A Time of Reckoning

Historical trauma. A lot more people will understand the concept once they have seen Steve McQueen’s remarkable movie Twelve Years a Slave.  The film brilliantly takes the viewer to the pre-civil war south in the United States as we accompany the black freeman Solomon Northrup who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in New Orleans in 1841. This is an autobiography, something that is impressed in your heart as you watch the brutality, the torture and inhumanity he and all other black men, women and children are subjected to by the slave owners and overseers of the cotton and sugar cane plantations in which Northrup is forced to survive. This is certainly Steve McQueen’s oeuvre and what a great one it is!  Not only has he created a movie that is visually stunning and artistically directed, where not a single shot is wasted, but he has brought history to life. This is a movie that should be used in history classes when dealing with the issue of slavery, something that would certainly help further the understanding of historical trauma as the United States continues to struggle against racial discrimination.

It is quite an experience to watch this movie in a southern state of the United States. It is impossible not to be aware that the spectators, black and white, are the descendants of enslaved people or of slave-owners. It was also a consolation to see many viewers, of all races, crying. It is no surprise that the film moves audiences to tears, McQueen is surrounded by strong talent in his story telling; he has chosen well. Sean Bobbit’s cinematography is majestic, whether we’re seeing the trees at dusk over a swamp, the rotating wheels of the riverboat cutting through the water (what great visual metaphors!), or watching the changing expressions of despair in Northrup’s eyes. The same has to be said of Hans Zimmer’s score. His music is eclectic, moving and creative to perfection. Sometimes it is silence broken only by chimes or violin solos; at others it is a full, heart reaching theme; the film also includes pieces of western classical and American folk. Overall, the music does not drive the emotions, but accompanies them.

Ejiofor and Fassbender

McQueen has also chosen his cast well and the actors give of their best performances. Four stood out to me in particular: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, Adepero Oduye and Michael Fassbender. We already knew that McQueen can bring out the best in Michael Fassbender. They have worked together before. In McQueen’s Shame Fassbender was brilliant playing a tortured man struggling with sex addiction; in Hunger, he was Bobby Sands, leading an IRA hunger strike. Here he is Edwin Epps, a heartless self-indulging plantation and slave owner. His acting is great. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northrup and he is someone to watch! There is not an ounce of over-acting here, though the part could well have led a less serious actor to just that. He uses facial expressions and his eyes to speak the unspeakable. His heartbreak is in his face, as is his amazing compassion and humanity. He is all that Edwin Epps is not, which is what leads for the latter to hate him all the more. 

Lupita Nyong'o and Chiwetel Ejiofor

Two enslaved women cross Solomon’s path and burry themselves into his soul: first Eliza, also abducted, whose children are sold to other slave owners, and then Patsey, enslaved alongside him and the tragic victim of Epps’s lunatic desire. Adepero Oduye plays Eliza and though she’s not in the movie for any extended time, her howling cries linger long into the story; Oduye is very good. But it is Lupita Nyong'o, who plays Patsey, who will deserve the acting awards, if there is any rhyme or reason to awards. The scene between Nyong’o and Ejiofor, where she is making her singular request –which I will not reveal so as not to spoil the viewing- speaks volumes to the human misery that was slavery. How can a society recover from such tragedy and disgrace?

Adepero  Oduye as Eliza

It took a war among brothers to end such an abysmal and inhumane system as was slavery in the United States. It took men like Solomon Northrup, who went on to work with the Underground Railroad, to further advance the cause of racial integration; men full of humanity and kindness, the true Christians in this story.

We are now at a time when the United States is led by a black President. Yet, as another great film this year reminds us, Fruitvale Station (see post A Day in the Life), even today black youth are still shot for no other reason than for being black. These states have come a long way from the times of Solomon Northrup, but we are still at a time of reckoning. We still dream, along with Dr. King, “that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”