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N o vem b er 6. 2013
Page 11
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Alberta
North Portland
O pinionated
J udge
Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northup in the new film ‘1 2 Years a Slave. '
12 years
Focused and realistic film
enriches a neglected truth
It's hard to imagine a film that the
world needs more profoundly than "12
Years a Slave."
For the first time -1 5 0 years after the
abolition of American slavery -- a major
motion picture devotes focused and re­
alistic attention to an American slave
narrative, without mitigating the story
with a white hero or cheapening it with
overly easy, dramatic resolutions of the
problems served up by that story. It’s the
most important film to be released this
year and a master class in how film can
enrich and deepen understanding of a
neglected subject.
The film is based on an actual memoir
that was briefly a bestseller after its
original publication in 1853 before fading
into obscurity. In that memoir, Solomon
Northup (who was born free and lived
PHOTO COURTESY F o x / S e ARCHLIGHT
Slave
with his wife and two children in upstate
New York), describes the circumstances
under which he was kidnapped and held
in slavery in Louisiana for 12 years.
The memoir was published around the
same time as "Uncle Tom's Cabin"— but,
chances are, you've never heard of it,
though you've likely heard of the more
sentimental and far less insightful "Uncle
Tom." We Americans seem to have little
appetite for Northup's type of truth­
telling.
The film ’s British director Steve
McQueen (who is of West Indian de­
scent) has said that he is attracted to
neglected stories that have not managed
?
to find the audience they deserve. That
description certainly fits Northup's story.
An educated African-American who
came to slavery only after having lived to
adulthood as a free man, Northup appar­
ently brought a quality of consciousness
to his experiences that enabled him to
narrate slavery's effects on his humanity
with remarkable insight.
Helped by an insightful screenplay,
McQueen's unsparing direction, and an
intense performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor,
the movie depicts not only slavery's physi­
cal brutality, but also its psychological
continued
on page 18