Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, and Brad Pitt
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Screenplay by: John Ridley, based on Solomon Northup's autobiography 12 Years a Slave
And here we have another film about a dark period in United States history.
Solomon Northup is a free man, born and raised as such. He lives in New York with his family in the 1840s and is a successful violinist. One day, two men from a carnival company notice his talents and want to hire him. They deceive him and kidnap him, and in turn, sell him into slavery in the South, where he is given an entirely new identity. From this point forward, he is known to the slave owners as Platt.
He is first sold to a plantation owner, Mr. Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). Ford is not a tremendously nice slave owner, but certainly more benevolent than the plantation owner to whom Ford sells Platt (Solomon Northup) to, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).
He spends the majority of the film at Epps's plantation, where he witnesses and is exposed to extreme amounts of brutality. Epps is not a kind man and beats many of his slaves to bloody pulps. These particular scenes are quite difficult to watch.
This is the story of Northup's will to survive and return to his family and to freedom. It is truly an amazing story of this man's survival, and one in which is played out incredibly well on the big screen. It is captivating from the beginning and the audience cannot help but feel sympathetic toward Northup for experiencing such brutality.
There are two acting performances that stand out from this film. Michael Fassbender is excellent as Edwin Epps. He delivers one of the strongest performances of his career, especially in the scenes in which he shows absolutely no mercy to his slaves when punishing them. Watch for his name in the nominations for Best Supporting Actor awards this coming award season.
But the best performance of the show is that of Chiwetel Ejiofor. He delivers perhaps the strongest acting performance of the year, and certainly the best one in this film. It is difficult if not impossible for the average American to imagine or even understand what slaves went through, but Ejiofor delivers a performance that gives us a pretty good idea of what it must have been like to be a slave. Watch for his name in the nominations for Best Actor. I certainly hope he will be nominated for his outstanding performance.
There is a lot of violence and bloodshed in this film. For much of the film, there is no mercy given to the slaves and this makes it very difficult to watch. At times, one could be left wondering how people could be this brutal and inhumane towards other people. I was certainly left wondering that after leaving the theater. While there isn't a whole lot of violence in the traditional sense of Hollywood violence, there is a lot of violence in the sense that it's torture. These people are tortured and it is not easy to watch. Nothing is held back, giving the audience a good idea of what it must have been like to go through such brutality.
The age in which slavery was legal in the United States is a time in which many Americans are not proud of being part of their history. For many, it begs the question, is America really the land of the free? This is not a time in our nation's history to be celebrated, and sometimes, films that are made about this time period usually involve the abolition of slavery altogether, and thus celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. Steve McQueen clearly shows us a different side of this time period. He shows us exactly what it was, a time when people in our country were treated as less than human and shows us why slavery is a crime against humanity.
12 Years a Slave is the most powerful film I've seen all year and certainly the best film I've seen all year (I know, I've seen a lot of really good movies lately, many of which I've rated quite highly). It is one of the most important films of the year and tells such an important story. What saddens me the most is something I read in the closing credits. It is not known when, where, or the circumstances of Solomon Northup's death, and what saddens me most about that is that nobody knows if he saw the abolition of slavery.
I cannot recommend this movie enough! If there is one must-see film that is under no circumstance to be missed, 12 Years a Slave would be that film.
I give 12 Years a Slave an A+.
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Screenplay by: John Ridley, based on Solomon Northup's autobiography 12 Years a Slave
And here we have another film about a dark period in United States history.
Solomon Northup is a free man, born and raised as such. He lives in New York with his family in the 1840s and is a successful violinist. One day, two men from a carnival company notice his talents and want to hire him. They deceive him and kidnap him, and in turn, sell him into slavery in the South, where he is given an entirely new identity. From this point forward, he is known to the slave owners as Platt.
He is first sold to a plantation owner, Mr. Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). Ford is not a tremendously nice slave owner, but certainly more benevolent than the plantation owner to whom Ford sells Platt (Solomon Northup) to, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).
He spends the majority of the film at Epps's plantation, where he witnesses and is exposed to extreme amounts of brutality. Epps is not a kind man and beats many of his slaves to bloody pulps. These particular scenes are quite difficult to watch.
This is the story of Northup's will to survive and return to his family and to freedom. It is truly an amazing story of this man's survival, and one in which is played out incredibly well on the big screen. It is captivating from the beginning and the audience cannot help but feel sympathetic toward Northup for experiencing such brutality.
There are two acting performances that stand out from this film. Michael Fassbender is excellent as Edwin Epps. He delivers one of the strongest performances of his career, especially in the scenes in which he shows absolutely no mercy to his slaves when punishing them. Watch for his name in the nominations for Best Supporting Actor awards this coming award season.
But the best performance of the show is that of Chiwetel Ejiofor. He delivers perhaps the strongest acting performance of the year, and certainly the best one in this film. It is difficult if not impossible for the average American to imagine or even understand what slaves went through, but Ejiofor delivers a performance that gives us a pretty good idea of what it must have been like to be a slave. Watch for his name in the nominations for Best Actor. I certainly hope he will be nominated for his outstanding performance.
There is a lot of violence and bloodshed in this film. For much of the film, there is no mercy given to the slaves and this makes it very difficult to watch. At times, one could be left wondering how people could be this brutal and inhumane towards other people. I was certainly left wondering that after leaving the theater. While there isn't a whole lot of violence in the traditional sense of Hollywood violence, there is a lot of violence in the sense that it's torture. These people are tortured and it is not easy to watch. Nothing is held back, giving the audience a good idea of what it must have been like to go through such brutality.
The age in which slavery was legal in the United States is a time in which many Americans are not proud of being part of their history. For many, it begs the question, is America really the land of the free? This is not a time in our nation's history to be celebrated, and sometimes, films that are made about this time period usually involve the abolition of slavery altogether, and thus celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. Steve McQueen clearly shows us a different side of this time period. He shows us exactly what it was, a time when people in our country were treated as less than human and shows us why slavery is a crime against humanity.
12 Years a Slave is the most powerful film I've seen all year and certainly the best film I've seen all year (I know, I've seen a lot of really good movies lately, many of which I've rated quite highly). It is one of the most important films of the year and tells such an important story. What saddens me the most is something I read in the closing credits. It is not known when, where, or the circumstances of Solomon Northup's death, and what saddens me most about that is that nobody knows if he saw the abolition of slavery.
I cannot recommend this movie enough! If there is one must-see film that is under no circumstance to be missed, 12 Years a Slave would be that film.
I give 12 Years a Slave an A+.
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