Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor

One of ILX's most hated film directors looks due for some awards!

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-telluride-toronto-2013-steve-mcqueens-12-years-a-slave

I like both of his previous films and plan on catching this at TIFF. So there?

I loved the first, detested the second, am hopeful about this.

It certainly seems much more in line w/ Hunger, and Ejiofor is pretty much always great.

the second wasn't even just bad but seemed to offputtingly frame even his ideas about, or template for, making a film - like it was broodingly & awfully scored, straining to be epic, tritely palindromic, crudely montaged &c&c&c&c&c&c&c

so i guess curious about this but not super psyched to catch it

standing ovations, tears, walk outs.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/07/12-years-a-slave-toronto-premiere

i never even watched shame as the kicking it got here made me lol so much. hunger was pretty great tho.

Is McQueen still doing a Fela biopic?

Shame was just really boring. Hunger OTOH I really really liked.

dug hunger, lookin forward to this

somehow people walking out saying "this will win the Oscar" doesn't fill me with confidence.

This was by some distance my least favorite of his.

On the one hand:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9662243/is-12-years-slave-really-best-picture-lock

On the other:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/toronto-film-festival-announcing-2013-award-winners

didn't hate them, but found his previous films glib tbh (esp. hunger)

trailer makes this one look like a best picture nomination rather than a good film

(^ a great contribution to the thread, i know)

It'll be the only thing people say about it now until it actually bows.

i'll see any serious film (or not to serious, i guess) on this topic. just to see how they handled it, if nothing more.

also who cares about trailers?

You know you want it: http://cityarts.info/2013/10/16/cant-trust-it/

man that site has really gone downhill lol

mcqueen on charlie rose said he wants the book to become as well-known, read in schools etc as the diary of anne frank

Gordon Parks made an earlier adap for PBS starring Avery Brooks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Northup's_Odyssey

(also as I do plan to see 12YaS this weekend, I'm not reading plot-recounting reviews per usual)

Armond doesn't recount the plot, mostly complains about the Exorcist.

this is like the only movie left this year that im pumped about

Gordon Parks made an earlier adap for PBS starring Avery Brooks.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 16, 2013 3:01 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

damn. and joe seneca! and john saxon, lol. wonder if i can track that down

had a hard time reading that whole Armond review cuz of the formatting but it seems like basically his argument is that he doesn't like the movie because it's depressing...

judging from my skimming, he's not alone

My twitter feed is convinced he doesn't like it because white people, who are racists, love it.

http://davidsimon.com/slavery-a-film-narrative-and-the-myth-of-original-intent/

[McQueen is] brilliant at suggesting how long a minute can last, though wobbly at depicting the passage of years, which matters here.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9868597/12-years-slave-best-actor-race

otm quote

this is like if Gravity was about slavery

Not the right thread, but his questions about Redford's range is an actor are otm.

I've never known M.H. to NOT write something totally otm.

quoted the company's copresident Nancy Utley as saying, "We always wanted people to know that it's '12 Years a Slave,' not '1 Million Years a Slave'"

omg

Not 165 Minutes a Slave

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9870721/the-cultural-crater-12-years-slave

My review of the thing.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/12-years-a-slave-black-oscar-bait-essay.html

My reaction to 12 Years a Slave is borne, largely, by exhaustion. I am worn out by slavery and struggle narratives. I am worn out by broken black bodies and the broken black spirit somehow persevering in the face of overwhelming and impossible circumstance. There seems to be so little room at the Hollywood table for black movies that to earn a seat, black movies have to fit a very specific narrative. Thoughtful romantic comedies like Love & Basketball and the original Best Man, which has a sequel later this month, fail even to be included in most conversations about movies. Sure, they're not Oscar contenders, but they certainly capture the black experience and yet, somehow, they're viewed as being less worthy of talking about than similar fare like Enough Said, which has earned many plaudits.

not endorsing this podcast, but it mentions you're write-up there, Alfred: http://www.soundonsight.org/12-years-a-slave-and-all-is-lost-sound-on-sight-podcast-368/

In which Richard Cohen learns some things.

it mentions you're write-up there, Alfred

It mentions me? Thanks!

Your*

how embarrassing...

My wife, not much of a movie-goer, out of nowhere asked if we could see this Friday night, and I pretty much said no. The last time she did this was when the hype around the hamfisted theater of the horrific "Precious" was high, and I said no to that one, too. Now, the pedigree of this movie is much stronger, but it still seems like the last thing I want to see. Am I wrong to just say no? I told her she was welcome to see it herself, but it does not seem like the sort of movie I'd want to sit through with her. I'm not sure I'd get anything out of it beyond feeling miserable, which I pretty much do, anyway, whenever I think of slavery. I'd rather read the book, as the tragic roots of America seem like something that would be better sussed out internally, personally, not collectively, surrounded by hundreds of people sitting in a theatre.

You should see it. It's certainly not Precious.

Odie and Steve take it on: http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2013/11/black-man-talk-12-years-slave.html

[McQueen is] brilliant at suggesting how long a minute can last, though wobbly at depicting the passage of years, which matters here.

yeah this is exactly my thought. the film is hard-pressed to really suggest the years that have passed. i think this is a basic screenwriting problem that could have been solved pretty simply.

that said i think the film is pretty amazing. it's a lot better than it had to be, at the very least.

also, alfred, although i like your writing a lot, i have to say i disagreed with almost everything in your piece on this film. i also was kind of taken aback by what I perceived to be its condescending tone.

re. suspense: we can know the "ultimate" outcome of a narrative and still experience suspense, surprise, etc. surely this is why we can rewatch alfred hitchcock films countless times and experience the same emotions each time. philosophers know this as the "paradox of suspense." but i do agree that the film did not expend a lot of time or energy manipulating those emotions, at least not once solomon is sold to epps.

i also don't see melodrama as a bad object, and i'm not sure why you would. i also wish you would define your idea of "melodrama" since there are as many definitions of that term (most of them ahistorical) as their are critics. you seem to use the word in a wholly negative sense, which surprises me.

inevitably a film like this is designed to "manipulate," which is to say to give rise to, our emotions. that mcqueen would use the resources of melodrama to generate emotional effects seems to me neither surprising nor essentially objectionable. i think we can object--without denying the psychosexual ravages of the institution of slavery--to the way mcqueen perhaps excessively psychologizes the cruelty of slavery in the almost psychopathic figure of epps. he is perhaps too easily a villain, redolent of the (yes, melodramatic) conventions of the abolitionist ex-slave narrative, one of which is of course the source for the film. but compared to most hollywood "issue" pictures mcqueen's film is a model of intelligent restraint and complexity. i do think it provides a good, though hardly a complete sketch of slavery as an economic institution, which to my knowledge no other American film on the subject has done.

i really don't grasp your objection to the scene w/ alfre woodard. i do think that the scene felt a little truncated, but that doesn't seem to be what you're getting at. her character initially presents a pointed contrast to patsey. she imagines patsey could follow in her footsteps, manipulating the slaver's affections and desire to achieve a much better position; but she discounts, or doesn't recognize, how decrepit epps's moral sense is. of course, she recognizes her situation for what it is, and makes clear her bitterness and moral clarity. maybe she seems to have too complete a consciousness, too lofty a viewpoint, for someone in the thick of history. but I don't think she really functions as an audience surrogate, providing an ahistorical perspective we can feel comfortable assuming ourselves. if that's what you are suggesting.

when you write that the film doesn't really want to touch the issue of the "pleasure of giving pleasure" to one's abusers... I couldn't disagree more. maybe its not the film's most explicitly stated theme, but it's very present and it would take a truly oblivious viewer not to pick up on it. indeed, solomon and clara (I think that's her name; she's the one who is separated from her children at auction in new orleans) have a conversation about this very thing. and i was frankly started by the way the film reminded me of some of the more perverse, insidious aspects of relations of power. solomon and others do, indeed, seem moderately pleased to do their masters' bidding even if that pleasure produces an almost immediate nausea. it all reminded me that slavery is an extreme expression of power imbalances that seem to inhere in all societies (i'm not gonna be a good leftist and write "capitalist societies" b/c I think this sort of thing is endemic even in primitive societies).

i feel like you were reviewing a different movie from the one I saw.

Good response, am.

I can't answer every point at the moment , only this: i do think that the scene felt a little truncated, but that doesn't seem to be what you're getting at. her character initially presents a pointed contrast to patsey. she imagines patsey could follow in her footsteps, manipulating the slaver's affections and desire to achieve a much better position; but she discounts, or doesn't recognize, how decrepit epps's moral sense is. of course, she recognizes her situation for what it is, and makes clear her bitterness and moral clarity. maybe she seems to have too complete a consciousness, too lofty a viewpoint, for someone in the thick of history.

You're right about the last point. So brief is her appearance and so fraught with importance that I got frustrated at the movie's reluctance to grapple with what she represented.

As for my criticism of the film as 'melodrama.' No, of course I don't object to it per se, but the arc of the story as filmed elided many of the book's complexities such that the results took the shape of what I call the triumph narrative. Epps in the book is not the same kind of monster that the script and Fassbender's predictable, monotonous performance suggest -- and, of course, I'm aware the book itself is a fiction.

i don't think it's a "triumph narrative" at all, at least not compared to other issue films like amistad or whatever. solomon's liberation is a deus ex machina (or maybe brad pitt ex machina?)--he couldn't have, and didn't, do anything to bring it about except for confiding in pitt's quaker carpenter. the ending feels deliberately unreal and abrupt. I guess I was hoping for something unexpected or defamiliarizing in the last scene, but that probably says more about my art-cinema-trained tastes in movies than anything else.

i do need to read the book. can you say more about how epps is described there?

i do sort of hope this feels seems, in retrospect, like it was overpraised on first release... because that would imply that it will spur on more (probably less high-profile) films depicting new world slavery that won't share 12 years a slave's burden of being the film about slavery, as opposed to a film about slavery. (yes, i know that there have been major hollywood films about slavery, but most people writing about this one don't seem to acknowledge that.)

(btw I think the criticism of this film as awards fodder is kind of unfair and beside the point.)

The writing about this film acknowledges other films about slavery but the violence in this one makes it the most "real" (realism in literature btw praised and condemned in 19th century for equating violence with truth).

yeah but mandingo is crazy violent too

i still don't think there's anything in 12 years a slave that hits me as hard as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rartZgAC2R4

p.s. alfred have you seen charles burnett's "nat turner: a troublesome property"? if not, you should.

btw I hope I was clear: I don't agree with the consensus i.e. this film works because it shows the violence of slavery. Mandingo is the shabbier and often grosser film but it shook me for days.

e you seen charles burnett's "nat turner: a troublesome property"? if not, you should.

I have! Good double bill.

I thought fassbenders performance was good alfred. To me it was clear that he wouldn't be a monster in a different social reality, where he wasn't in a position to inflict his worst impulses on the bodies and minds of others. He would be a fool, and this realization was chilling for me. The film seemed aware of the fact that slavery was a political issue of people being deprived of rights, not primarily a problem of human evil, even though the political system of slavery allowed all manner of evil to flourish.

i haven't read most of the reviews because most film reviewers suck. but the (largely quite intelligent) reviews I've read don't seem to equate violence w/ reality. i think the film (12 years a slave, that is) is much better than that. the key thing is that slavery was an institution at the foundation of a civilization, an economic institution, and I think mcqueen's films gets the reality of that across as effectively as any film i've seen (note i didn't say as any book i've read).

i hope this doesn't come across as harsh, but i wonder if you're kind of letting the film's reviews get in between you and film, armond white style?

xpost

well put, treeship

I'm aware that I haven't responded to your objections -- I'm on a borrowed laptop -- and I will tomorrow.

It's true I let a couple of facile newspapercrit reviews bug me, but the roots of my objections originate in the passivity of Solomon and how McQueen paces the film around the violent set pieces like a layout designer creating a page around a photo; and I loathed the ending, not so much because it wasn't earned but because the legal measures to which Solomon resorts reveal how the Northern court system didn't consider him a man either, or, to use legal parlance, thought he lacked standing to file a tort claim or whatever. A lot more fascinating than the end titles suggest.

In essence, the movie's rendition of Saratoga and black-white relations in the North is a softer touch than what the memoir reveals (no one was bothered by the ease with which Solomon interacts with white men and women before captivity?).

i don't think it's as much a "soft touch" as much as an absence -- outside of his love for his family (which is itself ideological, i guess, but i'm not inclined to object too much), we don't really get much of a sense of his life in saratoga. the scenes with whites seem studiously designed to offer very few clues about solomon's status in new york (does he even interact with white women?). you could argue this gives audiences who like to identify themselves w/ the north an "out," and i don't think you'd be wrong. and i guess i agree that this aspect did seem streamlined to avoid additional complexity. i'd love to see a smart film about a free black family in the first half of the 19th century.

and yeah the legal wrangling is fascinating not just because of the semi-person status northrup had in the north but also the way that the legal system in the south was the vehicle for his liberation. not sure i fault mcqueen for excluding this though as he had enough to depict as it is.

sorry for bad grammar and typos

I definitely agree that the Alfre Woodard scene is among the film's most powerful, if anyone said that.

You know, I got to thinking about "Schindler's List" when I was debating whether I wanted to see this one or not. Granted, I was too probably too powerless to say no to "Schindler's List" at the time, but I do recall a couple of things about the film that sparked debate. One was that its depictions of various violent horrors was more true/real/historically accurate than those in depicted in previous Holocaust films, and that that somehow made the movie more valid (perhaps). But another criticism was that the movie was told from the perspective of Liam Neeson, which in the end reduced the Jews to just more victims to be rescued (at least that's how I remember the debate), and allowed Spielberg to somewhat soften what might have otherwise been a totally exhausting film (not that the film is an easy watch). Spielberg did the same thing in "Amistad," to similar criticism; it's ultimately more about the white lawmakers than the escaped slaves. But in thinking about this film, which I have not seen and may or may not see, part of its perceived/reported power is that it is told from the perspective of the lead, which makes the horror that much harder to escape. There is no cut to Liam Neeson, troubled and trying to do right, which gives you a breather from the relentless atrocities. Is that at all accurate? The aesthetic boogeyman in his film seems to be the Hans Zimmer score and the odd famous-face cameo or two.

Most of the heavy casting is top-notch, if way too easy (i.e. Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano).

But, yes, there's a more pervasive atmosphere of unalleviated, inescapable evil until a certain beardy Canadian humanist shows up. But even then, and after he puts into motion the resolution of Solomon's story, there's a sense that it's a hollow victory, basically the exact same effect Spielberg was going for with the "I could've saved so many more" scene.

if we're talking about rubbing our faces in graphic violence, none of these films has anything on wang bing's the ditch. not sure if i want to see this one:

http://dgeneratefilms.com/film-reviews/wang-bings-the-ditch-reviewed

Oskar Schindler an opaque figure – thist helped Spielberg.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/12-years-a-slave-glory-without-redemption?page=1#blogPostHeaderPanel

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/11/12/244851884/12-years-a-slave-is-this-years-best-film-about-music

Ann Powers on the use of music in the film

One concern during production had been whether they were measuring the passage of the years in the right way. “We didn’t want to put up captions saying ‘Year 3,’ ‘Year 4,’ or whatever, because then the audience might count down in their heads,” says Walker. So, they decided to add one very unique shot: “Chiwetel under a tree, just looking around — off to the distance, and at one point at the camera.” The scene wasn’t in the script; the filmmakers hoped that the close-up would poetically represent the journey of twelve years on Solomon’s face. And so, after the shoot had effectively wrapped, an extremely streamlined crew — McQueen, Walker, Bobbitt, and his camera assistants — met Ejiofor in a parking lot right outside the cutting room. “All we needed was a tree,” Walker says. “It was a Saturday, a day before the cameras were to be sent back. No craft services, no sound. We all arrived in cars on a day off. We did the shot, right there in the parking lot. And the hairs on the backs of our necks all went up. Then we got back in our cars, and went to dinner.”

http://www.vulture.com/m/2013/11/behind-the-scenes-of-12-years-a-slave.html

i also don't see melodrama as a bad object, and i'm not sure why you would. i also wish you would define your idea of "melodrama" since there are as many definitions of that term (most of them ahistorical) as their are critics. you seem to use the word in a wholly negative sense, which surprises me.

amateurist could you say more about this? like i am dimly aware that melodrama is sometimes a slur, but apparently there is a taxonomy of melodramas? or differences of opinion about what it means?

The Taxnomy of Melodramas! Sounds like a good Northrop Frye title.

i remember a defn like "in drama characters influence events, in melodrama it is the other way around", which seemed too glib?

oh man let me think about this for the weekend, ok?

Saw it, thought it was OK, but a bit of a missed opportunity. I wish it was an hour longer, so that it showed the passage and weight of time a bit more. I also wish it seemed a little less of a cavalcade of familiar white faces getting to overact at length; I would have prefered to see more interactions and relationships between the mostly nameless slaves, who surely spoke as much offscreen as we get to watch Fassbinder froth on screen. And deus ex Pitt ... distracting, at the least. It's sort of a shame he shows up and then bam, more or less the next scene Solomon gets freed. As I told my wife afterward, I find it a little insulting that this movie, set over the course of 12 years, runs 50 minutes shorter than the mostly worthless "Django Unchained."

Odie and Steve take it on: http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2013/11/black-man-talk-12-years-slave.html

― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:38 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

this is a great read. i agree mostly with boone... i keep thinking about this movie... i dont any coherent thoughts on it, its an impressive and visceral movie but it left me cold outside of some exceptional moments. i wihs mcqueen was as interested in the things i'm interested in i guess. i do think Hunger is still his best thing. also said this in another thread but i wish cranston played epps

boring oscar-bait pabulum imo,but better than the execrable,unintentionally hilarious shame. Seems like,the deeply flawed,hunger was a case of beginner's luck.

Oscar bait is such a strange descriptor for this, aside from the score.

it's certainly not doing anything from a formal standpoint that would disrupt the average american filmmgoer's investment in the narrative. it's a tearjerker and it's meant to be engrossing. that doesn't mean it's not an intelligent, thoughtful, or well-crafted film though, but it is definitely the kind of movie people call "oscar bait"

"oscar bait" remains one of the least useful terms you can use to describe a movie, probably worse than "boring"

it just means "hollywood drama"

there were two movies I saw in recent months that were labeled "Oscar-bait". One was "The Butler", the other was this.

This was much, much better than the former.

"the butler" seemed pretty cynically sentimental. "pcs" is what they should call those kinds of movies instead of "oscar bait"

Well it's not avant garde or anything but narratively it is the opposite of oscar bait IMO. Hollywood Dramas rely on comfortable narrative tropes such as the power of the individual to overcome through the triumph of the human spirit etc, which this film decidedly doesn't.

Xposts

i'm not sure about that. he is reuinited with his family in the end. they don't show the part where he (apparently, according to the best guesses of some historians) was kidnapped again and either murdered or sold back into slavery.

the movie definitely explores brutality with a frankness that (i assume) the butler does not, but still, that's not so beyond the pale for "oscar bait." i agree the term is stupid like all dismissive cliches are stupid, and i like this movie a great deal, but i don't think steve mcqueen made the movie thinking that the oscar committee would never go for something so violent and bleak.

actually, how is this film not about the triumph of the human spirit? he endures unspeakable horrors but in the end he is still the same person. he is true to his word to not indulge "melancholia" and in the last scene he is fragile and shaken but still essentially the same person he was in the beginning, down to his manners, consideration for others, etc.

Oscar bait saves me saying ponderous drama about a BIG subject,with lots of strings on the soundtrack,some harrowing scenes, and a bittersweet ending.

He survives by subsuming his personality and becoming a person that has to go along with the cruelty, and only gets reunited by his family through a Bradus Ex Machina.

That goes back to a problem I had, that Chiwetel Ejiofor, as good as he is at what is he doing, is mostly made to be silent and act with his eyes and demeanor, which is something, but buried a bit behind the frilly flash of frothing Fassbinder et al. It's hard to concentrate entirely on said worthy face - at least it was for me - when almost every single white role was played by a slightly distracting more familiar face, right down to the dude from Madmen or SNL (why them in roles that could have been played but anyone?) or the drunk from Deadwood. The most "Oscar bait" aspect of this movie is Chiwetel Ejiofor, yet ironically he may be the least Oscar-bait thing about this.

The ending ... I'm not sure what to make of it. By any stretch it's a happy ending, in that he is reunited with his intact family. It feels bittersweet because of what came before it; this isn't really a triumph, pe se, almost strictly endurance and sacrifice. I do wish the movie did wait us make a little longer before Pitt Ex Machina (the sympathetic relief-valve white face spouting "we're all not like that" dialog that some stronger defenders of this film for some reason claim the movie lacks).

i dug that pitt's character was the rarely-seen Magical Honky archetype

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/why-i-wouldnt-see-em-12-years-a-slave-em-with-a-white-person/281883/

This is miles better than what the demurrers claim, but I do feel sections of it are either weirdly detached -- from Northup -- and reliant on maximum graphic violence as the only path to the truth. Also disliked Hans Zimmer's perpetual tuneup dirge.

OR reliant on...

You are really covering your bases thoroughly when you cast Paul Dano as the only white man Northup physically attacks.

So Morbs, were you as disappointed by the amount of froth time allowed Fass et al. at the expense of seeing more of Solomon and the slaves in their "off" time? I also wish there was more, or more to, Cumberbatch, who was sort of a fascinating character, clearly conflicted yet corrupted to the soul all the same, which gives him a complexity the other white characters (Dano, stacked-deck drunk/rapist/racist Fass, Giamatti) lack. And I really was distracted by the parade of familiar faces in supporting roles, often to really no or no real necessity. And did you think it should have been longer?

I definitely agree that the Alfre Woodard scene is among the film's most powerful, if anyone said that.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Wednesday, November 13, 2013 7:01 AM (2 weeks ago)

As Jerry Lewis says, "Very good, one in a row."

JiC, I like long movies if they're good enough, so yes.

For a serious historical film, from Fox Searchlight, I think "familiar faces" are an inevitability, and since Dano (and on limited exposure, maybe Cumberbatch) is the only one who irritates me, no I wasn't distracted. (In the case of Alfre Woodard, one of the great and underutilized American screen actors of the last 30 years, esp not.)

right down to the dude from Madmen or SNL

Well, you know why those wouldn't be familiar to me.

As for abolitionist Pitt, well, there were such people and they did talk like that; I haven't read the memoir yet, but I presume the guy existed.

the guy existed and his speech is apparently almost verbatim, though some argue (quite reasonably) that his dialogue was conjured by the co-writer of the memoir to beef up the abolitionist cause. Dano obv hatable but his rendition of that song was one of the best moments in the movie so I'm cool with it.

The scene where Northup is hanging and everyone else goes about their day, including children just playing around in the background, says a lot about the downtime and the attitude necessary to survive. It was a succinct sequence that spoke volumes. Cumberbatch character not *really* conflicted imo, just an example of a "nice" slaveowner that's still, ya know, a slaveowner, as nicely put by Northup's argument with the crying lady.

Indeed. The hanging sequence happens, when all's said and done, on Cumberbatch's watch.

yeah i didnt need more of the cumberdude, though he was very good in the role (giamatti gave my fav perf of the evil whites)

Yeah, the slave showroom was undoubtedly the most vicious of the Gone with the Wind as directed by Jacopetti & Prosperi sequences.

I played a slave purchaser in an auction scene we did in high school. Yes, we were all white. #70s #suburbs

In 1852, itinerant Canadian carpenter Samuel Bass came to do some work for Epps. Hearing Bass express his abolitionist views, Northup eventually decided to confide his secret to him—the first person he told of his true name and origins as a free man since he was first enslaved. Bass wrote several letters to Northup's friends with general details of his location at Bayou Boeuf in hopes of gaining his rescue.

It's truly an amazing story. I'm most amazed that to the best of my knowledge I never had to read it in school.

Cumberbatch really did play the character as conflicted, which is partly what made him so insidious (and yeah, why he earned his own behind the scenes takedown from the other slave). I thought a lot of the most interesting contradictions took place in this sequence. You see the slave master guy "rescue" Solomon, saving him from getting lynched, but then quickly see that there is no bravery or honor to it at all. It's simply a matter of protecting an investment, and he makes no effort to untie him from the tree. Later, Cumberbatch casts Solomon loose with no sentimentality, just divesting. A lot of this is relatively subtle, which is partly why I did not like the very not subtle Fassbender, true to his character though he may be.

I didn't get to see it, but as recently as 5 or 10 years ago, there was a nearly all-white school performance of The Wiz.

I saw a nearly all white performance of The Wiz last year at a local Catholic school!

I'm still figuring out why this didn't move me.

Oh, i was only moved -- as opposed to horrified or made anxious -- by the graveyard sing. And then Ejiofor was directed to overact in closeup.

Can't remember or not if that's the moment when he accepts his position among them, rather than thinking he was a uniquely wronged individual.

I think so.

As to why to film may or may not have moved, I think I chalk it up to failure - or, ironically, success - of direction, depending on your perspective. McQueen works hard to keep things unsentimental, but sometimes to the point of being clinical. He casts relatively unfamiliar faces in the roles of slaves, which makes them more "real" (less actors playing dress up), but then surrounds them with more familiar faces playing dress up. Which is important, probably, to give the film an anchor, commercially speaking. There are a number of probably better artistic decisions McQueen could have made that might have made the movie better, or stronger, but in the end maybe worse, because nobody would want/get to see it.

I presume the Gordon Parks-Avery Brooks PBS version will recirculate soon.

Screening in New Orleans at an arts centre this week iirc

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BcJQgKYCYAAlQN-.jpg:large

if putting pitt (the worst actor in the film fwiw) on the poster makes people go and see it, im all for it.

weird things i thought about this film - chiwetel is good, but not THAT good. i would rather have seen michael k williams in that role (*SPOILER* so gutting that he doesnt last the length of the movie). its not that i didnt think CE was good, i loved a lot of the closeups, when its all about his face - i think i got teary watching him get teary during one closeup - but his accent was a bit shaky, and i think hes too mannered, or idk, too british? lol. anyway, i ended up thinking fassbender stole the show, which i didnt really want to think for a film that should be all about solomon. in fact id say CE is the weakest actor here, except for brad pitt (who is distractingly terrible). not read the rest of the thread so its probably already been said, but i loved hunger, thought shame was good though prone to unintentional hilarity in its poe-facedness, and this is basically a mcqueen movie, but hollywood-ised, which are two poles that never quite come together for me. hes not a conventional narrative guy and i think he was compromised between doing what he usually does/did and what hes trying to do for a big prestige period piece (those stagey scenes where solomon talks to other slaves and the film goes into manic exposition mode are borderline ridiculous). id rather he just made a smaller film like hunger personally - hes not cut out for this kind of film. that said, i love that hes taking the arthouse to the multiplexes and doing it with such an unflinching story.

the weirdest thing about the whole film actually is that i kept thinking the slavemasters were more interesting characters than solomon. they were all rather sympathetic and complex and multilayered in a way im not sure CE was, which obv has a lot to do with his character being reduced to slavery, but even then, i think CE was just surrounded by too many great(er) actors. if i think about some of the stuff ive seen him in since the wire, michael k williams would have killed in that role. while im happy mcqueen pulled through another british actor, i think it was the wrong choice.

in spite of all that, i dont think ive been more overcome at a movie ending than i was with this one though. i cant think of a better earned 'happy ending' (though it isnt exactly as you imagine the horror of having to adjust to normal life again, and how broken he must be now) in recent cinema.

when you write that the film doesn't really want to touch the issue of the "pleasure of giving pleasure" to one's abusers...

this is interesting because i think the film did such a good job of making the slavemasters NOT cartoonish villains that it almost went the opposite way

going to stop posting about this now

good film, but unsurprisingly overrated. though for a Fox historical film - it's very good i guess.
some of those superficial/generic "evil masters" characters annoyed me and of course Brad Pitt who will obviously take the role of the rescuer.
the clinical detached atmosphere doesn't work all the time, and the film reach it's peaks when McQueen's images takes their time to sink (the hanging scene for example) and when the focus is on Chiwetel Ejiofor.

not the best McQueen's movie imo. lost some of his uniqueness as a director here.

oh armondpaws

The British director Steve McQueen was labelled a "an embarrassing doorman and garbage man", by a prominent contrarian film critic in an alarming heckling incident at the New York Critics Circle awards last night.

The 12 Years a Slave film-maker was targeted by CityArts editor Armond White as he picked up the best director prize for his harrowing Oscar-tipped slavery drama, according to Variety. He did not react to the barb.

White, a controversial former host of the ceremony, began heckling from his table as soon as McQueen took to the stage to accept the prize. He shouted: "You're an embarrassing doorman and garbage man. Fuck you. Kiss my ass."

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/07/steve-mcqueen-garbage-man-awards-heckle

this guy

Is White sort of a schtick, or is he actually unstable? Any of you guys know him?

I have to assume a little bit of both, otherwise he would have been drummed out of the organization years ago, no?

At the same time, there's a Groucho Marx paradox in play: why would he even want to be in the organization in the first place? They should have just awarded McQueen the Absolutely Anyone But Him prize to see how White would respond.

You can listen to Armond White argue his case re: 12 Years a Slave on this podcast: http://www.slashfilm.com/filmcast-ep-252-12-years-a-slave-guest-armond-white-from-city-arts/

It's been a while since I heard it, but he basically dismisses 12 YaS as self-important torture porn and that McQueen is interested only in psychological perversions, plus, films like Amistad, Beloved, and Nightjohn deal with the subject of slavery better.

Just, no.

AW proclaims that bloggers and online writers have 'de-professionalized' criticism, so I don't think he would deign to know any of us.

Yup, Armond just reeks of professionalism.

AW proclaims that bloggers and online writers have 'de-professionalized' criticism

Translation: when everyone is racing to be the biggest asshole, it's hard to be the biggest asshole.

all in all, the movie was good in parts but seems now kinda flat to me. "torture porn" is waaaay too exegerating and extreme though

Didn't know about the brad Pitt cameo until the armond review, yeesh.

This was played more straight than I expected, but I think that was a good choice. The material is so overwhelming that anything showier would have seemed out of place. I don't think it's a great film, it's more determined than it is inspired. But it's affecting anyway because how can it not be.

it's more determined than it is inspired

thats well put

yeah that's kinda otm.

the determination (going straightforward)pays the price for the lack of inspiration (not going deep, e.g. one dimensional characters)

this was the problematicest of movies

howso

find it weird that in a lot of the british press, this is mentioned AFTER american hustle winning 3 golden globes. seems a bit suspicious. youd think a british victory would be reported more.

they were impressed w Amy Adams' accent

impressed confused

seems a bit suspicious. youd think a british victory would be reported more.

Countdown to Armond relocating to London...

Note to Armond: we call them 'bin men' over here.

lol he was booted from a critics' group, he is still editing/writing for a site that you will be clicking on for as long as it's there.

i mean ~problematic~ is lazy but

i. all of the fun and impressive acting gets to be done by white people: elijofor just gets to stand there and make the same face the whole time. (when he actually gets to act in the three or four scenes he does so he's pretty good)

ii. part of why this is possible is that the majority of the slaves aren't people, aren't even characters. -- that the only black characters who are fleshed out are fleshed out entirely in terms of their relation to the white ones. (there are arguable exceptions to this -- eliza, mainly. but her arc still isn't about her.)

ii.a. we have no sense ever of northup's relationship with the other slaves -- like, in twelve years, what do you think he talks to these people about, with his entirely different accent and background?

iii. the emphasis the film throws on the act of solomon making a pen and ink seems mendacious on some level--so like it's a trope of slave narratives that the ability to write has a near-metaphysical importance, that it's a way of asserting a self and identity. the grounds of this trope seem to require that the medium we encounter them in is written; that the narrative is first-person and makes conscious reference to the fact of its audience reading the book. i'd want to argue that (for all that it refuses to leave northup) the film's narrative isn't first person and the northup character isn't the author of it.

iv. this makes his being able to write more a marker of what the white characters claim it is, being "larned", seditious, superior. -- when epps is arguing at the end about northup being not a free man the film seemed worryingly close to subscribing to his logic ...

v. i want to tie this together into some larger claim about subsuming the material's requirements into a hollywood-standard narrative of personal endurance (the ending is gross) (particularly what the soundtrack is doing) (man the soundtrack), that reducing the story to the experiential means abandoning any real grasp on the larger social structure except in the most heavy-handed of ways. but i don't think i can quite explain that in a non hand-wavy way, not knowing the history well enough or being quite good enough about the vocab of film to articulate why ..

(disconnected cheap shot:) buncha europeans play plantation owners who just can't understand that black people are people and then brad pitt comes along and explains that they are, great, thanks for that ...

we have no sense ever of northup's relationship with the other slaves

NO sense? I can think of 3 characters who are exceptions to that, at least.

okay, i think i'm exagerrating there and confusing a couple claims:

viz., i., we never do the aspect of s.n.'s experience that is learning to get by and talk to the people he finds himself among on a day-to-day basis

ii., the only figures we see solomon speak to are those marked by their being recipients of white attention

there is an extent to which this could be argued a considered choice: that existing under slavery means you don't get to define yourself independently. but i think the film is arriving at that by accident and naively, for the most part.

I took as a given that being enslaved means you don't get to define yourself independently, in many many ways.

I want to watch it again, but I also got the sense that McQueen and John Ridley thought the audience could not handle a less tidy ending.

(Solomon's return to NY commenced the third act of a horrifying ordeal, as the book shows)

my reaction was similar to yours tom especially re: the 2nd point, but at the same time i think well that was just Mcqueen's approach and i guess i think it was a valid one, isolating solomon like that - just not what i really wanted - Vern puts it well imo - He doesn’t want to take it like anyone else. He doesn’t want to find solace in religion and music, like you always hear about. In one unique scene he sits silent through a long closeup before he finally joins in on the singing. I think he doesn’t want to just be another member of the group. He doesn’t want to give up on being a unique individual. But eventually he has to take the plunge.

I had a problem w/the filming of the sex scenes too: Solomon as passive thing, to which things are done.

if it's Fox Searchlight, even a grim story is ending on an up note.

(particularly what the soundtrack is doing) (man the soundtrack)

that's easily the worst thing about the film, i think. it's not even Zimmer's fault for writing a bad soundtrack (although it's unsubtle), it's McQueens fault for ramming it down your throat. It made me think that McQueen takes his entire audience for cretins.

in twelve years, what do you think he talks to these people about, with his entirely different accent and background?

well, I didn't even get the feeling that 12 years had passed. How long is he supposed to be at Epps'? No one changes appearance or otherwise the entire time.

In spite of this I actually think it's mostly a good film though and sometimes an excellent one. The ending is extremely underpowered though which, considering how hard McQueen pushes some other scenes, is disappointing. I'm sure it's intentional though.

Great post though, thomp. Can you say more about these points?:

i'd want to argue that (for all that it refuses to leave northup) the film's narrative isn't first person and the northup character isn't the author of it.

iv. this makes his being able to write more a marker of what the white characters claim it is, being "larned", seditious, superior. -- when epps is arguing at the end about northup being not a free man the film seemed worryingly close to subscribing to his logic ...

alf: yeah so that sex scene in the beginning s his only prolonged interaction with another character that isn't made explicitly about white ppl, right ...? and even then: ...

ade: yeah that scene is interesting though! like i think its inclusion is the best argument, certainly, that mcqueen is taking this tack deliberately. i found myself resisting being moved by it because, yes, it seemed like a gesture towards the film i'd have rather been watching; also, because elijofor's voice is mixed too high in the sound design in a way that i thought was mendacious

jed like i say i don't know if i can articulate it. the film knows that the modern viewer understands that epps' claim ('if solomon did not have free papers, my treatment of him would be justified') is a wrong one. but i had a fairly queasy feeling watching that scene (and i think an unintentional one -- if i felt like it was deliberate i'd be acclaiming it) that the film had forgotten to establish that this is wrong by its own lights. like the internal logic of the narrative does not address this; instead brad pitt comes along and explains it.

"his only prolonged interaction with another character that isn't made explicitly about white ppl" chronologically after he's kidnapped, i mean.

the soundtrack didnt bug me. when i saw zimmers name in the end credits i was like 'whoa hey, wouldnt have guessed'. i watch a lot of hwood crap though and they all have bad scores... like Lee daniels The Butler

best scores are like, idk, dredd type scores.

greedo

these days anyway, wrt mainstream hollywood

thomp i like your posts, they are interesting. i am too busy to respond with anything for the moment, but i wanted to note that.

I liked the deployment of zimmer he was the skrillex of this film

lol

she's in the film for a total of about 5 minutes but Sarah Paulson blows everyone else off the screen as Epps's wife, imo. Amazing performance.

yeah paulson killed it.

My family was urging me to see this a few months back but between this thread and other critical voices, I'm not sure I ever want to

Man that Hans Zimmer theme that plays endlessly through the movie is basically Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)" and it was kind of driving me nuts.

I'm in the middle of Northup's book and some of the elisions and changes of the film are striking for assorted reasons... eg, the Dano character was actually his second of three owners, and Solomon speaks quite well of his first owner, something you'd be wise not to even attempt w/ voiceover.

Epps was "portly" btw.

For anyone that cares, this explains why McQueen and Ridley snubbed each other during their acceptance speeches last night: http://www.thewrap.com/oscars-rift-fight-john-ridley-steve-mcqueen-12-years-a-slave

Hoberman: http://harpers.org/archive/2014/03/here-there-is-no-why/

yeah, I wondered how ppl saying this film wasn't "hard" enough would react to the book's eye-popping line on "the bright side of slavery."

Northup’s book, transcribed from his oral account by a white man, the New York state legislator David Wilson, is notable among so-called slave narratives for its specificity in names, places, and dates.

this is what most impressed me

oh I see Hoberman's essay is a continuation of his American cultural studies.

btw The American Conservative approvingly dug up an 8-year-old Esquire essay on race and politics by John Ridley:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/new-black-americans-john-ridley/

Solomon speaks quite well of his first owner, something you'd be wise not to even attempt w/ voiceover.

He obviously quite likes him in the film!

yes, but the book explicitly calls him "a good man" and Christian who's a sort of victim of his moral environment. Moreover, it says some similar things about Mistress Epps.

the movie does an excellent job in showing how the first owner is both "nice" and perhaps even "liberal" (in a formulation I'm not sure is entirely anachronistic) but also totally complicit in the perpetuation of the institution of slavery. i think that's one of the most remarkable things about the film, especially a film that won the best-picture Oscar.

I wonder what would have happened if the film parted ways with the book's narrative and:
- further deemphasized the means of Solomon's liberation (that is to say, Brad Pitt's Quaker carpenter; since we don't see anything else of the machinations that allowed him to be freed)
- further emphasized Patsy's POV as Solomon is riding away to freedom
- after the ellipse, stayed with the slaves on Epps plantation, who continue to toil in misery
- ended without a resolution and group hug

I'm not getting on my high horse suggesting the movie _should_ have done this, because there is certainly an integrity in sticking largely with the narrative as it was published. but I think the full visceral effect of the point that J Hoberman and others have latched onto--that in a culture of slavery "there is no 'why'" and Solomon's liberation is as arbitrary as his enslavement and does nothing to diminish the horrors of the institution--may have been partially lost thanks to the film's ending. you can give credit to the screenwriter and director for believing that the audience will not take the ending as an affirmation of the rightness of the world, but rather consider those who were not liberated--and still wonder if most of the actual audience lived up to that respect.

I took it on faith that the reason I wasn't tearing up at the end was b/c McQueen had done a good job conveying the emptiness of his rescue against the bigger picture.

Well, I floated a second theory too, but opted for the first one.

and because Ejiofor isn't a group-hug sort of actor anyway (and neither is Solomon).

yeah, I think you can definitely read that scene in the tradition of "happy endings" that are anything but (see also "bigger than life," lots of fritz lang films).

i do think that for all the critical rumblings (or maybe there aren't so many?) this is one of the best best-picture winners in a while. at least since "no country for old men."

I think even those ambivalent about the mice would have to agree with that.

Movie. Not mice. Movie.

mice?

xpost

HA

i thought you were making some really deep reference to "babe"

I agree, and expect that is entirely a coincidence. xxxxp

I think "Gravity" would have been an even better choice, but who really cares. it's not like that movie lacked for critical plaudits (if anything there was even more of a consensus than re. "12 Years") or commercial success.

I was gonna say "best since The Hurt Locker"

"hurt locker," pfffff. not even near bigelow's best work, and falls apart on second viewing IMO.

more important: is mcqueen the first experimental filmmaker to go on and win a best picture oscar?!?!

except for peter kubelka's "crash," i mean.

I've made my peace with Gravity getting the consolation prize owing entirely to the face that now at least we've all been spared thousands of think pieces.

I'm still fond of The Hurt Locker but I haven't seen it a second time.

I've watched NCFOM a second time.

xxp you should see Kevin costner's student films

is mcqueen the first experimental filmmaker to go on and win a best picture oscar?!?!

Spike Jonze ascent arguably more surprising. Funny he would win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar the same year he also wrote "Bad Grandpa" (which also got an Oscar nom!!!!).

"hurt locker," pfffff. not even near bigelow's best work,

it isn't but is near the top of Best Picture winners.

to me that just means "not near Near Dark."

serious question though (re. is mcqueen the first experimental filmmaker to go on and win a best picture oscar?!?!)

xpost

i wouldn't put it near the top at all, not when you've got

7th heaven
it happened one night
rebecca
how green was my valley (best win ever)
casablanca
going my way
the lost weekend
best years of our lives (2nd best?)
an american in paris
gigi
the apartment
...this is about when things take a turn for the dire... but there's still:
patton
the godfather
rocky
silence of the lambs

near dark is great (though my students didn't think much of it), point break is good, strange days has its moments (though is intensely dislikable)... yeah I guess you can consider her overrated.

the loveless has its moments too. i think kathryn bigelow is very talented as an action director, but "hurt locker" was rather pedestrian in that respect. but as a PHENOMENON (powerful feminist director of male-orienated action movies) she is pretty singular.

anyway let's get back to 12 years a slave.

i make the whirly-crazy sign when the young Turks talk about movies like Point Break as "great" .. oh man, Strange Days too huh...

Going My Way is no Bells of Sy Mary's and The Lost Weekend is no Kiss Me, Stupid

Gigi? Oy.

Anyway.

gigi isn't the best of the best but it's an excellent movie!

and i left out good but not great stuff like all quiet on the western front, the sting, etc. i don't even think "hurt locker" is that good.

I just read Alfred's harrumph about 12 Years of Slave and man, Pauline Kael has a lot to answer for. :D

this was posted in November and it's terrific:

Odie and Steve take it on: http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2013/11/black-man-talk-12-years-slave.html

I just saw Gigi again and like it too, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" is creepiest and it's over quickly.

I liked it! Kael wouldn't have seen anything with "Steve McQueen" in the credits.

Let's follow am's advice and confine Oscar chatter to this thread: vote for the best Oscar-winning Best Pictures of all time

yes, fine

haven't done my rewatch yet, so that's all i got

You can always put that ...

patton
rocky
silence of the lambs

... where your heart ought to be.

cross-posting from that other, more appropriate thread:

http://www.ofcs.org/the-best-of-the-best-picture-oscar-winners-part-6/

Pretty amusing juxtaposition:

22. Gone With the Wind (1939)
23. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

well they pretty pointedly didn't follow up the wizard of oz tribute with a gone with the wind tribute, did they? would have been pretty awkward.

am still waiting for the "young mr lincoln" tribute with rows of dancers in top hats and beards.

btw we all know John Ridley wrote and directed the imminent Hendrix movie starring Andre Benjamin?

Is it called 12 Minutes A Solo?

No, that's the title of the Yngwie Malmsteen biopic

So what is the rift between Ridley and McQueen about? Yes, as reported by The Wrap, McQueen did discuss sharing the screenplay credit with Ridley, who told me that he would have shared the story by credit if he could with McQueen, with Ridley taking sole screenplay credit. He had settled for a story by credit once before, when writer-director David O. Russell took the screenplay credit on "Three Kings." No rancor there anymore, as Ridley gave Russell, and not McQueen, a hug on the way to the Oscar podium. (Ridley also hugged "12 Years" producer Dede Gardner, who developed the script with him.)

Ridley explains that when a screenwriter adapts a memoir, the Writers Guild of America won't permit a story by credit--in this case, Solomon Northup wrote the true story that the movie is based on. As Ridley wrote the first draft for Plan B (on spec), it would be difficult for a director like McQueen to get a shared Screenplay By credit, which would require a WGA arbitration. "For both of us, I would have been happy to have Story By credit," says Ridley. "Steve never tried to get an arbitration. A lot of people assume we wrote the script together every day for four years. The reality is that Steve lives in Amsterdam and I live in Los Angeles. We met a dozen times at most. I can't say in all honesty that Steve and I had an opportunity to become super tight. It starts to bother me when the story becomes that we didn't give each other foot massages. Steve was never not deferential to me and I hope I always expressed admiration for him, the cast and crew. Steve did a lot for me. I don't know if Steve is upset. We got to have our moment. It was a beautiful moment for us."

Ridley points out that he thanked McQueen many times over the season, including the Independent Spirits the day before the Oscars, and that on the Academy Awards show, many folks omitted any mention of who wrote their movies. "We should have equal concern for people who did not get their due," he says. "People included me in this. I never got the sense that I should go stand in the corner." Ridley kept his 30-second speech short on Oscar night, thanking Solomon Northup. (Truth be told he was relieved that he didn't cry, something he tends to do.)

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/12-years-a-slave-oscar-winner-john-ridley-talks-rift-with-steve-mcqueen

i went into this with some dread but ended up really liking it. most of the things that people objected to i thought were either not-problems (the passage of time) or really great (zimmer) or probably just plainly true (pitt's canadian laborer)

sarah paulson is just crazy good. nobody in it was bad at all except maybe pitt, who isn't exactly a bad actor but just seems like someone who's unfamiliar with the act of talking

boring oscar-bait pabulum imo.

― tell it to my arse (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:18 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh, fuck you. we have "folk heroes" saying shit like this dude, and this shit doesn't even surprise me in the slightest. we need people to make movies like this. people need to see movies like this. if some "oscar-bait" film gets a large number of people to think about 400 years of slavery that basically happened about 5 minutes ago in our history, i'm pretty happy about that.

anyways, i thought it was really good. agree with some of the criticisms upthread, especially re: brad pitt (who as an actor is just too distracting for any film) and the lack of portrayal of other slaves besides solomon and patsy. i also feel like it could've been an hour longer, for sure.

the movie does an excellent job in showing how the first owner is both "nice" and perhaps even "liberal" (in a formulation I'm not sure is entirely anachronistic) but also totally complicit in the perpetuation of the institution of slavery. i think that's one of the most remarkable things about the film, especially a film that won the best-picture Oscar.

this is otm, too.

I think the full visceral effect of the point that J Hoberman and others have latched onto--that in a culture of slavery "there is no 'why'" and Solomon's liberation is as arbitrary as his enslavement and does nothing to diminish the horrors of the institution--may have been partially lost thanks to the film's ending. you can give credit to the screenwriter and director for believing that the audience will not take the ending as an affirmation of the rightness of the world, but rather consider those who were not liberated--and still wonder if most of the actual audience lived up to that respect.

yea, i was certainly thinking about patsy and the others who were left behind, standing around as solomon looks back from the carriage, but i think that effect could've been made a lot more powerful if the other slaves were more developed as characters in the film.

re: solomon's lonerism, the fact that we didn't really see him interacting much with other slaves (besides patsy and the woman earlier, eliza?), was definitely somewhat of a fault. at the same time though, i kept thinking about basically all the other slaves, born into this, will die into this, and solomon has this whole other existence that he continues to have some hope of returning to even amidst moments of great despair, and that to settle into this life would to be to surender that hope. obviously that scene when he stands silent during the slaves' song but then joins shows his acceptance taht he's there and not going anywhere, and it's a rare moment and that's what made it so powerful for me, at least.

yeah the scene with him falling into (not 'breaking into' as we usually say) song is key

i find it kinda weird and sort of reprehensible that any mainstream movie that deals with any remotely serious historical subject gets dismissed as 'oscar-bait,' as if you could class this movie with something like 'the king's speech' or whatever.

i agree

also for all the criticism the pitt character gets (either b/c he's a "white savior" or b/c he's brad pitt), i kind of thought this was interesting, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/17/_12_years_a_slave_true_story_fact_and_fiction_in_mostly_accurate_movie_about.html:

Bass (Brad Pitt)

As unlikely as his character is—an abolitionist in Louisiana, and a contrarian who everyone likes—Bass is drawn straight from the book’s account. His argument with Epps (“but begging the law’s pardon, it lies,” “There will be a reckoning yet”) is reproduced almost verbatim.

The real Bass, in fact, did more for Northup, sending multiple letters on his behalf, meeting with him in the middle of the night to hear his story, and—when they initially got no response from their letters—vowing to travel up to New York himself, to secure Northup’s freedom. The process took months, and Northup’s freedom eventually came from Bass’s first letter after all, so the movie understandably chooses to elide all this.

One of ILX's most hated film directors looks due for some awards!

You can say that again,

https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/steve-mcqueen-knighthood

Most hated title not in danger.

nobody in it was bad at all except maybe pitt, who isn't exactly a bad actor but just seems like someone who's unfamiliar with the act of talking

― goole, Monday, March 24, 2014 3:58 PM

I miss goole