A negro musician in 1981 is drugged kidnapped and sold into slavery. Director Steve McQueen and actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender throw you headfirst into the pits of hell that would unbearable if it never actually defined the American slave trade.
CONNOR BURTON AND DAVID GLANTZ
Specials to The Leader
That is right; “12 Years a Slave” is a knockout, the best picture of 2013, and is easily the best movie to depict American slavery in movie history.
British actor Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a violin player who lives as a free man with his family in Saratoga, New York. He gets tricked into a job in Washington D.C, where he is then drugged and winds up as a slave in the south.
Taking Solomon Northup’s memoir and transferring it to the big screen seems like a daunting task. McQueen, an African American artist who was born in London, has not just taken what is to be considered one of the darkest times in American history and put it on film, but he is able to drop the audience head first into the utter disarray and brutality of this time period that people do not truly understand. His filmography which consists of two very tough but interesting films, 2008’s “Hunger” and 2011’s “Shame,” but “12 Years a Slave” is by far his masterpiece and will be throughout his entire career.
McQueen allows us to follow Northup through every treacherous step that he endures, from the beginning where he is renamed when being sold by a slave trader played by a great Paul Giamatti. Though he is in the film briefly, he gave off an evil charm that began the descent into a disturbing history. All the way until he becomes a free man again, Ejiofor’s Northrup allows us to feel the pain and suffering his character must go through in this two-and-half-hour journey we are taken on.
There are two scenes in particular in which McQueen will hold the shots without any sort of cuts that will leave with you a punch to the gut, and they add a whole new visceral effect to the film. This is some masterful filming by a truly talented filmmaker.
While Ejiofor gives the performance for the ages, the film features an excellent supporting cast including Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt and Paul Dano. Each actor delivered powerful performances, even with some only being given several minutes of screen time.
Michael Fassbender is particularly incredible as he gave a disturbing and brutal performance as Edwin Epps, a slave owner who serves as the main antagonist for Solomon. It is an incredible performance in which Fassbender is able to tap into a dark and disturbing mindset of a slave owner with a brutal truth. Having worked with McQueen on his other two films, it is obvious that when the two work together, cinematic greatness follows.
“12 Years A Slave” is an absolute masterpiece that will be a major contender this awards season. Not only is it an absolutely brilliant film, but it is also an incredible depiction of a piece of this country’s darkest history. It is a great and important film that will come to be regarded as a classic work of cinema.