Photo Credit: Photo Jaap Buitendijk, via IMDB.
We saw 12 Years a Slave late in the game, after its universal acclaim and Oscar buzz had already established it as A Movie You Are Supposed to Adore.
The central story — a free man, abducted from his home, is thrust into slavery in the Confederate South — is compelling. The cinematography is exquisite. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance is heart-breaking.
Two things:
1) Director Steve McQueen (no, not *that* Steve McQueen) portrays the brutality of slavery (the beatings, the whippings, the psychological torture) in exquisite detail. I understand the veracity of this, and I know the function these scenes are meant to play in the story.
That said: American television and movies are becoming more and more obsessed with graphic depictions of torture. I simply can’t stomach it. I quit watching 24 because I didn’t care to be “entertained” by Jack Bower peeling people’s fingernails back to drive confessions, and I quit watching The Following because I didn’t care to be “entertained” by the Cruel and Painful Psychopathic Killing of the Week.
In 12 Years, at least three scenes forced me to look away for extended periods of time. I don’t think McQueen intends these scenes to be entertaining, but, that said, there are simply some things I don’t wish to funnel into my subconscious mind. The intensity, graphic nature, and duration of those sequences goes beyond what was needed to support the story.
2) With the possible exception of the character depicted by Benedict Cumberbach, every single Southerner portrayed in this film appears to be inbred, insane, incapable of even a shred of human decency — or all three.
While this makes for some pretty tasty on-screen villainy, this one-note approach doesn’t ring true in either the historical or the cinematic sense. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not a “Southern Apologist,” desperately claiming that many plantation owners were good-hearted souls who treated their slaves with dignity and affection. I know the history.
For the same reasons I doubt all Southerners were models of love and grace, I doubt all of them were embodiments of Pure Evil. A more nuanced portrayal of while people in the Old South might not serve this film’s agenda as well, but would certainly feel more authentic.
Is 12 Years a good film? Yes, absolutely. And with just a little more reserve and balance, it could have been a great one.
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