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.
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.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
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.
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
Barbed and ironical (like underplaying a stabbing and reserving emphatic dollying for the unlikeable undersexed plantation wife). And oh so fussy.
The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer 13) - A
Stranger by the Lake (Giraudie 12) - B
American Hustle (Russell 13) - C+
The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese 13) - C+
Passion (De Palma 12) - B
It hardly ever amounts to anything more than "Look at how awful slavery is!" but it doesn't have to. Good work all around.
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.
:|
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.
Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
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.
Wishful thinking, perhaps; but that is just another possible definition of the featherless biped.
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.Quoting Ezee E (view post)
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.Quoting Ezee E (view post)
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
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.
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?Quoting Dead & Messed Up (view post)
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.
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
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.
Sure why not?
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Rian Johnson) - 9
STRONGER (David Gordon Green) - 6
THE DISASTER ARTIST (James Franco) - 7
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker) - 9
LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig) - 8
"Hitchcock is really bad at suspense."
- Stay Puft
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.
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
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.Quoting Ezee E (view post)
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
"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."
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
Racist.Quoting Qrazy (view post)
Sure why not?
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Rian Johnson) - 9
STRONGER (David Gordon Green) - 6
THE DISASTER ARTIST (James Franco) - 7
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker) - 9
LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig) - 8
"Hitchcock is really bad at suspense."
- Stay Puft
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.
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
i wanna see those two fuck
Oh man.
Quoting Armond White
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover