a couple weeks ago I saw the critically acclaimed film 12 years a slave, directed by Steve McQueen, about the struggles of a free man named Solomon Northup after he was abruptly thrown into a life in Slavery and for 12 years went through every type of hardship you could imagine, from being beaten with a wooden mallet to being forced to wip an innocent girl to an inch of her life. The film clearly captures the pure brutality of slavery, with several intense scenes of forced labor, humiliation, and torture but does it capture the full scope and impact of slavery; and more importantly are it's lessons still relevant today?
Now on a technical level this movie is flawless, in fact this movie has some of the best cinematography I have ever seen. Besides the slight overuse of selective focus I couldn't find a single shot that wasn't perfectly executed to get it's point across in the best way possible. The film often uses the background to tell the story, using the animals, the light, the objects, and most as all the peoples eyes as powerful pieces of symbolism. Not only that but the score, hair and make up, sound design, costume design, and most of all lighting were nearly perfect as well, on a technical level this movie is flawless and on a story level it is still incredibly amazing.
There are many ways you can go about trying to tell a historical or social issue drama, you can try to capture the broad scope of the issue or event by analyzing its impact and
telling many different stories at once with a "cast of thousands" like Les miserables or Schindler's list. or you can do a "character piece" with focuses on a specific person and you see how that person is affected by the events around him like Forest Gump or Apocalypse Now. This story is much more the second one, it's main and only focus is on one man's journey through hell and back and let's the audience connect it for themselves.
Many directors that want their movie to feel more epic and important will connect the movie to other things in modern day or within the film itself for the audience, and I'm glad this film doesn't do that. It tells a story of 200 years of pain and oppression through the 12 year life of Solomon Northup without having to add dialogue telling us how important it is; It get's the point across much better by just simply showing a life and it doesn't try to be anything else.
One scene in the movie I think exemplifies this films effective simplicity is when Solomon is being hung by the plantations overseers and half way through hanging him they stop and tie the rope to a tree so his feet can barely touch the ground, it is one of the most powerful scenes I have seen in a long time and it is told only in about 7 shots. The first shot is a still shot of him trying to stand and people start to slowly emerge from there homes, you think they might look at him, attach him, or maybe try to help him, but instead they just go about their daily routines not even acknowledging his existence, this shot lasts for about 12 minutes without a cut. then one woman comes and brings him water, that is the only act of kindness he is shown throughout this scene. Then if the adults weren't bad enough, the children come out and start to play around him again not acknowledging him being humiliated right next to them. And in a single shot you see how long he's been their without anyone having to say it in the dialogue, because the light in the sky has gotten darker since the last shot. It is a great example of how some times less can be more.
So although this story lacks the epic feel of movies with a focus on wider concepts instead of one man's story, telling one man's story was the angle it went for, so what it lacked in scope it made up for in a more intimate personal feel. But how does the story do at connecting to what we've been talking about, modern day slavery? Well plainly put slavery back then isn't so different from now. There is a girl named patsy in the story is sexually abused like the most common form of slavery now, the sex trade, and we see first hand the horridness of forced labor which is more a problem today then it ever has been. And people still do it for the same reasons, money, lust, prejudice, and blatant disregard for human life. Also Maybe by showing us the mistakes we did made we can learn from them and prevent mistakes in the future. Sometimes The most effective way of teaching people how to not to hate is through art like this, and although people complain this movie can be too brutal the brutality is justified, it's being used as a means too tell an effective story and it uses it in the best way it possibly can.
I regard this movie as a masterpiece, it should go down in history as one of the greats, up their with Citizen Kane, Apocalypse Now, and Schindler's List. If it doesn't win best picture and Dallas Buyers Club snags the Oscar I will personally be the leader of the Rally to get them out of the positions and put someone else in their place, preferably someone who knows perfect art when they see it.
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