Thoughts on "12 Years As A Slave" The movie (or the book if you read it)?

[CreekDog]

12 Years a Slave

by Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender. Directed by Steve McQueen. (R. 134 minutes.)

"12 Years a Slave" has some of the awkwardness and inauthenticity of a foreign-made film about the United States. The dialogue of the Washington, D.C., slave traders sounds as if it were written for "Lord of the Rings." White plantation workers speak in standard redneck cliches. And yet the ways in which this film is true are much more important than the ways it's false.

Indeed, it's embarrassing for America that a British director, Steve McQueen ("Shame&quot , should have had to make this film at all, and that in 2013 it should constitute a breakthrough in cinema for American slavery to be depicted as something entirely evil. Hollywood movies may have come a long way since the days of Uncle Remus and of Mammy in "Gone With the Wind," but the tacit gentlemen's agreement not to press the issue - not to go too far in rubbing the South's face in it - has kept Hollywood reticent up to the present, much more reticent, say, than Germany has been about its Nazi past.

"12 Years a Slave" is anything but reticent. It is brutal, at times too brutal, and though the title of the movie lets you know the horror ultimately ends for one man, the viewer cannot for a minute think of that as a happy ending. We are simply too aware - we are made aware, and in ways that we can never forget - of the suffering that never ended, of the abuses never redressed, and of the anonymous lives that were rendered hopeless for generation upon generation.

full review at: http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/12-Years-a-Slave-review-view-of-a-horror-4943304.php

I thought it was excellent though painful to watch. But necessary too.

[villager]

1. Exactly. Painful, necessary, and, I think, the one to beat for "Best Picture."

Occasionally, even the Academy gets it right.

[Little Star]

2. Haven't seen it yet but hope to catch it in a theater....

soon if I can find the time before Christmas. If not, I'll have to wait for Netflix but see it one way or the other I will.

I spent the month of November snow birding in SC and did manage to see The Butler, also excellent though painful to watch. I walked out of the theater hating that I am white. Hating how sick, mean and superior acting many of we whites were and still are. I could not shake the sadness and disgust for days. Couldn't get it out of my mind. Yet I think we white people should all have to watch movies/read books like these.

And Django unchained is another must see, imho. Sometimes I really loath being white. Can't help it, it's just how I feel.

[upaloopa]

18. I never understand self loathing.

I was born white. I had nothing to do about it.
I was never a slave owner and would probably be an abolitionist if I lived back then as many white folks were.
The Underground Railroad was helped by whites.
On edit
Hundreds of thousands of white people died to end slavery in the Civil War.

[Little Star]

23. To each their own I suppose. But for me, generally speaking, I feel shame for my race....

and how we as a group treat other races.

I am not thinking of individual whites but of our whole race as a group. Of course there are some very caring and good individual white people. Considered as a whole, we generally suck when it comes to treating other races in a good way. As a group we sort of think our shit doesn't stink.

[Logical]

20. Django unchained was not close to this movie. Django unchained was gross and sick. n-t

[grasswire]

28. agreed

Django was very exploitative and contrived.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Of course if this wins best picture

It will anger the right.

[mstinamotorcity2]

4. Anytime America must see her past

and her mistakes is cool with me. America should be tried with crimes against humanity. And should have to pay a penalty. Native Americans should be first in line for justice.

[brush]

24. And right behind them African Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans

Most of us here know of the brutality and crimes against native Americans and African Americans but Ken Burns did great work in his films on building of the west and how whole state-size swaths of land were taken from Mexico and the subsequent mistreatment of the latino population of these lands. He also documented the horrible exploitation and brutality towards Asians — especially railroad workers and miners.

[grasswire]

29. The Irish and the Welsh didn't fare too well either when they came here. nt

[mstinamotorcity2]

31. You are right.

But I had Southern Grand parents on both sides. My mom's dad was Caucasian and Cherokee. My father's peeps from Sugar Ditch. We were told stories since we were Shorties. Funny how we would have to go to the Library and search for these facts. A lot of it was omitted from History books. And it is still that way today. the ugly side won't get taught to our children. If it is written about it will only be a couple chapters. This fools our children into thinking the times of struggle were only days instead of years. Most young people think the Bus Boycott in Alabama was only a few weeks instead of three years. I am glad that there are true Historians who put the truth out. But it usually comes from the ethnic culture that was offended. And don't forget that after slavery black folk moved out west and were driven from their towns just like Rosewood.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Great movie.

It depicts not just how monstrous slavery was, but the great lengths the whites went to to preserve it, even when it was more effort to keep the slave system then it was to just hire workers.

It was really fucking sociopathic, with black people suffering at the hands of people who were basically abusers and serial killers given total power to do anything they wanted.

Somehow the addition of the so-called "nice" slave owners just made it more pointed just how fucking awful the whole system was. Everyone white who owned slaves or abetted slavery was complicit in one way or another.

[ieoeja]

8. It really wasn't "more effort to keep the slave system then it was to just hire workers."

Some abolitionists opened businesses in the South to diversify the region in hopes that would break the back of slavery. Repeatedly after employees made enough money to buy a slave, they would show up with a slave to do their work for them. The business owners would point out to their employees that if they were willing to use slave labor, they would buy the slave themselves instead of wasting money on a middle man.

This made no sense to the employees because the South was descended from the Norman and Celtic military cultures. In a military culture no man worked for another unless he were too weak and forced to it. Anglo-Saxon, Yankee pride in being a good worker struck these southerner as sheer lunacy. A man who actually showed pride in working for another seemed to them like the dog who licks his master's hand after being beaten.

Hiring workers in the old South was a tremendous challenge. It was essentially a deviant act in the culture of the time.

[Starry Messenger]

10. I don't know if you saw the film, but there are two characters who are white hired labor.

They were hired by the white slave owners to do tasks on the plantation. There was access to wage laborers in the context of the film.

[brush]

26. Just say they were lazy, corrupt bastards who wanted someone else to do . . .

their work for them. Nothing else needs saying.

[Alameda]

6. I read the book some years ago

and found it was a powerful commentary on the institution of slavery. If I could, I'd make it mandatory reading in order to graduate from school. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html
I haven't seen the movie, I already have the images in my mind. When ever seeing a movie made out of a book I've read, it was a big dissappointment.

I am curious how, and if, they dealt with the matter of Eliza and her children, Patsy and her whipping

[LordGlenconner]

7. Two of the most gut wrenching scenes in the movie

The whipping of Patsy is extremely brutal, but I found the moment she was separated from her children to be very hard to watch as well.

[Alameda]

12. in the book...spoiler alert..

first the boy is taken away....then the little girl. They took her to use in a bordello, as she was pubescent and "almost white" they thought they could make a lot of money selling her "services". Did they have that? Eliza was the Master's mistress, who was sold by his wife when he went out of town. Did they have that?

[LordGlenconner]

13. THey don't get that far into it

They are separated and that's the last you see of the kids (if my memory is correct).

[gollygee]

19. They say

something about her skin tone making her attractive to men and that making her worth a great deal of money. So it's alluded to but not so specific.

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. I think that slavery is bad.

The movie confirmed by belief.

[RainDog]

11. I saw it with my sons this weekend

and we had some great discussions after it, talking about how people participate in a system, even when it's wrong, because they lack the power to change it.

...and about the ways this similar sorts of thing go on now within our system because those in power refuse to address problems for political reasons... in regard living wages and social justice, etc.

and about the ways that all Americans who were not enslaved participated in removing Native Americans from their lands long before the time of this story, and it was in certain white people's interest to disallow slavery in the states opening in the west because those white people would have to compete with other white people using slave labor... so even when the issue was finally addressed, it was just as much about the privilege of some whites vs. others as it was about the inhumane nature of the system itself.

the cinematography is stunning. that long shot of Solomon will stay with people for a long, long time, as it should.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. A question that has nothing to do with slavery:

How does Ejiofor do with the accent? He's a Brit, and in Firefly, he spoke with a very posh accent. I have no idea what his actual accent is, though.

[JCMach1]

15. I studied the genre of American Slave narratives... you cannot escape the context

that most were written, or published as propaganda pieces for the abolition movement...

a film of it is alas another narrative...

It is just another snapshot of slavery... which was (for the most part) far less dramatic, but far more damaging to humanity than these depictions allow for...

[grasswire]

30. in what context did you study this?

College?

[JCMach1]

32. English Ph.D. level course on early American Biography and Autobiography

with this guy... http://english.okstate.edu/faculty/fac_pages/decker.htm

[uppityperson]

17. Maybe the library has a dvd you can borrow and fast forward thru the graphic scenes

[gollygee]

21. There's some of both

They do show the violence, but they also get into the characters.

[CreekDog]

22. It was brutal to watch, but I just felt it was important to see and learn the story

as painful as it was to watch, throughout when I'd notice my discomfort I'd remember that what I was experiencing was nothing like what had actually happened to these people and this person.

it's important to know and feel a story so brutal --to make sure that it makes you squirm at our history and make sure it never happens again.

[Bjorn Against]

25. The violence is disturbing but not much blood is shown

It was not nearly as graphic as I expected after hearing some of the reviews but there was very disturbing violence in a few scenes. Rather than showing lots of blood and gore the director often focuses the camera away from the blood and instead focuses on the emotional response, instead of showing you every crack of the whip he makes you feel it. The movie actually shows far less violence than a lot of PG-13 movies do, the difference is that rather than portraying the violence as a casual occurance with no emotional effects as those PG-13 movies do, this movie instead shows just what a horrible effect the violence has on people.

The violence in the movie is meant to disturb rather than thrill and that is why it feels like an extremely violent movie to some people even though it actually shows less violence on screen than a lot of movies do.

[Alameda]

27. In the book, I found the description of

the slave quarters and food allotments abhorrent in the extreme. it is a miracle they were able to do the work they did.

[CreekDog]

34. I think a realistic depiction of how brutal slavery really was has been missing from our culture

It's such a large part of our history and such a horrific one, that it needs to be included.

Thank goodness for this book and the movie that came from it.

[Chief D]

33. Very Moving

I watched it in a movie house in Denver, CO. At first, I was hesitant in seeing the movie in public because I get very emotional when I see a depiction of how humans mis-treat each other. In the end, I was glad that I saw it at the venue that I chose. The response within the audience was palpable. Men and women of all persuasions were in tears when the movie ended. I saw it not only as a movie that shows the ills of the human species, I saw the perseverance of one group of people to survive in the face of brutal terror and adversity. I know there was good in some whites during the slavery era but just as today, The Bystander Effect, caused many of them to stand on the sideline, waiting for others to step out of the ranks and say, ENOUGH! True empathy is more than just walking in someone else's shoes. True empathy is, seeing with someone else's eyes, hearing with someone else's ears, and feeling with someone else's heart. There are truly empathetic people of all races around us, then and now. They just have to step out of the ranks and say, ENOUGH!

[ismnotwasm]

35. I haven't seen the movie or read the book.

I plan on buying the book today.

The book that changed my life forever and forced me to look objectively at racism and government was "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" I was in the 7th grade I think. It was painful to read, but the lessons stayed with me my entire life. Although I'm much older now, and know a thing or two, I expect this book to affect me profoundly. I'm a little scared of the pain-- but it is, as you say, necessary.