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

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?