Public discourses on the black experience have been reignited again, gaining such momentum on the historic theatres of guilt and shame. Such discussions are mostly activated into public consciousness through tragic events, such as the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida and the controversial killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. However, this time it is Hollywood that has got us all talking. Steven McQueen’s choice this year to fill our palate with something less repugnant yet disturbing in his new film, 12 Years a Slave, has turned the focus back on the experiences of human tragedy.
The movie is based on the autobiography of Solomon Northurp, a free man from upstate New York, who was abducted and sold into slavery pre-Civil War America. Its 44 year-old black British director urged the movie industry to extend the same weight of concern shown towards the holocaust experience to slavery. He told sky news: “The second world war lasted five years and there are hundreds and hundreds of films about the second world war and the Holocaust. Slavery lasted 400 years and there are less than 20 [films]. We have to redress that balance and look at that time in history”.
For as long as we can all remember, the Jewish experience was and has been undeniably the greatest tragedy in the history of man/womankind if Hollywood is any yardstick. Therefore it is somewhat refreshing to have other tales of inhumanity brought to our screens. And yet some question McQueen’s suitability for this historic project.
Thirty years ago, the screening of Alex Haley’s novel, Roots, send ripples across black Britannia. Kwame Kwei-Armah, formerly known as Ian Roberts, told the BBC: “It was a moment that changed my life. By the end of the series, I had told my mother that I would one day trace my heritage back to Africa and reclaim an ancestral name. Before I watched the programme I was called Ian Roberts but now my name is Kwame Kwei-Armah “.
Lenny Henry, the black British comedian, once remarked that the show was a source of pride for many black people. Roots even acquired a delinquent panache, making an entry into urban myth as the provocateur of the Brixton riots. 12 Years a Slave, however, falls short of such approbation, and seems dim in its spirit of protest. The film has either caused disbelief or disappointment. For most Guardian readers, the film is sombre, cold, chilling and exposes the grim horrors of injustice underlying Western privilege. As one guardian commentator puts it: “The dirty open secret in the history of Western prosperity”.
The film’s harrowing charm stems from its kaleidoscopic portrayal of the complexion of the system of slavery. Michael Fassbender’s character Epps, the sadistic slave master who treats his slaves as instruments of his sick pleasures, whims and fancies, reveals the pathology of the institution and laws supporting the degeneracy of the human soul. Also, from the worried countenance of Mr Ford, played by Cumberbatch – a reluctant slave master who seem to yield to the conventions and practices of the institution as a principle of law rather an article of faith, we come learn about the inherent moral paradox pertaining to this cruel system that violates the humanity of black men whilst demanding the complicity of honest white men. Nonetheless, some managed to maintain a sparkle of righteousness as they dared to go against the grain.
The Canadian traveller, Bass, played by Brad Pitt, took upon himself the burden of facilitating the restitution of Solomon’s freedom. It is also through this character that the fundamental lesson enshrouded in the ghastly misadventure of Solomon is unveiled. He presents to us the dialectical dilemma between universal truth and Justice, and concludes that “what is true and right is right for all”. This important message which still holds relevance today, seems to have to been lost in the mist of rowdy rebuff and dissonance peddled by disgruntled critics who would have liked 12 Years a Slave to be another vile, fictitious mock-up of the black experience like Django Unchained, or who felt that it lacked that incendiary spirit to feed their psychopathological fantasies of revenge.
Alan White, writing for the New York Film Critic, described the movie as “a horror show that belongs to the torture porn genre”. Alan should have cared to acquaint himself with the text, which in fact records some of the most gripping and harrowing experiences of slavery. According to Adam Rothman, professor of history at Georgetown University, McQueen’s representation of Solomon’s experience on the plantation is slightly tempered compared to actual records of his life as a slave. However, the renowned African American scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jnr, told Andrew Anthony of the Guardian that the film is “the most vivid and authentic portrayal of American slavery ever captured on screen”.
In my view, 12 Years a Slave is the closest we have come to capturing the essence of the slave experience on screen; unlike other slave narratives, such as Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which presents to us a docile downtrodden protagonist whose response to the moral depravity of slavery is love. Like Jesus, he even seeks God’s forgiveness and kindness for his malefactors – just too good to be true. At the same time, McQueen’s film does not capitulate to the revolutionary ethic that frantically thirsts for black heroism. Instead, it pieces together all the different elements of a slave society and demonstrates how dreadfully the subjugated slave had to negotiate his way towards freedom. Our protagonist, played by British-born Nigerian, Chiwetel Ejiofor, was not cut from the same cloth as Uncle Tom. Neither does he exalt an orgy of violent rebellion, but rather employs the most rational and instinctive act of quotidian forms of resistance, such as double talk, flattery, and deceit to subvert authority.
Quite frankly, there is no one that I can think of that was better placed to bring this subject back on the screen than brazen, straight-cutting director Steven McQueen. He is constantly disrupting our polite sensibilities and fragile social pretensions by subjecting us to the morbid, revolting and dark entrails of the human experience; often deemed as too vulgar for public consumption as evidenced by his other works, Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011). His mastery over the camera is remarkable. In this film, he maintains a powerful visual – navigating the camera at close range to strike an intimate bond between viewer and subject. He also magnificently weaves the vastness and sounds of the tamed wilderness into the narrative, engendering an unsettling eerie feel throughout the film. The scenes of violence are thrown at us unapologetically with a ferocious flair set to upset our sense of contentment with the now. With all its misgiving, dissatisfaction and unpleasantness, the film has at least got many committing the hitherto faux pas of talking about a subject which, in public discourses, has long been regarded as almost taboo. It also subtly makes an argument for a robust form of social and political equality and fairness that rises above the status quo and accepted customs or norms both within and outside the movie industry.
Thanks to the film, the book 12 Years a Slave, written by Solomon Northurp, is now back in print and copies can be picked up from any of the major book retailers.
