[Rob Babcock]

As expected, 12 Years a Slave was a brilliant film.  It's an "Oscar bait" movie to be sure but in this case I think the hype is justified.  Chiwetel Ejiofor is wonderful as a free northern black man named Solomon Northup; he is kidnapped after being tricked into a job as a violinist and sold into slavery in the south.  Ejiofor first crossed my radar when he starred as the government agent in the overlooked film Serenity.  The entire cast is uniformly terrific, and I won't be surprised if Michael Fassbender  and/or Lupita Nyong'o are nominated for Oscars in their respective categories.  And Brad Pitt, the producer of the film, has a very nice little cameo- small but important to the story.

The film is at times very hard to watch, depicting the institution of slavery in all its cruelty.  It's perhaps even crueler for Northup having lived his whole life as free man before his kidnapping.  Even now, over a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, it's hard to imagine how such a thing could ever have existed alongside the Declaration of Liberty and the US Constitution.  Dark days to be sure, and the effects linger on to the present day.

Not a "fun" movie but one well worth watching...really, not to be missed!

[Folsom]

I'm curious how accurate it will be to history. Unlike that smut from Tarantino, with this I do have some expectations of historical accuracy since it's supposed to be a true story.

It seems most film depictions of the era have a gross misunderstanding of the social world at the time, how racism was expressed, and the frequency of different types of slave treatment. They also utterly forgo slave retaliation scenarios, how common it was for slaves to work for other people in off hours for money (and buy french clothes and weird stuff with the money), or for them to runaway AND come back repeatedly. It wasn't a "simple" time, it was dynamic, had lots of functions, and wasn't very pleasant for anyone. Frankly it was much more interesting from a historical perspective than just someone getting whipped. 

[Chazro]

Great film, an Oscar contender for sure.  Chiwetal Ejiofor is having a banner year.  Between this movie and the outstanding Jazz (!) murder mystery miniseries 'Dancing On The Edge', currently being shown on the Starz network where he's the lead man playing a Duke Ellington-ish character.  I see him as an A-list player from here on out! 

[Rob Babcock]

I'm curious how accurate it will be to history. Unlike that smut from Tarantino, with this I do have some expectations of historical accuracy since it's supposed to be a true story.

It seems most film depictions of the era have a gross misunderstanding of the social world at the time, how racism was expressed, and the frequency of different types of slave treatment. They also utterly forgo slave retaliation scenarios, how common it was for slaves to work for other people in off hours for money [...]

This does occur in the movie.  It's hard to say precisely how "accurate" it is.  It's based on the book written by Solomon himself, chronicling his own story.  Were things exaggerated to "sell" better among the guilty abolitionists of the north?  It's impossible for me to say, this far removed from the time.  Certainly just the idea that a human could be owned by another is shocking in this day and age, and historically there was rampant cruelty.  Hell, the simple act of owning a fellow human and forcing him to work for your enrichment at the expense of his/her own is unspeakable barbaric and cruel. 

I think that's the interesting viewpoint of the film; it's as if you or I were thrust into that situation.  If you were the child of slave, born into slavery, you may hate it but you'd have little other frame of reference to judge the experience.  The protagonist, however, lived his life as a free man.  He worked his own job, had a wife and children, and a life of the sort you or I would have had at the time.  Until he was kidnapped and sold to slavers.  Imagine that happening to you!  To go from having a life and rights to being beaten for even insisting on having a name, or killed for being able to read.

[wushuliu]

The film is a breath of fresh air for slavery pics. It does not try to keep you at arms length like most others by say framing the time period for you - there is not a lot of obvious master shots, date titles and accuracy porn for you to say oh right that was THEN. Instead it thrusts you immediately into the *emotional* truth of the characters. It's entirely character-driven and actor-centric. There are very few wide master shots instead lots of close-ups and narrow depth of field. In fact you could easily translate the film to a stage production and not lose aything (I think that would be a great idea). The longest wide shot is used to brilliant effect - strange fruit indeed.

Brad Pitt almost sunk the film for me though. I appreciate the amount of work he's done producing films like this and World War Z and other films with diverse casts and new faces. But dear loving God is he a bad actor. His role was terrible, his accent whatever it was was terrible and since his hair is always perfect in every film, dude was just distracting. The energy of the film shifted when he appeared. Mercifully his screen time was very short. Paul Giamatti and Cumberbatch otoh were excellent in roles that were outside their usual fare.

Finally I love Chiwetel but I do think Fassbender owns the film. He and McQueen have a special relationship and it's obvious. His performance is special. The kind of performance Tarantino wishes he could pull out of an actor, but doesn't have that extra level of depth McQueen has.

Everyone was magnificent and I think both leads will get Oscars, Chewy for Best Actor and Fassbender for Supporting.

[wushuliu]

Certainly just the idea that a human could be owned by another is shocking in this day and age.

My gf and I were talking about this after seeing the film: it's not shocking at all because it is still rampant worldwide. Human trafficking is big, big business. A Saudi  princess was just busted here in SoCal for slave labor.

[Rob Babcock]

My gf and I were talking about this after seeing the film: it's not shocking at all because it is still rampant worldwide. Human trafficking is big, big business. A Saudi  princess was just busted here in SoCal for slave labor.

That doesn't make the notion any less shocking.

[Randy]

This does occur in the movie.  It's hard to say precisely how "accurate" it is.  It's based on the book written by Solomon himself, chronicling his own story.  Were things exaggerated to "sell" better among the guilty abolitionists of the north?  It's impossible for me to say, this far removed from the time.  Certainly just the idea that a human could be owned by another is shocking in this day and age, and historically there was rampant cruelty.  Hell, the simple act of owning a fellow human and forcing him to work for your enrichment at the expense of his/her own is unspeakable barbaric and cruel. 

I think that's the interesting viewpoint of the film; it's as if you or I were thrust into that situation.  If you were the child of slave, born into slavery, you may hate it but you'd have little other frame of reference to judge the experience.  The protagonist, however, lived his life as a free man.  He worked his own job, had a wife and children, and a life of the sort you or I would have had at the time.  Until he was kidnapped and sold to slavers.  Imagine that happening to you!  To go from having a life and rights to being beaten for even insisting on having a name, or killed for being able to read.

"Guilty abolitionists of the north?"  What do you mean by that?

[Rob Babcock]

I probably phrased it poorly.  There was a lot of white guilt over slavery, and many northerners despised the practice.  Historians have discussed how the original book was used as a tool by abolitionists to more widely publicize the evils of slavery.  While I'm not calling the book propaganda I don't know whether it was a straight factual retelling of his experiences or a weapon against the institution of slavery.  Hopefully it was both.

BTW, I really like Fassbender and Cumberbatch in the film, but I was occasionally distracted by the intermittent southern accents of both.  Accents are hard admittedly, and to my ear neither one was entirely successful.  I guess it's like that buddy that you think does a great English accent but an actual English person hears him and thinks it's awful.  Off the top of my head the only English actors to sound completely American to my ear are Christian Bale, DD Lewis and the guy that played Doctor House (forget his name).

[Folsom]

I probably phrased it poorly.  There was a lot of white guilt over slavery, and many northerners despised the practice.  Historians have discussed how the original book was used as a tool by abolitionists to more widely publicize the evils of slavery.  While I'm not calling the book propaganda I don't know whether it was a straight factual retelling of his experiences or a weapon against the institution of slavery.  Hopefully it was both.

BTW, I really like Fassbender and Cumberbatch in the film, but I was occasionally distracted by the intermittent southern accents of both.  Accents are hard admittedly, and to my ear neither one was entirely successful.  I guess it's like that buddy that you think does a great English accent but an actual English person hears him and thinks it's awful.  Off the top of my head the only English actors to sound completely American to my ear are Christian Bale, DD Lewis and the guy that played Doctor House (forget his name).

I'm sure a previously free man that embodied very "white" society as his own at the time, he probably wouldn't have a lot of interest in writing something that wasn't all about how his morality and person-hood were disrespected repeatedly. I'm sure if - well for one more slaves were literate - there were more books written we'd have a very wide, complicated, picture of the past. As is when we read a white perspective on how a white person would think about it (northern anyway) we just confirmation on what we want; the types of cruelty and easily approachable reasoning behind it so it can be corrected. Were we find conflicting information is represented in numbers and other shorter bits here and there. They explain to us not only how different racism was at the time, but how different the values were among people making choices we don't easily understand; like how nearly all slaves returned to plantations for varying amounts of years after being freed. I'd be interested in a movie that really touched deep into how far from black and white it all happened to be. History is always so much more fascinating then our morality's purpose for it.

On a different note, I'm curious about the accents. When watching a movie I, like many others, wish for good acting. But I have to remind myself that at all points in time there were stupid people that are almost bad acts themselves. Just walk down the street, you're guaranteed to run into someone that can't talk right, act right, or what have you. I try to judge movies based on how I can't personally dream up the offbeat characters, like they are so not someone I know or could think up, that they could be real. It isn't easy, because usually I don't like these people in person, but it really makes a movie seem real when I can stop being upset with them. But that's a good sign, when characters get an emotional reaction out of me, then I'm receiving them more like a real person. That said it's certainly possible for someone to be such a bad actor that it all falls flat and I hate them for ruining a movie - it can happen, I just try to be mindful that characters, like people, won't always be what I want.

[Rob Babcock]

That's a good point, and it's something that really irks me about the Oscars.  Some people tend to look at acting like track and field where participants can easily be ranked by some objective performance metric.  All evaluations of a performance will be subjective.  That said, it's hard to suspend disbelief when confronted with, say, Kevin Costner's disappearing-reappearing English accent in Robin Hood.

Any deep discussion of slavery is probably going to be seen as political by someone, I suppose.  But I think that any American circa 2013 can agree that there's nothing benevolent about abduction people from their homeland and shipping them overseas to work as property for another.  There's no moral or intellectual justification that can hold slavery to be anything other than repugnant to the human soul.

[wushuliu]

But I think that any American circa 2013 can agree that there's nothing benevolent about abduction people from their homeland and shipping them overseas to work as property for another.

I applaud your optimistic view, though I don't share it.

[Folsom]

When it comes to movies, I'm not seeking political affirmation with historical movies. I want the truth, because it's fascinating. Moral < Truth = how I like my history. It doesn't mean we won't see people as being moral or immoral, it just means we don't have to project our contemporary morality to reshape history. Besides the truth usually supports our interests in many ways, because we are a product of its existence, but it makes it more complicated when you have to re-context the information to a different type of society to even talk about it correctly. It's not very approachable for say elementary students, but it's more productive to accept reality as opposed to a construct to fit an agenda. There is what is, and what there is wanted to be trying to be.

Frankly as movies go we are totally getting the short end of the stick with a lot of historical films because they have such a tendency to blur with contemporary society. Films would be so much captivating to utterly defy what and how we think in many ways. You might even say that it'd be like realizing singularity hits over time, and we could experience that through film. Pretty awesome potential if you ask me 

[Rob Babcock]

Well, to hijack this a bit, the movie itself was quite wonderful.   Go see it!

[Folsom]

Well that's nice to hear.

It might a good option since I'm not really interested in Thor enough to go to a theater.

[ss397]

I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was very well done. The subject matter is of course disturbing and hard to handle. My wife cried through the entire performance, she was strongly affected by this film. A very serious film, in my opinion.

[Chazro]

Right now I'd say it's a 2-horse race for best pic AND best actor between '12 yrs...' and 'Capt. Phillips' come awards time.

[Rob Babcock]

Right now I'd say it's a 2-horse race for best pic AND best actor between '12 yrs...' and 'Capt. Phillips' come awards time.

Seriously?  No offense but I thought Captain Phillips was pretty weak.  Tom Hanks was okay but the I certainly didn't walk out of the theater thinking "Oscar".  Of course, that's how I felt about Argo and Silver Linings Playbook (which I actually walked out of), too, so maybe that bodes well for its chances!

[Folsom]

Finally got around to, and I was a little surprised. It wasn't raggedly historically inaccurate. But it did of course premier mostly the worst of slavery and little of anything else, and admitted to it as "Master Ford" said, he had a reputation for being cruel.

The master that Solomon beat, could have been shot without a concern, during those times.

But what drove me nuts was at the end they were like "then he went on to be an amazing man, who battled to better the world for African Americans" but the whole movie was just a big sap of victim, watching someone at their lowest points, feeding political determinism of "deserves". It was shot well, and made you feel different things, but overall it was pretty boring. I'd rather watch a movie on the second half of his life (I think). At least I'm comparing it to Dallas Buyers Club, where the movie is all about his accomplishments and being a total baller that did good for the world; because of the debate over best actor.

It's not a bad movie, but it sure felt like they played dress up, on a tired old dead horse. It's like a deserves good credit on everything but being a full feature film.