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

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.