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View Full Version : 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)



Ezee E
09-01-2013, 03:50 PM
IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/?ref_=sr_1)

Mal
09-22-2013, 06:29 AM
I wasn't enthusiastic afterwards, but overall this entire movie felt fulfilling, like a new, more serious leaf being turned as far as what filmmaking has to say about history- without asking too much of the audience. McQueen's direction is so stellar and Ejiofor's performance is at the same level. The ending had me in tears, which doesn't happen often for me.

Pop Trash
11-09-2013, 06:01 AM
Tears tell no lie. I can't deny this film affected me more than Shame. The waterworks started happening around the time Solomon destroyed his violin. Something about that symbolic moment (which also dovetailed with the previous destruction of the letter he was writing) really brought it all home for me. Not sure if Ejiofor's performance or McQueen's direction is really what made me feel like being struck by an emotional bowling ball, but either way it doesn't matter: it worked.

Rowland
11-09-2013, 07:57 PM
I agree with an observation I read elsewhere that this has too tidy of a "produced by Brad Pitt"-quality to it (and his scenes are dreadful), but I was surprised by how entertained I was by something trying so hard to make me feel miserable (credit McQueen's aestheticization). I wasn't moved to full-blown tears at any given point, but I did laugh when Fassbender showed up barefoot in a loose white robe cradling a black child like a kitten. Lee Daniels' The Butler was better.

Bosco B Thug
11-09-2013, 09:32 PM
Barbed and ironical (like underplaying a stabbing and reserving emphatic dollying for the unlikeable undersexed plantation wife). And oh so fussy.

eternity
11-11-2013, 11:40 PM
It hardly ever amounts to anything more than "Look at how awful slavery is!" but it doesn't have to. Good work all around.

plain
11-16-2013, 03:32 PM
Thought this was pretty solid, Hunger is my still my favorite from McQueen but this didn't disappoint. Modes and malfunctions of institutional evil and anger all processed through a damaged and resilient fish out of water perspective. Would like to echo Keith Uhlich's thoughts on the film in that "Imagination is still required to portray the worst aspects of mankind—you can show the actions full detail, but the real artist also confronts you with the nooks and crannies of the psyche that would inflict such beatings, such unspeakable physical and mental torture." He's spot on here, but the big moments in the film did resonate for me as I was reduced to tears several times. Is it a masterpiece? Definitely not, but McQueen's craft pushes this to horrific and sobering spots. Pitt and Dano do stick out like sore thumbs; the former is a bigger problem for me as his dialogue resembles some pretty blatant grandstanding late in the film. A lot of images will surely stick with me though despite the film not always working in the way Uhlich suggests: a letter burning; Ejiofor breaking the fourth wall; a destroyed violin, etc.

wigwam
11-21-2013, 09:21 PM
:|

Henry Gale
11-25-2013, 02:14 AM
This is very good, I was just a bit out of it when I saw it, and my biggest thoughts during at least the first third were about how much more alert and awake I hoped I was and also how distracting Zimmer's score was in how it not only ripped off so many of his old scores (whether it was the key Inception melodies re-used as a melancholy themes or Pirates-esque intensely pulsating cues during violent bits here) but also how it gave the impression of not trusting the foundation of the story to resonate in the unfamiliar, unique way McQueen presented it rather than enhancing it. Once I eased into things and the music became less overbearing to the emotions on visual display, it's brimming with stuff that's more than strong.

But I do feel like as highly praised as it is, I need to express my issues with it that seem to be reflected in others' takes. As much as I feel it pulls off the core of its journey, I felt it rushed into everything far too quickly, almost immediately thrusting its chronology towards the horrific, even before much of its time period and the emotional temperature of it were sternly established to give a contrast to the rest of what was to transpire, especially when it came to giving weight to Northup's life with his family before his enslavement.

Not to mention it's always going to be a difficult task for any live-action filmmaker to convey a period of over a decade on film with actors that don't age much more than a few months in real life in front of the camera, but the general pacing and perceived barometer of each new dissent closer into complete despair never exactly felt as if it was approaching even half of the twelve years of its title. Once Brad Pitt showed up, I thought, "Oh, we're already here in the story?", which I realize was not what the intended effect of being a viewer subjected to what had transpired even not too long before it.

It was not a tough watch for the reasons I expected. I assumed I would be completely, helplessly overwhelmed by everything it depicted, but my biggest struggle while in the theatre was trying to find a consistent way to fully immerse myself into the proceeding, no matter how deeply upsetting it may have been. But many key, devastating, quietly and lengthily held pieces are what ultimately operate as gorgeously crafted milestones to the film to really tie everything together.

So mostly rough thoughts here, and overly negative-sounding than I want them to be, especially since I know some of them might completely change after I see it all again, but there was a definite itch of disappointment at the end of what was otherwise an effortlessly on-the-mark and often incredible display of reaffirmed talent, particularly from McQueen, Ejiofor, Fassbender, Bobbitt and even less established members of the ensemble like Nyong'o and screenwriter Ridley, fueling an absolutely essential and extraordinary story for American history and modern culture going forward.

I have no problems with it becoming most people's film of the year, I just wish it was as easier for it to be my own.

Duncan
12-06-2013, 05:53 PM
Well, the scenes with Pitt were a tremendous misstep, but otherwise a very fine, powerful film. I admired both its efficiency and patience. Efficiency in the sense that its editing is ruthless when dealing with plot developments (which probably provokes some of the criticisms about it feeling rushed). Patience in the sense that it is willing to linger on images of grace or heartbreak.

Paul Dano seems born to be beaten for cartharsis.

Ezee E
12-07-2013, 03:28 AM
A lot of people don't like the Pitt scenes. Is it because of the casting of Pitt? The long hair decision? I'm not seeing it myself.

Derek
12-07-2013, 03:57 AM
A lot of people don't like the Pitt scenes. Is it because of the casting of Pitt? The long hair decision? I'm not seeing it myself.

I think the film does such an effective job at not sympathizing with or justifying the actions of any of the white characters throughout that Pitt's humanism and even-headedness come almost as a shock. Some people seem to hold it against him for taking that self-laudatory role when he's one of the producers, but that's a bit of a silly complaint. Perhaps he's a tad too angelic, but he functioned well as a stark contrast to extremity of the Old South's entrenched racism. It's one of the weaker parts of the film only because it doesn't play to McQueen's strengths as a deeply materialistic filmmaker as his outrage plays out more effectively in the brutal physicality of the first 2 acts.

Pop Trash
12-07-2013, 12:33 PM
A lot of people don't like the Pitt scenes. Is it because of the casting of Pitt? The long hair decision? I'm not seeing it myself.

It's really not his best performance either. The accent is pretty Aldo Raine. I find it totally forgivable because from what I've read, the film might have not been made at all had they not been able to say 12 Years a Slave STARRING BRAD PITT! I enjoy the character for the reasons Derek stated plus he's obviously an integral part of this true story.

Dead & Messed Up
12-20-2013, 06:14 AM
The parts of this film that worked worked so goddamn well that the parts that didn't feel only slightly irritating. The most frustrating element to me was popular character actors taking small roles (Giamatti, Woodard, Dano, and Pitt), which felt intrusive. Fassbender is about as big a name at this point, but his role is given time to cook. By the end, the actor's become the character, and it's not Fass's face I'm looking at. He and Ejiofor do some stunning work here, the standout sequence for me being the unbearable whipping scene late in the film, where Solomon's uncertainty over his place receives the cruelest possible test. That test - along with all the other impossible choices he must face - recalls The Grey Zone, another historical film that asked its viewers to consider how "the right thing to do" breaks down in the moral swamps of authoritarian, systematized cruelty.

number8
12-22-2013, 03:07 PM
The most frustrating element to me was popular character actors taking small roles (Giamatti, Woodard, Dano, and Pitt), which felt intrusive.

Yeah, that was incredibly distracting. Some people in my theater were audibly bewildered that Michael K. Williams showed up and then immediately got stabbed. What is this, Anchorman?

It's McQueen's best, but I think overall I just really don't jibe with the way he tells stories. It's like he's incapable of articulating drama without sending his main character to a torturous gutter. I know it's been said that this is his most sentimental film and that's being blaming on Pitt's guidance, but hell, it's an improvement to me.

Watashi
12-24-2013, 02:32 AM
Yeah, this was gut-wrenching, waterworks-inducing stuff. I thought some of the dialogue was a bit too poetic, but Ejiofor's fourth-wall breaking moment is absolutely harrowing. Loved Zimmer's score as well.

Qrazy
01-02-2014, 08:35 AM
I thought the script for this was terrible. It's like they made a check list of all the conceptually abstracted roles blacks and whites (and natives!) played in the time period (the subservient groups, the uncle tom's, the religious fanatics, the pure of heart northern, etc) and all the various types of suffering endured (this is where he walks past two people in the process of being hanged, this is when he's made to whip a fellow slave) and then made their way down the list.

There are some decent shots because Sean Bobbitt is no slouch and the performances are solid if often melodramatic. I'm glad films are being made about slavery these days but this didn't strike me as an especially enlightening perspective on the period.

Qrazy
01-02-2014, 08:37 AM
A lot of people don't like the Pitt scenes. Is it because of the casting of Pitt? The long hair decision? I'm not seeing it myself.

His performance wasn't all that interesting (especially contrasted with Fassbender's) but mostly it's because that character's lines are absurdly didactic. It's a terribly written scene.

number8
01-02-2014, 04:49 PM
"Mr. Epps, I just believe that it is fundamentally wrong for a person to own another, and that as a fundamental truth, laws would change one day to say that it would not be legal to do so. I also believe that one day there will be a black man who will take these beliefs of mine and proclaim that dream to all men, perhaps a million of them, and people will listen, and recite that dream. And that one day a little black boy will take that dream to heart and propel himself to be the leader of this country. I am a believer, as well, of the truth that one day these slaves of yours will rule the world of music, and create whole new genres of them."

Watashi
01-02-2014, 04:54 PM
I thought the script for this was terrible. It's like they made a check list of all the conceptually abstracted roles blacks and whites (and natives!) played in the time period (the subservient groups, the uncle tom's, the religious fanatics, the pure of heart northern, etc) and all the various types of suffering endured (this is where he walks past two people in the process of being hanged, this is when he's made to whip a fellow slave) and then made their way down the list.

There are some decent shots because Sean Bobbitt is no slouch and the performances are solid if often melodramatic. I'm glad films are being made about slavery these days but this didn't strike me as an especially enlightening perspective on the period.

Racist.

ledfloyd
01-02-2014, 10:46 PM
I agree the Pitt and Fassbender scene could've used another pass or two, but on the whole this is a really impressive piece of work.

number8
01-07-2014, 05:15 PM
Heh.
(http://variety.com/2014/film/news/12-years-a-slave-director-steve-mcqueen-heckled-at-new-york-critics-circle-awards-1201032911/)

The 79th annual New York Film Critics Circle Awards turned awkward on Monday night when CityArts editor Armond White started to heckle director Steve McQueen.

McQueen had just accepted his prize for “12 Years a Slave,” presented by Harry Belafonte, when the interruption broke out.

As soon as McQueen took the stage, White started shouting from his table at the back of the room. “You’re an embarrassing doorman and garbage man,” White boomed. “F—you. Kiss my ass.”

wigwam
01-07-2014, 07:25 PM
i wanna see those two fuck

number8
01-08-2014, 06:13 PM
Oh man.


The comments that I supposedly made were never uttered by me or anyone within my earshot. I have been libeled by publications that recklessly quoted unnamed sources that made up what I said and to whom I was speaking. Someone on the podium talked about critics' "passion." Does "passion" only run one-way toward subservience?

The press has accustomed itself to treating me as a bete noir--so much so that eavesdroppers at the event continually misrepresent my behavior, even to the point of repeating such lies as distorting my cheer for Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd into "heckling" and that I "made Annette Bening cry"--both false allegations. Among some Circle members and media folk, there is personal, petty interest in seeing me maligned. I guess the awards themselves don't matter. It's a shameless attempt to squelch the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism.

Right now former NYFCC Chairman Joshua Rothkopf, acting Chairman Stephen Whitty, Karen Durbin, David Denby, Rex Reed, Dana Stevens and others have arranged a Communist-style special "Emergency Meeting" supposedly in the interest of legislating "decorum"--a meeting based entirely upon something that none of them actually heard and one that is really intended to purge me from the Circle. Only David Edelstein, with whom I've had past public disputes, showed the common courtesy to inquire if the rumors were true.

Did I make sotto voce comments to entertain my five guests? Sure, but nothing intended for others to hear and none correctly "reported." I don't even know what it means to call Steve McQueen a "garbage man" or "doorman" even though the racist implications are obvious. None of this makes sense which is what happens when online journalism reports a malicious lie.

As for the group's craven "Emergency Meeting." I dont care what they decide. It's not a meeting I plan to attend. --Armond White

Sven
01-08-2014, 06:34 PM
Armond is the best.

ledfloyd
01-08-2014, 06:37 PM
I was with him (because bad online reporting is a serious problem right now), but then he went and used the C-word.

I was just as confused by the doorman and garbage man quips. Who says that?

number8
01-08-2014, 10:12 PM
Keeps getting bizarre. A bunch of critics who were there are now insisting on twitter that it was in fact him and that they did hear him say those things loudly. Dana Stevens from Variety was actually sitting at White's table. Filmlinc even posted an audio recording of the heckling.

White responded to this by saying that it's a some kind of a frame-up job and a deliberate smear campaign against him by the critics community.

I don't understand what White is doing here? What good is lying when you did it in a room full of journalists? Maybe he was really drunk so he genuinely doesn't remember saying those things, and why the insults made no sense?

Ezee E
01-08-2014, 10:19 PM
That makes the most sense to me. Although, it's kind of embarassing if you get blacked out drunk in a somewhat professional setting. Yikes.

ciaoelor
01-10-2014, 01:39 AM
Armond talks with the Filmcast podcast about this.

http://slashfilm.com/filmcast/?p=894

number8
01-13-2014, 07:58 PM
It's done. (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/01/13/armond-white-kicked-out-of-ny-critics/)

Curious what his presence will be like from now on. They already took him off Rotten Tomatoes two years ago, and he no longer writes for NY Press.

Dukefrukem
01-13-2014, 08:04 PM
Very good news.

Dukefrukem
01-13-2014, 08:06 PM
I Listened to the whole podcast with David Chen and it gets really weird around the 25 min mark where he blatantly goes out of his way to say he "didn't hear" the heckle and he also wants David Chen to define what a "heckle" is....

Ezee E
01-14-2014, 01:06 AM
Just a strange man...

dreamdead
01-14-2014, 12:21 PM
Largely harrowing as a work. The length that the film devotes to Solomon's "hanging" is likely the strongest moment for me--it records the passage of time and inability of the rest of the plantation to care, as they've been conditioned to expect such cultural logic as natural. That kind of scene is its own capsule.

I do agree that the big name actors become distracting when their characters aren't given enough time to be truly lived-in. Fassbender avoids that issue, and so Cumberbatch. Giamatti and Pitt less so. Further, the lack of time signifiers likely deny our ability to clearly mark time and feel confident that Solomon only has _____ until he's rescued, but the film did need a little more age makeup or some other form of transformation. The passage of the years felt a little too unrecorded.

I did think that the way the film records religious defense, and later accusations against that same defense, was one of its strong suits. Likewise, I found Lupita Nyong'o and Sarah Paulson gave the strongest, most dynamic performances.

ledfloyd
01-15-2014, 01:25 AM
The length that the film devotes to Solomon's "hanging" is likely the strongest moment for me--it records the passage of time and inability of the rest of the plantation to care, as they've been conditioned to expect such cultural logic as natural. That kind of scene is its own capsule.

It's amazing. The adults walk by and you assume they are afraid to show concern for fear or retribution, but then you seen the children playing in the background and realize it's just routine for them. Chilling.

Irish
01-20-2014, 09:11 PM
I thought the script for this was terrible. It's like they made a check list of all the conceptually abstracted roles blacks and whites (and natives!) played in the time period (the subservient groups, the uncle tom's, the religious fanatics, the pure of heart northern, etc) and all the various types of suffering endured (this is where he walks past two people in the process of being hanged, this is when he's made to whip a fellow slave) and then made their way down the list.

There are some decent shots because Sean Bobbitt is no slouch and the performances are solid if often melodramatic. I'm glad films are being made about slavery these days but this didn't strike me as an especially enlightening perspective on the period.

I had similar problems with it. There's a slow buildup here that I resented because it's manipulative. You'd have to be inhuman not to react to this stuff, but I also feel depicting it in this way is, similar to [I]Schindler's List/I], going after low hanging fruit. (Congratulations, Mr McQueen. You got audiences to flinch at barbourous human cruelty.)

The scenes on Cumberpatch's estate said more than the rest of the film. And Cumberpatch was the most interesting character in the whole movie -- here's a guy who seems to he morally good but at the same time has no problem benefitting from what he knows to be a deeply evil system.

My biggest problem is that film was more descriptive than dramatic. As a protagonist Solomon is incapable of making meaningful choices because of his position in this world. His tiny arc is a good one. Breaking the violin, burning the letter, singing along the other slaves at graveside were all meaningful moments -- but are they enough?

I dunno. This is a simple movie about a complicated topic and I don't know how to react to it, or what to think.

Ezee E
01-21-2014, 01:25 AM
Schindler's List had a more complicated conflict to the protagonist though. Solomon Northup just needed for himself to escape.

I love the movie, but Schindler's List sticks out as the better movie to me for this reason.

Ezee E
01-21-2014, 02:03 AM
Schindler's List had a more complicated conflict to the protagonist though. Solomon Northup just needed for himself to escape.

I love the movie, but Schindler's List sticks out as the better movie to me for this reason.

Upon further thinking, if 12 Years A Slave went the SL route, it would have made its main character Benedict Cumberbatch, and that would've been pretty ridiculous actually.

Pop Trash
01-21-2014, 02:21 AM
I totally disagree. A lot of themes are inherent in the original story I'm sure, but I read a lot of metaphors in the film into the death of creativity and the death of identity vis-a-vis a capitalistic system. I'm sure this appealed to McQueen as an artist as well. I think anyone who is part of a "creative class" has had that moment where their art has to be thwarted or perverted for the sake of business or has had their identity diluted for the same reasons. Obviously this isn't nearly as horrid as it was in the antebellum south but it exists as a powerful metaphor all the same.

Irish
01-21-2014, 02:58 AM
I'd buy into that more if this wasn't positioned on a true story based on a personal memoir, and it wasn't so exceedingly violent.

Also, I know didn't intend it this way, but even the faintest comparison between the problems of bourgeois artists and 400 years of enslavement and death reads as crass and myopic.

Edit: Glancing at Northrup's wiki page, the details of his life, including his kidnapping, are straight from his own book.

Ezee E
01-21-2014, 03:01 AM
I totally disagree. A lot of themes are inherent in the original story I'm sure, but I read a lot of metaphors in the film into the death of creativity and the death of identity vis-a-vis a capitalistic system. I'm sure this appealed to McQueen as an artist as well. I think anyone who is part of a "creative class" has had that moment where their art has to be thwarted or perverted for the sake of business or has had their identity diluted for the same reasons. Obviously this isn't nearly as horrid as it was in the antebellum south but it exists as a powerful metaphor all the same.

I'll buy the death of an identity, but you're reaching here.

Pop Trash
01-21-2014, 03:40 AM
I'll buy the death of an identity, but you're reaching here.

The destruction of his violin = creative suicide of an artist.

Qrazy
01-21-2014, 08:05 AM
I had similar problems with it. There's a slow buildup here that I resented because it's manipulative. You'd have to be inhuman not to react to this stuff, but I also feel depicting it in this way is, similar to [I]Schindler's List/I], going after low hanging fruit. (Congratulations, Mr McQueen. You got audiences to flinch at barbourous human cruelty.)

The scenes on Cumberpatch's estate said more than the rest of the film. And Cumberpatch was the most interesting character in the whole movie -- here's a guy who seems to he morally good but at the same time has no problem benefitting from what he knows to be a deeply evil system.

My biggest problem is that film was more descriptive than dramatic. As a protagonist Solomon is incapable of making meaningful choices because of his position in this world. His tiny arc is a good one. Breaking the violin, burning the letter, singing along the other slaves at graveside were all meaningful moments -- but are they enough?

I dunno. This is a simple movie about a complicated topic and I don't know how to react to it, or what to think.

I personally find Schindler's List much more formally remarkable but I agree in terms of their approach to similar thematic material and both also possess a certain sentimentalism.

I think overall I just didn't buy it a historical document. It felt more like a cinematic essay to me than a realization of the time period. And fair enough, I can count on one hand the films that feel historically genuine. It's certainly one of the hardest realms of storytelling to pull off.

Irish
01-21-2014, 09:29 AM
It felt more like a cinematic essay to me than a realization of the time period. And fair enough, I can count on one hand the films that feel historically genuine. It's certainly one of the hardest realms of storytelling to pull off.

"Cinematic essay" is a good way of putting it, but I'm not sure that makes it a bad film, either.

The subject matter is rarely addressed with such detail and intelligence, and I really loved McQueen's spartan approach. Those elements alone make it a far cut above most of what comes out of Hollywood.

Qrazy
01-21-2014, 09:38 AM
"Cinematic essay" is a good way of putting it, but I'm not sure that makes it a bad film, either.

The subject matter is rarely addressed with such detail and intelligence, and I really loved McQueen's spartan approach. Those elements alone make it a far cut above most of what comes out of Hollywood.

Well yeah, it's all relative. Compared to most Hollywood films it's certainly better. But while it's not a bad film in a formally objective sense I don't consider it a good film either.

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 04:49 PM
I gave this a Nay. Perhaps it's excessive as it's not altogether a bad movie - just incredibly boring and disappointing. Agreed that the "big actor cameos" got embarassing after a while, particularly Pitt's character which is just too ill conceived.

Also, has anyone noticed how this is straight up exploitation material filtered through the polish of high profile filmmaking? In its eagerness to show extreme, painful and hardcore moments, it reminded me more of something like Christiane F. or Thriller than "serious" prestige cinema.

Pop Trash
03-09-2014, 06:46 PM
Also, has anyone noticed how this is straight up exploitation material filtered through the polish of high profile filmmaking? In its eagerness to show extreme, painful and hardcore moments, it reminded me more of something like Christiane F. or Thriller than "serious" prestige cinema.

American slavery was exploitative, extreme, painful, and hardcore.

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 06:57 PM
American slavery was exploitative, extreme, painful, and hardcore.
I know, but I feel that the kind of cinema this movie belongs with used to be classified as exploitation in any other decade. Now it's on top of the mainstream, winning the goddamn Oscar.

Mind you, this isn't a negative criticism of the film, just an observation. My negative criticism is that it's boring.

EyesWideOpen
03-09-2014, 07:04 PM
I know, but I feel that the kind of cinema this movie belongs with used to be classified as exploitation in any other decade.



No it didn't.

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 07:05 PM
No it didn't.
Yes it did.

EyesWideOpen
03-09-2014, 07:10 PM
Serious dramatic retellings of historical events were not exploitation films. Django Unchained could be considered a exploitation film. 12 Years a Slave is not.

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 07:20 PM
You're just saying that because of the way the two movies are sold.

How is the "seriousness" different from the "seriousness" of a rape-and-revenge film like Thriller? What makes 12 Years a Slave more serious, besides the fact that it's based on a true story?

EyesWideOpen
03-09-2014, 07:25 PM
You're just saying that because of the way the two movies are sold.

How is the "seriousness" different from the "seriousness" of a rape-and-revenge film like Thriller? What makes 12 Years a Slave more serious, besides the fact that it's based on a true story?

Thriller is "over the top". 12 Years a Slave is not. Thriller has a woman wearing an eyepatch and blowing away her captors intermixed with porn scenes. Are you trying to say they are the same type of "serious'?

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 07:32 PM
Thriller is "over the top". 12 Years a Slave is not. Thriller has a woman wearing an eyepatch and blowing away her captors intermixed with porn scenes. Are you trying to say they are the same type of "serious'?
The structure of the two films is pretty similar, though, isn't it? The main character is kidnapped and things just get worse and worse until they escape the ordeal. Sure, there is no revenge possible in 12 Years a Slave, but honestly, I don't find Steve McQueen's way of manipulating the audience all that different.

Django Unchained might be more pulpy and trashy on the surface, but it actually has some pretty valuable insights about the subjects of race and slavery. The infamous phrenology scene or the dialogue with Don Johnson's character where he has trouble explaining how his slaves should treat Django. 12 Years doesn't have that kind of thing - it's almost in survival horror territory.

EyesWideOpen
03-09-2014, 07:41 PM
Besides the fact that every director is trying to manipulate the audience I'm not really sure what you're getting at. They are both escape films sure I don't think that automatically makes them both exploitation films. I thought both films were great (Django & 12 Years) but Django is a better movie I'll agree with you there but I would have had no issue if it would have won best picture also.

Grouchy
03-09-2014, 07:50 PM
I guess what I'm trying to say is that showing brutality and torture on screen used to be privative to B movies and exploitation features, but now it has found its way into the mainstream. Just that. It's not really a jab at 12 Years a Slave. I can't imagine the same movie being made pre-Passion of the Christ, for example. It would have been regarded as too shocking.

Lazlo
03-09-2014, 09:43 PM
I guess what I'm trying to say is that showing brutality and torture on screen used to be privative to B movies and exploitation features, but now it has found its way into the mainstream. Just that. It's not really a jab at 12 Years a Slave. I can't imagine the same movie being made pre-Passion of the Christ, for example. It would have been regarded as too shocking.

Schindler's List covers similar material with similar explicit detail. Is it an exploitation film?

Pop Trash
03-09-2014, 10:33 PM
Silence of the Lambs won BP. A Clockwork Orange and The Exorcist were nominated. Platoon won BP with a child rape scene and Sheen repeatedly shooting an unarmed Vietnamese civilian point blank.

dreamdead
03-11-2014, 10:00 PM
This one (http://spectator.org/articles/56909/propaganda-not-%E2%80%98reality-or-%E2%80%98truth) has been circulating film round-ups the last day or so. It's not especially valuable, but worth noting for the way it attempts to rationalize ideas and discuss "propaganda":


If ever in slavery’s 250-year history in North America there were a kind master or a contented slave, as in the nature of things there must have been, here and there, we may be sure that Mr McQueen does not want us to hear about it. This, in turn, surely means that his view of the history of the American South is as partial and one-sided as that of the hated Gone With the Wind. That professional historians among others insist on calling such propaganda “truth” and “reality” and condemning anyone who suggests truth and reality might be more complicated than that is one measure of the politicization of historical scholarship in our time — to a level, perhaps, rivaling even that of film studies.

Qrazy
03-11-2014, 10:33 PM
Cumberbatch's character was presented as fairly kind and the female slave who married a white plantation owner is contented. So their argument against the film doesn't hold a lot of weight for me. That said, I don't like the film for other reasons. I find the line delivery extremely theatrical and at odds with the way Bobbitt shot it. And while I don't find it's presentation of slavery one sided I do find it schematic. It actively demonstrates many different combinations of opinions and attitudes concerning slavery instead of just existing in the time period and world it has created.

Grouchy
03-12-2014, 01:01 AM
I don't like the movie, but that article is just brimming with ugly unsaid subtext. In any case, the film is propaganda of what? Black people? Doesn't make sense to me.

Dukefrukem
10-05-2017, 12:43 AM
I guess what I'm trying to say is that showing brutality and torture on screen used to be privative to B movies and exploitation features, but now it has found its way into the mainstream. Just that. It's not really a jab at 12 Years a Slave. I can't imagine the same movie being made pre-Passion of the Christ, for example. It would have been regarded as too shocking.

This is quite the observation! I'm surprised there wasn't more of a discussion surrounding this at the time. Just got around to watching this. Definitely wasn't expecting it to be as raw as it turned out to be.