To call
12 Years a SlaveOscar-bait is an insult, reducing it to little more than another star-studded biopic. True, it's both star-studded and a biopic. Still, director Steve McQueen's adaptation of Solomon Northup's autobiography of the same name goes beyond these simplistic descriptions. In its essence, this film is a study in human nature, and what it means to survive.
The premise is exactly as the title suggests: Solomon Northup, portrayed by Chiwitel Ejiofor, is a free black man living in the North until he's kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South, first under the relatively merciful William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), but later under the sadistic, violent Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). This summary can't even begin to do justice to the atrocities Northup suffers under slavery. Yet somehow, the film does.
The film moves forward steadily, showing the horrors Northup experiences without either heavy-handedness or weakness. This narrative rhythm becomes overt in the film's soundscape; many scenes feature slave chants, the repetitive sounds of axes, driving drums, or other background sound effects such as a boat's thumping paddlewheel. Even the cracking of whips forms a constant beat. The moments of silence allow us to breathe, creating pauses where the previous scenes and horrors truly sink in. But even these quieter segments are harshly powerful, drawing their strength from details: the gazes between Northup and his fellow slaves, or the shadows cast by a hangman's rope.
The film also refuses to revel in the violence inherent to such a narrative. Whippings and beatings are frequent occurrences, but often we're shown the victims' faces or bodies contorting in pain, rather than the blood and bruises they sustain. In doing so, the film shifts the focus away from the violence and onto its human consequences. In one horrific scene, Northup is strung up and nearly killed by an overseer who wants him dead. However, once his persecutors are driven off, he is left dangling, toes barely skimming the ground, for several hours. Instead of close-ups, we see his body silhouetted against the changing sky, and we're left to imagine his suffering from the slight jerks and twists he makes in keeping his feet touching the ground beneath him. The only truly gory scene is when a fellow slave, Patsy (Lupita Nyong'o), is sentenced to a public whipping, which flays her skin and leaves her with a network of bloody lines. The camera doesn't linger, but it doesn't shy away from showing the raw flesh of her back. The blood serves to underscore the viciousness of Master Epps, who now has not only raped and controlled Patsey, but publicly tortured and humiliated her.
As Patsy, Nyong'o is one of the breakout stars of the film. She plays a young woman who has been dealt a terrible hand—enslaved, female, the subject of both the master's "affections" and the mistress's hatred. Nyong'o uses her eyes especially to convey her deeply soulful torment, drawing them carefully blank when Epps molests her, but allowing us to see her vivacity when she, in a moment of free time, crafts a handful of corn-husk dolls. Fassbender as Epps is also remarkable, representing the snarling, hateful sort of person that slavery as an institution breeds. He doesn't just own them for his livelihood—he truly believes that they are chattel.
In the end, though, Ejiofor is the star, and with good reason. He brilliantly paints us, within the first few minutes, a picture of Northup's free life—a wife, two kids, musical talent, steady work—and spends the rest of the film showing us what happens when that picture is slashed to pieces. We see his descent into depression as his situation begins to sink in, and his struggle to survive. Ejiofor shifts from determination to despair, as Northup accepts the reality of his life and what is necessary.
