that can subvert the movie. All are subject to the higher cinematic
context, which is the plight of Solomon.
Of the slaves themselves we perceive the
difference between those who are free and have received an education – like Solomon
– and the slavish companions Solomon’s presence is graced with; those born and
raised in the psychologically hindering confines of institutional enslavement. Unlike
his closed companions Solomon has knowledge of the outside liberated world, but
this is no comfort to his psyche; it intensifies his misfortune and heightens the
appalling extent of his fall. His fellow slaves live their simple, cowed
existence in the profound shadow of inherent inferiority. We are reminded of
Frantz Fanon’s writing and of the Sartre play ‘The Respectful Prostitute’, in
which the accused ‘nigger’ refuses to shoot his white accusers on the basis
that “they’re white folks” and cannot even comprehend to subvert or destroy the
superiority that was so feverishly instilled in his race. White men are the
undisputed masters of this America. But McQueen doesn’t make these literary
allusions explicit: he has no intention of placing 12 Years within an
intellectual discourse that might isolate his audience from the central idea. His
raw, challenging work is intended to be approached by all, because the past suffering
of man ought to be universally applicable to all and understood by all.
If 12 Years is a piece that kind of
transcends the frivolous binary of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (no film should be judged
like that really – there are good and bad things in every film, etc… yes even The
Room) it should still be the subject of film criticism but there’s nothing
I can really think of to say, critically. McQueen’s rambunctious spirit is
pervasive, as will be flippantly attestable come the Baftas and Oscars.
