Dispatches from the Popcorn Stadium: Twelve Years a Slave

I seriously considered not using my regular title for this feature on this one. The juxtaposition of the lighthearted Futurama reference with a film like Twelve Years a Slave is awkward and unintentionally humorous. However, I've used it for every one of my previous reviews, some of which were of fairly serious films, so it stays nonetheless.

So what do I mean by that clunky introduction? Just that Twelve Years a Slave is a great film, but also a very serious film. At times it feels like you are watching a contest to see which recognizable actor can be the most awful to the protagonist, or to his fellow slaves. Whether its the casual sleaziness of Paul Giamatti's slave trader, the cowardly bullying of Paul Dano, or the jealous rage of Sarah Paulson to one of her husband's favored slaves, a young woman named Patsey, it's hard to watch. Even some of the less terrible characters, such as Benedict Cumberbatch's gentle and relatively fair slaveowner, are awful in a completely different way, simply because they are willing participants in the "peculiar institution" of slavery.

Of course, the worst of the bunch is Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). The drunk, lecherous, and generally cruel man is terrifying, mainly because you are not sure what he is going to do. Granted, as I was familiar with the story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, in a brilliant performance), I realized that he was going to survive whatever misfortunes he would have. That doesn't change the fact it was tough to watch him go through the indignities of the situation.

There are many painful scenes to watch in this film, scenes that make the pain and cruelty of slavery so vivid, despite the fact that it's constitutional legitimacy and legal standing have been gone in the United States for over 150 years. In fact it feels right at home with the oratory and literature put forth by the abolitionists during the run up to the Civil War. If there was some weird world where cinema and the Antebellum United States coexisted, I could see outraged southerners burning this film and threatening to destroy any theater willing to show it, while the abolitionists from Boston to Lawrence proclaiming its God-given virtue.

I highly recommend that you go watch this film, if it is playing somewhere you can watch it. If not, I recommend you rent it, stream it, or buy it as soon as it comes out on DVD, Netflix, etc... It's a film that should be watched by everyone to not forget the horribleness and degradation of both slave, master, and those who were willing to support, or at least unwilling to stand up against, this most undemocratic of practices.

* For more cinematic information on this story, you can make a decent trilogy out of this film, Glory, and Lincoln.