Never Seen It, #196 of 200: 12 Years a Slave

We're still working our way through a list of 200 movies I've never seen before. I apologize for my appearance. But I have had a difficult time these past several years.

12 Years a Slave

2013

Steve McQueen

Tough one to watch, tough one to write about. Say—what do we think the purpose of this kind of movie is? I know that feels like a stupid question to have after watching a great movie. Like, I wish sometimes I could just leave it at that, maybe like someone like my mom might: "That was good. Did you see it? We agree that's it's good? Okay then. What's next?" That seems like a nice way to go through life. Not sure why I have inflicted upon myself the burden of writing about 200 movies, and, whether I like it or not, attempting to answer questions like "why?" throughout.

I'll tell you my first thought, but I'll warn you that I dismissed it even before I finished writing this sentence. But my first thought was that maybe someone who doubts the horrors of slavery or someone who is ignorantly proud of their heritage that included slave ownership or someone who, I dunno man, who is a racist MAGA-hatted bootlicker who cheers trump on as he attempts to funnel "illegal" immigrants into concentration camps to begin the newest iteration of slavery, maybe they would benefit from a quick little viewing of 12 Years a Slave?

Stupid thought. Racism, fascism, whatever, they all require a certain amount of disconnect from reality, so I think it would be pretty simple for a racist to view 12 Years a Slave and see it as purely a historical document (or worse, historical fiction) and not something that is applicable to the real world that we exist in today. I don't think seeing a movie can movie the needle that far, basically. Maybe it gives certain people pause, but that same type of person is way less likely to engage in a Steve McQueen production anyway, so it ultimately approaches being a moot point.

I think about what Sunny said to me, many years ago: "Art is powerful in introducing new ideas, reframing old ideas, and commenting on current ideas—but none of these can change core beliefs by themselves." So this is a movie for someone like me, who believes that slavery is wrong. Okay, yes, this makes sense. An old idea is: "slavery is bad." The reframing of that old idea by 12 Years a Slave is: "slavery is really bad."

I'm only being lightly sarcastic (and only as a defense mechanism against the idea that I, a white man, could ever be an authority on any of these ideas in the first place). I think if we're asking the question "why?" then we need to consider the possibility of 12 Years a Slave existing to double-down on the core beliefs of the type of person who would be drawn to watch 12 Years a Slave in the first place. Yes, I have always had the general idea of slavery being bad (reinforced by pop culture as well as inferred from a mostly adequate education). But now that idea is rooted within me, impressed by the horrific weight of seeing it play out in full details on the movie screen in front of my eyes. Theoretically, the treatment of slaves was bad; Patsey getting the crack of the whip made it an undeniable reality.

I saw a comment on an old reddit post about 12 Years a Slave that I thought was dumb but also relevant, and I'm going to copy and paste it in full: "I liked the part when a handsome white dude showed up out of nowhere (in the third act of the film that he produced) and told everyone that they should be less racist and then everything was OK. As a white dude, it made me feel good about being a white dude because I can imagine myself saying that everyone should be less racist and then things just get better. In fact, if you ask me right now if I think people should be more racist or less, I would say less."

There's a kernel of truth there. The overall sentiment of this being an exercise in white guilt and white saviorism isn't accurate, but I think it more speaks to my own anxiety about preaching too hard about the successes of 12 Years a Slave. Was it made for someone like me to feel better about myself? Was it made so that I would feel worse? Was it made without considering white people's place in this at all? Was it made specifically for white people to feel shame? I can only speculate that it is probably all of these things. To say my usual spiel about "well, it's about the human condition" is both true and also insulting to the specific facts about the specific atrocities committed against Black people throughout our nation's history.

And in many ways, asking the questions in the first place just makes the filmmaker's job harder, too. If the quality wasn't exactly up to par for 12 Years a Slave, then certain (racist?) people might be inclined to dismiss it as a Very Special Episode About Racism. So Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiofor et al. have to bring it. They did, which is convenient, because I get to say that I fucking loved this film without coming off like a patronizing white dude.

It was just a fucking well-made film, is the thing. It was a beautiful film, all things considered. The beauty of the scenery (e.g. when Solomon takes a minute to silently admire nature) is what makes it stand out, but the juxtaposition of that beauty with the horrors it contains is what makes the film important. How many fucking minutes were we watching a still shot of Solomon silently attempt to stay on his tiptoes so that the noose doesn't choke the life out of him? It felt like a fucking eternity. I hesitate only for a moment to call a scene like this "beautiful," simply because it was also so incredibly and brutally horrifying that I don't know if I'll ever stop thinking about it. But on top of that hard and undeniable truth that it relays, can't we also say that it's a great film because of it? That it's so impactful that I can't shake the image? Can't that be the "why" for this film?

I just wrote about this for the previous movie, but I'll say it again here because I guess it's something I've been thinking about as this film project wraps up. I think my favorite movies are the ones that surprise me. Not like a literal surprise like, I dunno, the end of Sixth Sense or whatever. "Surprise" more like that the film is thrilling in the way it feels like I literally have no fucking clue where it's going to go next. (Also not saying that that is the ONLY qualification for a film being a "favorite," but I'm saying that it's definitely one of them.) If we're going to ask the question of "what is the purpose of 12 Years a Slave?" then I don't think that the answer is going to be "to surprise us."

It didn't surprise me because I knew, just based on the subject matter alone, that it was going to be a gruesome, terrifying look at a very real horror that really, actually happened (the "Based on a True Story" qualifier at the beginning was probably unnecessary to everyone besides the most cretinous racists). If I didn't want that type of movie, then I would have not watched (or not added it to the list, I guess). But I wanted it. It's important to feel emotions like disgust about atrocities for which "disgust" cannot even begin to cover. A great film makes you feel those emotions strongly, and I felt 'em here. But I always knew that that's how it was gonna go.

So what is the purpose of a film like 12 Years a Slave? I suppose the purpose is to make you feel strongly. Literally feel your emotions, make them palpable. There are so many other discussion points that can spawn from such a movie as this (if this were the beginning of NSI instead of the end, I'd have the energy to list them all in this space), but ultimately, they all come back to the fact that this film made me feel my emotions viscerally. It is a story that I knew but didn't know like this. This is the purpose, and it achieved its purpose, and that's why it's a great movie.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: Four left. Spike Lee is back for an encore NSI appearance with 25th Hour. No idea what it's about, let's find out.