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

sarah paulson is just crazy good. nobody in it was bad at all except maybe pitt, who isn't exactly a bad actor but just seems like someone who's unfamiliar with the act of talking

boring oscar-bait pabulum imo.

― tell it to my arse (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:18 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh, fuck you. we have "folk heroes" saying shit like this dude, and this shit doesn't even surprise me in the slightest. we need people to make movies like this. people need to see movies like this. if some "oscar-bait" film gets a large number of people to think about 400 years of slavery that basically happened about 5 minutes ago in our history, i'm pretty happy about that.

anyways, i thought it was really good. agree with some of the criticisms upthread, especially re: brad pitt (who as an actor is just too distracting for any film) and the lack of portrayal of other slaves besides solomon and patsy. i also feel like it could've been an hour longer, for sure.

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.

this is otm, too.

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.

yea, i was certainly thinking about patsy and the others who were left behind, standing around as solomon looks back from the carriage, but i think that effect could've been made a lot more powerful if the other slaves were more developed as characters in the film.

re: solomon's lonerism, the fact that we didn't really see him interacting much with other slaves (besides patsy and the woman earlier, eliza?), was definitely somewhat of a fault. at the same time though, i kept thinking about basically all the other slaves, born into this, will die into this, and solomon has this whole other existence that he continues to have some hope of returning to even amidst moments of great despair, and that to settle into this life would to be to surender that hope. obviously that scene when he stands silent during the slaves' song but then joins shows his acceptance taht he's there and not going anywhere, and it's a rare moment and that's what made it so powerful for me, at least.

yeah the scene with him falling into (not 'breaking into' as we usually say) song is key

i find it kinda weird and sort of reprehensible that any mainstream movie that deals with any remotely serious historical subject gets dismissed as 'oscar-bait,' as if you could class this movie with something like 'the king's speech' or whatever.

i agree

also for all the criticism the pitt character gets (either b/c he's a "white savior" or b/c he's brad pitt), i kind of thought this was interesting, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/17/_12_years_a_slave_true_story_fact_and_fiction_in_mostly_accurate_movie_about.html:

Bass (Brad Pitt)

As unlikely as his character is—an abolitionist in Louisiana, and a contrarian who everyone likes—Bass is drawn straight from the book’s account. His argument with Epps (“but begging the law’s pardon, it lies,” “There will be a reckoning yet”) is reproduced almost verbatim.

The real Bass, in fact, did more for Northup, sending multiple letters on his behalf, meeting with him in the middle of the night to hear his story, and—when they initially got no response from their letters—vowing to travel up to New York himself, to secure Northup’s freedom. The process took months, and Northup’s freedom eventually came from Bass’s first letter after all, so the movie understandably chooses to elide all this.

One of ILX's most hated film directors looks due for some awards!

You can say that again,

https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/steve-mcqueen-knighthood

Most hated title not in danger.

nobody in it was bad at all except maybe pitt, who isn't exactly a bad actor but just seems like someone who's unfamiliar with the act of talking

― goole, Monday, March 24, 2014 3:58 PM

I miss goole