12 Years a Slave

A film that begins in New York in 1841. Solomon Northup is a free man. He lives in Saratoga, has a family, plays the violin and can read and write. Two men offer him work. They go to Washington, drink in the evening, and Solomon wakes in a room in chains. He has no papers. When he protests he is beaten, his name is changed, and he is sold south. From there the film lasts twelve years. Two plantations, two owners, a timber job, cotton fields and a hanging. What the narrative is interested in is not abolition but duration: the film does not shorten the pain; a hanging runs for minutes while ordinary life continues in the background. The Patsey line is the least bearable part. She picks the most cotton and is a target for exactly that reason. To survive, Solomon hides that he can read, and across the narrative he learns not to speak. The source is a real book. Northup wrote his memoir after he was freed, and the text is a source that can be checked against the documents of the period. The cinematography is deliberately cold and the frame often stops and waits. The film won Best Picture; Lupita Nyong'o won for supporting actress and John Ridley for adapted screenplay. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano and Sarah Paulson are in the cast. Steve McQueen directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants the subject without decoration. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to violence; the film deliberately leaves nowhere to look away.