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.
― Walter Galt, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 12:22 (ten years ago) link
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.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 26 February 2014 19:52 (ten years ago) link
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
― Murgatroid, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 01:26 (ten years ago) link
Hoberman: http://harpers.org/archive/2014/03/here-there-is-no-why/
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 02:16 (ten years ago) link
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."
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 17:21 (ten years ago) link
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
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 17:29 (ten years ago) link
oh I see Hoberman's essay is a continuation of his American cultural studies.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 17:30 (ten years ago) link
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/
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 21:00 (ten years ago) link
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!
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 21:08 (ten years ago) link
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.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 21:24 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 21:44 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
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).
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:04 (ten years ago) link
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."
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:09 (ten years ago) link
I think even those ambivalent about the mice would have to agree with that.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:11 (ten years ago) link
Movie. Not mice. Movie.
mice?
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:11 (ten years ago) link
xpost
HA
i thought you were making some really deep reference to "babe"
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:12 (ten years ago) link
I agree, and expect that is entirely a coincidence. xxxxp
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:12 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:13 (ten years ago) link
I was gonna say "best since The Hurt Locker"
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:14 (ten years ago) link
"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?!?!
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:15 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:18 (ten years ago) link
I'm still fond of The Hurt Locker but I haven't seen it a second time.
I've watched NCFOM a second time.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:18 (ten years ago) link
xxp you should see Kevin costner's student films
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:19 (ten years ago) link
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!!!!).
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:20 (ten years ago) link
"hurt locker," pfffff. not even near bigelow's best work,
it isn't but is near the top of Best Picture winners.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:20 (ten years ago) link
to me that just means "not near Near Dark."
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:23 (ten years ago) link
serious question though (re. is mcqueen the first experimental filmmaker to go on and win a best picture oscar?!?!)
i wouldn't put it near the top at all, not when you've got
7th heavenit happened one nightrebeccahow green was my valley (best win ever)casablancagoing my waythe lost weekendbest years of our lives (2nd best?)an american in parisgigithe apartment...this is about when things take a turn for the dire... but there's still:pattonthe godfatherrockysilence of the lambs
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:24 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:25 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:26 (ten years ago) link
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
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:27 (ten years ago) link
Gigi? Oy.
Anyway.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:27 (ten years ago) link
gigi isn't the best of the best but it's an excellent movie!
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:28 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:30 (ten years ago) link
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.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:30 (ten years ago) link
I liked it! Kael wouldn't have seen anything with "Steve McQueen" in the credits.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:32 (ten years ago) link
Let's follow am's advice and confine Oscar chatter to this thread: vote for the best Oscar-winning Best Pictures of all time
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:33 (ten years ago) link
yes, fine
haven't done my rewatch yet, so that's all i got
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:34 (ten years ago) link
You can always put that ...
pattonrockysilence of the lambs
... where your heart ought to be.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:35 (ten years ago) link
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)
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:39 (ten years ago) link
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.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 22:45 (ten years ago) link
btw we all know John Ridley wrote and directed the imminent Hendrix movie starring Andre Benjamin?
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 7 March 2014 17:32 (ten years ago) link
Is it called 12 Minutes A Solo?
― Virginia, Plain and Tall (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 7 March 2014 17:47 (ten years ago) link
No, that's the title of the Yngwie Malmsteen biopic
― Quinoa Phoenix (latebloomer), Friday, 7 March 2014 17:51 (ten years ago) link
So what is the rift between Ridley and McQueen about? Yes, as reported by The Wrap, McQueen did discuss sharing the screenplay credit with Ridley, who told me that he would have shared the story by credit if he could with McQueen, with Ridley taking sole screenplay credit. He had settled for a story by credit once before, when writer-director David O. Russell took the screenplay credit on "Three Kings." No rancor there anymore, as Ridley gave Russell, and not McQueen, a hug on the way to the Oscar podium. (Ridley also hugged "12 Years" producer Dede Gardner, who developed the script with him.)
Ridley explains that when a screenwriter adapts a memoir, the Writers Guild of America won't permit a story by credit--in this case, Solomon Northup wrote the true story that the movie is based on. As Ridley wrote the first draft for Plan B (on spec), it would be difficult for a director like McQueen to get a shared Screenplay By credit, which would require a WGA arbitration. "For both of us, I would have been happy to have Story By credit," says Ridley. "Steve never tried to get an arbitration. A lot of people assume we wrote the script together every day for four years. The reality is that Steve lives in Amsterdam and I live in Los Angeles. We met a dozen times at most. I can't say in all honesty that Steve and I had an opportunity to become super tight. It starts to bother me when the story becomes that we didn't give each other foot massages. Steve was never not deferential to me and I hope I always expressed admiration for him, the cast and crew. Steve did a lot for me. I don't know if Steve is upset. We got to have our moment. It was a beautiful moment for us."
Ridley points out that he thanked McQueen many times over the season, including the Independent Spirits the day before the Oscars, and that on the Academy Awards show, many folks omitted any mention of who wrote their movies. "We should have equal concern for people who did not get their due," he says. "People included me in this. I never got the sense that I should go stand in the corner." Ridley kept his 30-second speech short on Oscar night, thanking Solomon Northup. (Truth be told he was relieved that he didn't cry, something he tends to do.)
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/12-years-a-slave-oscar-winner-john-ridley-talks-rift-with-steve-mcqueen
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 10 March 2014 16:49 (ten years ago) link