The McQueeners FINALE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
In the spirit of the tone and frivolity we have set ourselves in the creation of this podcast, these three films of Steve McQueen, three very serious films, have demanded our steely reserve. No more so than in the final chapter in our McQUEENER's trilogy, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, the telling of the true story of Solomon Northup from his memoir of the same name. An engaging, if brutally horrific film that is fully deserving of all its accolades.
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my co host, Ryan How. Oh, are you okay?
Ryan: It's just really sad.
Laura: Well, I can't really cheer you up.
Ryan: Because this is oh, nothing's going to cheer me.
Laura: No, it's not.
Laura: Not talking about this film, which is the third in our small series that we're doing Mcqueeners. This is the third and final Mcqueenner.
Ryan: In light of everything. We shouldn't even be like, let me.
Laura: Just get through smiling because we did this to ourselves because we wanted to talk about Steve McQueen movies. And Steve McQueen directed Twelve Years a Slave.
Ryan: He's far too good at what he does. That's the problem in 2013.
Laura: Yeah, he is. He's great.
Ryan: That's why we want he's far too good. He makes far too, uh, engaging films that are incredibly realistic and incredibly brutal and honest and historically, uh, important.
Laura: This man cannot and will not shy away from showing the brutal truth.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And doesn't want to look away either.
Ryan: Yeah. Sometimes it's really brutal.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, we kind of reached the pinnacle here. The pinnacle of brutality in twelve years of slaves. So, uh, this film stars Chuatel edgiafor. There's a lot of people in this movie.
Ryan: This is like an all star yeah, this is like an all star cast.
Laura: Michael Fassbender lupita Nuongo sarah paulson. Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch. Paul Giamatti is in this movie. Brad Pitt is in this movie. Uh, there's so many people. It's wild.
Ryan: Yeah. No, it's a very good cast.
Laura: Michael K. Williams is in this.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Uh, Omar from the wire never watched the unfortunately yeah, well, he passed away, um, just last year, I think.
Laura: Just last. Why?
Laura: Well, I guess you don't need to tell us about our boy Steve because we've already gone over huh?
Ryan: Yeah, no, I kind of went quite in, I guess. You know, we've done hunger. We've done shame.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Which necessarily don't really deal with issues of race for the most part. Um twelve Years a slave. No, definitely does.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: There's no hiding from it. Uh, this is the memoir. This is based off the book Twelve Years of Slave.
Laura: Yes. The 1853 Memoir twelve Years of Slave, written by Solomon Northup. Obviously. So it's interesting how he came upon this book. His partner, uh, actually found this book when she and McQueen were he was telling her he wanted to find a way into telling this story, a story from the inside of someone who was enslaved and how to tell it, how to get a perspective, a different kind of perspective on this horrible situation. And she found this book and he was surprised that he'd never read it before. Chiwatel Egyaforce said the same thing. I'm super surprised. Never heard of this book. So they read it enthralled and were like, yeah, this is it. This is what we're going to do. We're going to make Solomon's story.
Ryan: It's a very unique and personal story.
Laura: Like, hundreds of memoirs came out after the abolition of slavery, of people who were enslaved and telling their stories. But this one is obviously different because you have someone who was born a free man, who's I believe it was his father who was enslaved, who was granted his freedom by, um, the person who his slave owner right. From his father being a free man. He was free in York. So yeah. But his story is different, obviously, because it's also a way for I think Steve McQueen was saying, to put someone in this who's who's a free person. It's almost like taking the audience and putting them in that situation as well. Like someone who could never imagine how horrible it could be.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And just seeing it through that person's eyes is, uh yeah.
Ryan: It's in equal parts enraging and saddening all at the same time. Um, and this is the first time I'd ever seen the film. For obvious reasons, I didn't seek this film out just purely based on the fact that I knew it was going to be a rough time.
Laura: It is.
Ryan: Yeah. Ah. Um, and it definitely is. Um, but it's engaging, I will put it that way. It is, uh, thoroughly engaging and does not feel like its length.
Laura: No.
Ryan: It's in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. Um, which is also kind of structurally how this film is kind of set out, as it's literally 2 hours worth of time that distills twelve years of this man's life, or absence of life, depending on kind of how you want to look at it.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Laura: So the synopsis of this film is in the pre Civil War United States, solomon Northop, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindness, solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the 12th year of his unforgettable odyssey, solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: That's really long.
Ryan: Yeah, it's a little bit long as a synopsis. That's pretty much the entirety of the story summed up. Yeah. And it tells you what the story.
Laura: Well, then I guess the title also tells you the end.
Ryan: Well, I mean yeah. Also, there's no sense of time in the film either. Like, time just passes. There's no sense of time for these people. No. All kind of blends into obscurity at one point, the monotony of what they're dealing with, um, the brutality of everything as, um yes. No. Um yeah, that's a good does this film even have a tagline?
Laura: It does.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: The extraordinary true story of Solomon Northop.
Ryan: That's fine.
Laura: Yep. There you go.
Ryan: There you uh they didn't they didn't take, uh, a chance on that one.
Laura: No.
Ryan: So that's good.
Ryan: This is an incredibly difficult film. To cover.
Laura: And I did want to point out how obviously problematic I don't know if that's the right word, but the fact that we're talking about this movie. But that is what we do. And it is part of the podcast.
Ryan: Well, this was always going to be a thing. Like, eventually we were going to have.
Laura: To and it's going to happen again.
Ryan: It's going to happen again. And there are plenty of films of, uh, I don't want to say of this nature, but certainly not just exclusively about slavery that we'll be covering at some point. But let's say, like times of war, other historical events that are maybe slightly more treacherous. Uh, I guess within the tone and within the style of what we've set ourselves up to do the podcast.
Laura: It's hard to be funny.
Ryan: Let's put it this way.
Laura: But I do want to talk about this movie because this movie is so good.
Ryan: It's a really good film. I'm going to put it that way. It's a very good film. I'm, um, probably more scared about covering this film than I was during Hunger. So, yes, I think we will be treading as lightly as we can on our tiny little toes.
Laura: Well, I don't know. We know we're going to talk about the story. And it's interesting. And, um, I'll tell you a little bit about my time in Louisiana.
Ryan: Oh, yeah? You will. Yeah. Well, you know what? Let's get right into it then.
Laura: Do you want to hear?
Laura: Okay. So in the beginning of this movie, you see a man teaching, uh, the people, the enslaved people how to cut sugarcane. So that man is Dicky Gravois. And I met him. I met that man.
Ryan: And not only that, you're there. And there's like, photos of you with him.
Laura: I'll post a photo. I'll post a photo of me and two of my coworkers with Dicky.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So he fell into that role in such a weird way where he brought his son to the open casting call that they saw on the church wall, like on the posting board. And he's like, you can come down here and you'll make more money doing this movie than I pay you to cut sugar cane. So he brought him down there, and this guy just talks and talks and talks like he's got the gift of the gab. He just tells stories. He's like the local historian. And he ended up just chatting. The casting director asked to put him on tape. And he's like, what did he say? He's like, well, I don't know how to read that well, but I can tell you my letters and my like, he's just such a weird guy. But they put him on tape. And Steve McQueen ended up seeing the tape, called him personally and asked him to go down to New Orleans and put in a proper audition. He said he walked in first of all, he said he didn't know, a black man could have a British accent, which is a weird thing to say.
Ryan: Well, to maybe give a little bit of context to Dickey is that, uh.
Laura: He'S an old yeah, yeah, he is an old man from a time.
Ryan: And he's from he's not seen.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Right, okay.
Laura: No. But my favorite thing that he said is that he said he walked into the room and he goes and then I saw Ben and Angelina sitting there and he kept talking about it and he kept saying, Ben, Ben, Ben. And I realized that he was talking about Brad Pitt. And I asked him, I go, do you mean Brad Pitt? And he goes, oh, I thought his name was Ben.
Ryan: Ben Pitt.
Laura: Ben Pitt. And angelina.
Ryan: His long lost brother Ben.
Laura: He also said some creepy stuff about Angelina that I won't say because that man, that's a spicy man.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Spicy old man.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, isn't that nice?
Laura: That dude is hilarious. So, um, I would see him he has a pit bull as well. And that pit bull is really cute.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: So he gets points for having a pit bull.
Ryan: All right. Okay. Well, that's good.
Laura: I spent like, two months of this year in Louisiana, so I've seen all these plantations and I went on these tours, know, kind of tried to learn a bit about the history because, uh, it's not something that we'll ever be able to comprehend. M you know what I mean? Just such tragedy and such brutality towards human beings. That's never something we're going to be able to wrap our heads around, but we can learn and just try to be educated about things.
Ryan: Yeah, I'm probably less clued up on it, uh, than you are. Um, yeah, I just end up pleading ignorance a little bit. I think that's more on my part. But yes. Uh, when I did history at school, we weren't taught any of that stuff. There's already quite a long history within Europe and all that fucked up, know? Yes. I'm not a historian.
Laura: Well, there's so much history just in the world, we'll never be able to know it all. But this one, it's so recent. It's so incredibly recent that I think we forget, uh, how you think about slavery. And you're like, that was so long ago. It had to have been 500 years ago. And you're like, no, it was like 150 years.
Ryan: Yeah, it's less than 200 years.
Laura: It's so fucked. Yeah, it's so fucked.
Ryan: It's like if you think generationally, uh, how long that is. And it's like, I mean, what that's? Maybe three generations deep, 200 years.
Laura: Like Solomon Northrop, uh, the man was granted his freedom back in 1853. It just blows my mind. It just blows my mind.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: You can go and visit plantation houses wherever you are. They're all around the south. A lot of them in Louisiana got burned down, which is awesome. During the slave revolt, which I love.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, but there are people still living in these houses up until the 50s, like the 1950s, just because we're here to talk about this movie.
Ryan: Yeah, we're here to talk about yeah. I guess if you want to do some deep dive into the history, which I suggest you do just for your own, uh, I guess to negate any sort of pains of ignorance that you might have if you're just like, wow, I didn't realize that was the thing. It's like, maybe it'd be a good idea if you kind of recited just a little bit of history there, as history itself tends to help us not ever go into that direction ever again. We should be learning from our history and certainly not, uh, trying to, uh, ignore it.
Laura: Yeah. And if you go down to Mardi Gras to get drunk on yardsticks of margaritas, maybe take a trip down to the river parishes and learn a little bit.
Ryan: Yes. Or go to a library or ideally, you could check the Internet.
Laura: Everyone should travel.
Ryan: I think there's stories on the Internet.
Laura: But don't go to Louisiana during the summer because I'm telling you, it is hell's armpit. I was there in the summer. It's a nightmare. Steve McQueen, it was like their very first day of shooting, right? It was 106 degrees in the shade. He's thinking, he says this. He goes, oh, I need a water vest. And people are like, Steve, it's hot, right? And he's like, no, it's fine. It's great. No problem. But they're like, not knowing how they're going to survive. And just imagine I'm just imagining steve McQueen probably never been to Louisiana in his life. And he's like, let's set up a know, let's make a movie.
Ryan: Uh, he's a man about capturing realism.
Laura: Of course he is.
Ryan: That's all I would say. Well, the thing is, if you're going to be making a movie in those conditions, you need to do it in the harshest of conditions in order to reflect what it was like for them then, where they're not in shelter, they're in the sun for the hottest parts of the day. And I've been in the Florida heat for the last kind of couple of years, and you're only out in it for 20 minutes. And it's like, unbearable. So God knows what was going through, honestly. These poor people, these poor men and women.
Laura: No. If you are hired on to work in the fields, your life expectancy is just nothing.
Ryan: Okay?
Laura: So you're working out in those fields whether you're working in cotton or you're working in sugar cane, you die. You die from the heat. You don't drink water. You think about how much water we're told to drink in a normal day, uh, to just be healthy and survive.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: These people were not granted those. They didn't have a water jug. They're just out there suffering.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It's so messed up. There's only one part of this movie that I don't find historically accurate. And these the people who wrote this movie, steve McQueen, also had a hand in writing this film. They researched. They researched. They knew what they were doing. They knew. They knew. But the one thing that bothers me is when they were on the ship going down to the south, uh, from DC. Is that one of the sailors grabs a woman and, you know, he's going to do something horrible. And Michael K. Williams kind of goes up to stop him, and the sailor stabs him in the stomach and murders him. And I just don't see how he could get away with that. And for what reason?
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Because these people are being sold. So they are expensive.
Ryan: Yes, super expensive.
Laura: So why would you because some of.
Ryan: The prices getting bandied about. I mean, this is back in 1840s money, like, uh, $1,000. How much would that be? In present day?
Laura: They actually have at a lot of the plantation houses, they have the lists of the people and their names and how much they were bought for and skills.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: So disgusting. Like the inventory of human beings. But, um, in certain plantations, they'll have that transacted into nowadays money.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And it's a lot. All right, it's a lot. But I can look it up for you while we talk.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah, no, you did say that. And then it does actually happen. It kind of hits as a bit of a it does hit a little bit like a hammer, because at one point he does touch the sailor's shoulder and you're not really 100% sure what's happened. And then it's like, oh, there's the knife.
Laura: It's a weird scene. It's not my favorite.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It's a bit strange, but, um, uh, $1,000 in 1840 is equivalent to about $34,000 today. Which actually, when you think about it, not enough. Not enough for a person.
Ryan: No. Well, here's the thing, Laura. How much is a person worth exactly?
Laura: Priceless.
Ryan: Exactly?
Laura: You should never put a price on a person.
Ryan: Well, you shouldn't be buying people in the first place. And if you're out there on the dark web right now listening to us going, I wonder if I could buy someone.
Laura: Can I buy someone for $34,000?
Laura: No, don't do it.
Ryan: No, don't do that.
Laura: Isn't that what like when people buy brides online?
Ryan: Um, I don't know how that works and I'm not going to find out, okay? I don't want that in my browser history. Jesus Christ. End up in some chat room talking to a man called Chad. It's like it's got a long list of women from Thailand. Uh, I haven't got a problem with marrying off. I'm like, all right, Chad, you're scaring me. Chad. Chad. How are we friends? I don't understand this.
Laura: Don't be friends with Chad.
Ryan: No. Don't have friends called Chad.
Laura: This is rough. But the full frontal scene in this.
Ryan: Film is you don't say it's going to be rough.
Laura: Yeah. Uh, I didn't even say penis scene, because I just sucks so bad. But it's at 28 minutes and about 50 seconds.
Ryan: Well, this is where we go into the importance of context as well, though, because yes, there's a reason why it's rough. M, it's the same reason why Hunger.
Laura: Was know, I will never doubt the reasons for Steve McQueen doing things and putting certain things in his films. Never.
Ryan: No.
Laura: Because they researched this information and to, uh, the best of their ability, put it together as how they think it would have been. And I, you know, I've I've done my own research as well. And it's, you know, he, again, he doesn't shy away from that thing.
Laura: And, and in this particular scene, you have these people who and I believe these were the people that were kidnapped, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, who were taken, know, under false pretenses into Washington DC. Where apparently they have a big slave, ah, market. And so they take these people from free states there so they can imprison them and sell them for money. Because at this point in history, the, uh, slave trade from Africa had been, uh, it was illegal. So there was no more people coming in from Africa because the slave trade was banned.
Ryan: Okay. By this point, that's interesting.
Laura: This is why they were drugging people, kidnapping people from free states, because that's the only way you could make money from these people, you know what I mean? Because you don't have fresh people coming in anymore. It's either going to be the enslaved people you already have or the enslaved people who are like having children. Do you know what I mean? So you're not getting any more people, uh, in from Africa.
Ryan: You understand what you know, I understand what you're saying. I just don't understand the morality of it. Kind of like I'm just kind of.
Laura: Sitting there's no such thing in this situation. That's why I don't know, it's like your birkin hairs at this point, you know what I mean? Stealing bodies and sell them for money.
Ryan: Yeah. No, that's fine. Um, well, no, it's not fine. I mean, you shouldn't be stealing bodies. But those bodies are at least, ah.
Laura: Deceased, uh, birkin hair.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, and they were selling them to the local colleges, uh, for surgeons hall. It was, um, here it's slightly different. I mean, you're ripping families apart and, uh, you're relocating, uh, established individuals and then, uh, beating them to win an inc within an inch of their lives to lie about their original origins. Um, again, because I didn't know too much about this, this was obviously a very big, ah, uh, eye opener. Like, I didn't realize that this was the way it was.
Laura: Well, I think this particular story was an eye opener in terms of people being kidnapped and sold into southern states, because I didn't really know that much about that until this movie came out either.
Ryan: Right. Okay.
Laura: That's not something I mean, it was a shorter piece of that whole fucked up situation, but it still happened. So it's interesting that we have this story now to tell. But yeah, that's what was going on. So the people in this market that are bathing, um, I believe were people that were kidnapped for the most part, um, because why else would you have a market like that in DC. When mostly around you, you have slavery is not allowed. Well, I mean, that's why they're hiding them. They put them in a cart covered with a blanket, and they're hiding.
Ryan: Well, yeah.
Laura: The issue is because it's not legal anything that's happening.
Ryan: It's not legal where they are. But it's one of the only states at that time where they're able to basically seduce these people and drug them and then transport them secretly, I guess, over the state borders.
Laura: Um, that's why they do it, by.
Ryan: Um ah, it's a covert market, and nothing's being done about it.
Laura: No.
Ryan: At this point.
Laura: So this is where we meet Paul Giamatti, who's only in the movie for maybe five minutes.
Ryan: You will find there is a lot of stars in this movie who are only in it for five. It's, uh they keep the focus quite rightly on our main character, Solomon.
Laura: Yeah. So we're at Paula Giamati's market. And in this house, it's almost like he's a car know, like working at a car dealership. And he has all these people, and he's trying to sell them to these other people. And a lot of, uh, the enslaved people are naked.
Ryan: Well, it seems customary that if you're going to buy a slave, you want to check your slave before you purchase it. Right. That's why they're naked. That's why they get them to perform tricks and stuff.
Laura: Um, and they'll always try to sell off or show off the fact that they have special skills, because then you can get more. That's why they had Solomon playing his violin, because that's a skill that he has that can be exploited for. So, um, I know Steve McQueen was saying that he really was happy when Paul Giamatti showed up, because, uh, Paul Giamatti has no problems like manhandling people.
Ryan: Okay?
Laura: So he was just like you remember that scene, right? So he's just, like, slapping people on the chest, slapping them at the mouth, being like, open up your mouth and just kind of just like shaking them and slapping them all around.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And Steve McQueen's, who was saying he's like, I know this is awful. I know this is uncomfortable, but know, be an actor. Do your thing. And Paul of Giamatti just got in there, just, like, slapping people all around, like, had no issues.
Ryan: Okay?
Laura: Pure professional.
Ryan: I thought it was Steve apologizing for, uh, Paul's behavior.
Laura: No, Paul, stop slapping everybody.
Ryan: Like, Paul, don't do that. Come on.
Laura: My goodness.
Ryan: Look, I'm really sorry, guys. I know you're naked. You look a little bit vulnerable, but he's probably going to slap you on the shoulders a wee bit.
Laura: How long was that scene in Hunger, that Unbroken shot? Was it twelve minutes long? Do you remember which one Hunger? Where there's a couple where Bobby is talking to the priest.
Ryan: Oh, 17 minutes.
Laura: 17?
Ryan: Yeah. 17.
Laura: Okay, so we don't get that long in this film, but there's two scenes that are long for what we're used to, at least these days. And so that scene where this is also the first time we meet Cumberbatch, uh, who comes in and where he buys Solomon, and, um, another woman named Eliza. That whole scene with Paul Giamatti is three minutes and 1 second, uh, Unbroken.
Ryan: I mean, there's a lot of well, the thing is, the imagery itself is so engaging that you don't notice how long a scene goes on for, or how long a shot goes on for, because the shot seems constantly developing as the, as the scenes going on.
Laura: Very fluid, especially that one in particular. It's very fluid and it's moving with all the action. Like, it's just constantly following all the action back and forth.
Ryan: I don't know if that's maybe a prerequisite of the restraints they had on shooting this film in general, um, because I'd heard some things that they only had so many days in order to shoot this, and they had to do it really fast. So part of me feels like, uh, they had to minimize their setups and just make sure that they captured everything, um, and it's not to its detriment, as far as I'm concerned, they're able to capture it.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan: Well, they relatively quite well.
Laura: I also read that they only had one camera. They only shot with one camera for the entire film.
Ryan: That's not uncommon for lower budgeted films. I don't know if this film is a particularly large budget. It certainly doesn't need one that's not.
Laura: A low budget, that's for sure.
Ryan: But at the same time, like the same token, I mean, Spielberg, uh, tends, uh, to only use one camera on the reasoning that it's, uh, how you capture the, uh, perfect eyeline.
Laura: It was $20 to $22 million budget.
Ryan: For a film. In general, that's very low.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: 20, um, 2 million. But, um, you can see as a period film, there would have been money set aside in order for the period stuff to be put in there. But for the most part, uh, it's all shot and location. So a lot of those houses might have still existed.
Laura: No, uh, they do.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: A lot of those plantation houses are still there. I didn't visit the ones that they filmed at, probably because the ones I visited were tourist attractions built for tourism. The ones that he worked at, uh, were probably still homes.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: A lot of them are still private homes. Uh, and farms.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And they're still standing are, uh, houses of enslaved people that still stand to this day.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: You had plenty of stuff to work off of.
Ryan: Um, yeah. Well, like you say, it's not that long ago that it would have degree.
Laura: Have a wooden cabin that's still standing for, um sure.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Especially in that hell hole sorry. Louisiana.
Ryan: Yeah. You're kind of shitting all over it.
Laura: I mean, for the purpose, but it is so hot. Do you remember the scene where Solomon beats the absolute shit out of, uh, dirty Paul Dano?
Ryan: Yeah. You don't want to get on the wrong side of Paul Dano, as we find out.
Laura: Uh, Paul Dano always plays mostly an asshole dude.
Ryan: Okay, that's fine.
Laura: All I'm saying. And that's super satisfying, even though, of course, it ends up leading to one of the multiple horrible things that happened in this movie yes. Where, uh, Solomon is lynched in a tree for almost, uh, an entire day and left hanging yes. On his tippy toes. It is horrific. That's not one of the scenes where they say that it held for a lot. I mean, that shot held for a very long time.
Ryan: Yeah, it does hold for a very long time.
Laura: It might not be three minutes, four minutes, 17 minutes, but it is long enough for you to feel like you're out of breath.
Ryan: Well, I guess. Yeah. Because it cuts about a little bit, uh, to kind of suggest the passing of time, but it also cuts to things. And we can see things in the background happening. Like, there's kids playing and stuff like that. Um, as in, the people who are living there are completely desensitized to these horrific acts that are going on around them.
Laura: Yeah. I also think it's just because they know that they can't help without repercussions.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So a girl does go up to give him a drink of water, which he can barely drink, because he's literally hanging by his neck, but she runs away out of fear because she's being watched.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So that's really bad. Um, and what's even more, I mean, it was probably Method for the actors as well, but that tree was a lynching tree back in the day. Like, that tree had been used to lynch human beings. And there are, uh, graves, uh, of enslaved people underneath that tree right now.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: Yeah. That is a historical area that they used for that scene. I'm sure that was pretty intense. That must have been a really difficult day.
Ryan: Uh, yeah. Uh, I would think so. Um, yeah, no, that scene is horrible, but like you say, it is one of many.
Laura: Yeah. Um, remember when Fastbender shows up?
Ryan: Yeah. I've got him in my notes as MF. Like Motherfucker.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Motherfucking. Fastbender.
Laura: He might be one of the worst characters, uh, ever. He's so awful.
Ryan: I would say instead of being in any way, shape, or form, disparaging to what he brings to the screen. He's a very effective villain.
Laura: Oh, he's great. He is very good at being horrible.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, he also reads from the scripture as well.
Laura: Um, because you know it's going to be bad.
Ryan: I mean, anyone who reads from scripture and cites God yeah.
Laura: As soon as he meet, that's the first time you see his face. Is he's reading scripture?
Ryan: Telling anyone who uses the Bible as an excuse to commit horrible acts.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: You know who you are.
Laura: He's so awful.
Ryan: Yeah. He's the fucking worst. And he's using the Bible and the fucking the Bible verse and all that shit that's in there about slavery and owning slaves and stuff like that as justification for everything that he's doing. But, uh, he owns a cotton farm, doesn't he?
Laura: Yes, he does.
Ryan: Yeah. They're all like they are picking cotton.
Laura: Yes, they are. And Lupita Nuongo is the best. She's the best at it.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, the problem is that you don't want to be the best, but you certainly don't want to be the worst. You kind of want to get somewhere in the middle as to what we found, uh, out. Because you don't want to be the best because then you attract too much attention. But then you also don't want to be the worst because then you get lashed.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Um, so if you average out at 200 pounds of cotton a day, you're fine.
Laura: But that's also the bad thing. Because then if you do progressively worse every day, you're going to get hit too.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So it's a tricky game. It's a game you can never win. You're going to get fucked up.
Ryan: Yeah. That's a horrific way of putting it, but yes, it's true.
Laura: Uh, at least in this particular plantation in the film.
Ryan: Either way. Either way.
Laura: Yeah. I really lupita Nuongo deserves everything. I mean, she's incredible.
Ryan: Yeah. I was trying to like she's, uh, in that Jordan Peele movie, uh, US mhm. She's a lot more prominent in that film. She's amazing in that movie.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: She's real good. And then that was after Twelve Years of Slave was before us, wasn't it?
Laura: Oh, yeah. Quite a bit. This is nine years old at this point.
Ryan: She's got a very distinctive, uh, face, very distinctive look about her.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Like really big eyes.
Laura: She's lovely.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, do you know she used to work as like a PA and um, she worked on a film I can't remember the name of the film off the top of my head right now, but with Ray Fiennes.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And I think she asked Ray Fiennes at one know, telling him that she wanted to be an actor. And he was just like, oh, good luck.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And look at her now.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, if you work hard, if you continue to work hard, seemingly that's motivation. Uh, enough.
Laura: Yeah. That scene I'm still waiting.
Laura: In the tale of Solomon Northop's life, he spent most of his time at, uh, Fastbender's Farm. So he was there for most of his time as a kidnapped person.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So I don't know. I think it was maybe it might have been like ten years, eight to ten years, something like that, where he spent most of his time at the worst place.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It'S pretty bad. And he does try to find it.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Everyone in this movie is a bad every white person is a bad person. In this movie.
Laura: If you own human beings, you're a bad person.
Ryan: Yeah. I would say other than Brad Pitts, who's outwardly better the white savior, it all ends up well, I don't even want to use that because, uh, it's kind of really wishy washy. Well, he ends up being the savior. I just kind of feel like there's a level of complacency even in his character where it's kind of like I'll bear witness. It's kind of just like, oh, uh, come on, give us a fucking like there's varying degrees of, uh, the despicable white man in this movie. And Fastbender's the worst, followed by Paul Dano and then obviously Giamatti and then Benedict Cumberbatch is actually all.
Laura: Love. I love that in the movie where Solomon is speaking to Eliza and I think she was saying to him, like, you're looking to his name is Ford, right? You're looking to Ford to be your savior. You think he's going to save you. But he knows that you're different. He knows that you're not from here. But he's not doing anything about it. So why does that make him so that's probably that's definitely something that they had to wrestle with with this film as well. Because in the book, uh, Northep kept calling know, the most Christian, the most generous, wonderful man I've ever but that's you have to think about it in context.
Ryan: Yeah. Because well, that's the thing is they're all in this scale of shittiness, they're all owning slaves. Or they're part of the slave trade, or they're trafficking people, um, from place to place. They're either treating them really poorly or they're watching idly by as horrible things happen to these people. Or for the most part, they've committed the crime of just being an owner of slaves.
Laura: Yeah. So in the story, Ford is the lesser of the evils, but still pretty fucked.
Ryan: Mean. He's also, as we come to know his character in, like he has obviously issues with money. And these slaves are as part of a loan, um, that he's taken out. So he's obviously mortgaging a human being. And then you're paying for it over a certain amount of time. Um, so I guess the depths to which, uh, this industry goes m yeah, pretty dark and despicable.
Laura: Well, for being, you know, like I said, I think people have complained about him showing up and being white savior. But you can't really escape it if that's what happened. So if that's what happened in solomon Northop's life. That's what happened in the movie. He met a guy who gave word to his friends and then were able to get him back to his family. That's what happened.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, the thing is, it still wasn't that easy. And then obviously, he's in the course of the actual the historical tale, like trying to obviously prosecute these people that originally stole him, um, was nigh on impossible anyway, just because know logistical nightmare.
Laura: In order to prosecute these people. But even when he tried to prosecute them in New York, it didn't happen either.
Ryan: So no.
Laura: Yeah, it's pretty bad.
Laura: But the other I don't even know if I want to talk about it, but there's a lot of things I don't want to talk about because it's all very upsetting. But, uh, that scene where Patsy was chained and whipped by Fastbender, that's a four minute and 46 2nd scene. So that's the longest uncut scene in the film. And that is the worst, probably. It absolutely is the worst scene.
Ryan: I'm not even going to describe just I put it in my notes as the whipping scene. I don't think I'll ever forget seeing it.
Laura: No. Um, it's haunting and it's shot in such an interesting way. But it is again, I'm not going to keep putting Steve on a pedestal or whatever, but he's not going to shy away from it.
Ryan: No, he is not.
Laura: Remember how awful that yep. Awful. There's a lot of interesting stuff with Fastbender because he is so know. There's a scene where he's always drunk and apparently he had the makeup artist put like, dab alcohol on his mustache so that when he was like up in people's faces, they'd kind of be repulsed just yeah.
Ryan: They'd smell it naturally. Yeah. They just smell it on his breath.
Laura: Um, but there's that scene where he's chasing around Solomon with like a knife when he's drunk out of his mind and running through a pig pen and stuff.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He's out of control. Out of control.
Ryan: Yes. No, he's also very good in this movie.
Laura: Yeah. He's great.
Ryan: He's very convincing.
Laura: Vespender's awesome.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, he's great at going from sympathetic characters and heroic characters to going to just hot trash people.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And playing them with such distinction.
Ryan: Zeal fervor. Yeah. No, uh, he's good in this movie. Just purely by how fucking despicable he is.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: As you might be able to tell, we've kind, uh, of stumbled our way through this movie because, uh, it's quite a brutal watch.
Laura: It is. I don't know why Chuatel Edgy of four didn't win any awards for this film.
Ryan: Um, but no, it was the big winner. It was it was the Best Picture winner. It was did anything like did what else did it win that year?
Laura: Best adapted screenplay and best supporting actress. Lupita.
Ryan: Oh, yeah.
Laura: But this is one of the few movies, um, where Best Picture and Best Director, they didn't win them together. So best Director went to somewhere else. I think the same thing happened to Ben Affleck where Argo won Best Picture, but he didn't win Best Director.
Ryan: Alfonso.
Laura: Uh, quoron for gravity, looks like.
Ryan: Oh, it was that year.
Ryan: Wow, what a mix of films as well, though, because Gravity is not good. It's really not that good at all.
Laura: She's just like spinning in space forever. Makes you want to barf.
Ryan: I mean, it's all one continuous shot. Or at least it makes you believe it is. But Gravity I never thought was a very good film. Everyone was creaming their pants over it. And I'm just like, there's that bit where, uh, George Clooney just lets himself die.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: He's just like, I'm being pulled away. And it's like, but you're in there's not there's no force pushing you. There's no force in space.
Laura: I can't remember why he floated away.
Ryan: He's just like, I'm going to cut the lead so that you will survive. And as far as I'm aware, I'm like, well, no, just grab him. Just tug it a little bit. Just tug it a tiny bit. And he'll come towards you. You don't need to die. But then he kept on reappearing during the course of the film.
Laura: He's like a ghost, Clooney.
Ryan: He's a fucking ghost. I don't know if I like that film very much at all. It's still a better space movie than First Man.
Laura: Uh, oh yeah, for sure.
Ryan: Because at least in Gravity, at least it showed you stars. It wasn't just like the blackness of space, nothingness.
Laura: Um so this film, Twelve Years a Slave, also won BAFTA for best film. And, uh, chewy till Edgy Four did win Best Actor. Oh, good, Baftas.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: And apparently this is the first film from a black director to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Ryan: Bill Duke, do you know got nominated for anything? Bill duke should be, uh yeah, like Sweet Bill.
Laura: Steve McQueen also helped to write this screenplay. And John Ridley was the credited, uh, screenplay writer for this film. And he won best adaptive screenplay at the Academy Awards. So there was a bit of controversy, I guess, uh, between the two of them, because Steve McQueen had asked time and time again for a shared screenplay credit. And when John Ridley went up to accept the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, he didn't thank Steve McQueen in his acceptance speech at all. He walked past him on the way to the podium, but he stopped to hug David O. Russell.
Ryan: Right?
Laura: He worked with David O. Russell on Three Kings m. But it's just wild that he won an award for Twelve Years a Slave and completely ignored Steve McQueen and, uh, didn't thank him at all. I think he later apologized. But that seems so messed up.
Ryan: I mean, if there's any way that you completely prevent yourself from ever working with that man ever again, I mean, that's it. Uh, they are. You did a very good job of just riding that entire moment, uh, out in its entirety. Poorly.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Like hang his hat on three kings. I haven't got any problems with three kings, but three kings is three kings.
Laura: Well, he can hang his hat on Undercover Brother because he wrote that movie.
Ryan: Good for him, I guess. Yeah. I don't know why that comes into play, I guess. Is it anything to do with the writers association or guild rules or whatever?
Laura: Um, I think it was purely bureaucratic, potentially.
Ryan: But then you'll never know who wrote what.
Laura: Okay, here we are. I am wondering, and I think I know the answer to this question. Would you recommend that people watch this film?
Ryan: Yes, the film's great. Um, and uh, yeah, I would highly recommend it. Genuinely. It's not an easy watch. Don't, uh, jump into it thinking it will be. Um, it's relatively quite harrowing, and it's very real and it's very honest. But, uh, no, I would highly recommend it. Uh, it's an important and riveting, uh, piece of cinema.
Laura: Yeah, I'm with you there. I would absolutely recommend this movie. I hadn't seen it since it came out and was able to pick it up on Blu ray not too long ago.
Ryan: Yeah, I'd never seen it before. This is the first time seeing it, if I hadn't mentioned that already.
Laura: I remember sending you a picture and I was like, look what I got. And Ryan, you were like, oh, great, yeah, we have to watch that movie. And it's just because know, it's not a walk in the park, but it is very, very good.
Ryan: It's not light viewing.
Laura: No.
Ryan: You're not watching it going uh it's not a knee slapper, that's for sure.
Laura: Well, none. That's the funny thing. When we go and we came to do this series, Mcqueenners, and it's Hunger, Shame, and Twelve Years of Slave, those are thick, dense, rough films to watch.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: But they are it definitely gives us a different perspective on maybe I don't want to say, like, the importance of full frontal male nudity, but in terms of showing real situations and not shying away from difficult, uh, subjects.
Ryan: Well, for us, it's a shift in context. His three films, uh, in their prevailing battle to show realism. The unfortunate, um, counterpoint to that is that we're obviously having to cover the realism in a different light. So contextually, it works. It's just unfortunate that obviously the content of the film is not particularly course. That's just the main difference.
Laura: You know? Uh, Steve McQueen here he is just showing us I don't know, he's showing us what happened. He's not doing it to shock anybody, but he's just telling it like it is. And I can appreciate that very much. And he does it through all of his films yes. That we've watched. I don't know. It's like, weirdly comforting. This movie is not comforting.
Ryan: No, but at least he guides you through, um, by the hand a little bit.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay. Did we give our ratings on context and visibility?
Laura: Do you want to do that first?
Ryan: Yeah, I guess so. I was just going to say five again. Okay. Um, it's not as gratuitous as Hunger was.
Laura: Um, no, because Hunger it's throughout the entire film.
Ryan: Yeah. Hunger is all the way through it, but, uh, it still kind of maintains the same kind of weight behind it that Hunger did because of how atrocious the whole situation is. So that's why it gets high marks from me.
Laura: Okay. It's hard to do it for this film, but I'm going to give it a four just in terms of how long you have that shot on screen and for how long it goes through. It's not a ton. It is not, like you said, as gratuitous as Hunger, or something like shame.
Ryan: No.
Laura: But the situations where we do have full frontal in this film is horrible.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: No one should ever have to be put in that situation, and it's just unimaginable. So, uh, it's a weird one, it's a tough one, but it is what it is. It is what it is.
Ryan: All right.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Film four and a half.
Laura: Really? I was expecting a full five out of you.
Ryan: No, uh, there's a couple of issues I have with the film kind of near the beginning. Um, it took a good 510 minutes to get me kind of engaged in it, um, just a little bit. Plus, I feel like the structure as well of the film, I don't know if jumping around as much as it did. Um, in terms of the timeline, I've got no issues with well placed flashbacks. And there is, like that Eliza girl, when she's effectively removed from the plantation, um, because she won't stop crying because she's been separated from her children. Um, that flashback and the weight of which that is placed in the story, I think works really well. The placement of some of that other stuff near the beginning, certainly, because it starts at one point at a, ah, pivotal moment in the story, and then we reach that pivotal moment again later on in the story. Um, just there's a couple of little bits where I was not really 100%.
Laura: That part with Dicky in the beginning.
Ryan: No, I mean, I thought that was fine. I think there was just kind of no reason for it to jump around that much when quite a long part of the movie is just linear up until the point where it ends.
Laura: Stop at one point.
Ryan: Yeah. Just kind of stops. It's kind of like, okay, it's like commit to one or the other. Um, but either way, that's a minimal issue. And then obviously, maybe it's because he's.
Laura: Starting to forget what his old life was like, so he stopped having flashbacks and started to just kind of accept this horrible fate.
Ryan: I mean, maybe.
Laura: I'm going to just defend him for that.
Ryan: That's, uh, fine.
Laura: Maybe.
Ryan: Yeah, maybe. But yeah, still, uh, because they were definitely more frequent.
Laura: And then it does start to slow down. You could take that as an artistic choice. Potentially.
Ryan: Uh, yeah, potentially. But obviously, uh, there's plenty to lod, uh, over the film for. I feel it's only a reduction of half a star.
Ryan: I mean okay. What did you give it?
Laura: Five.
Ryan: Oh, okay. You gave it five this time.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay, good.
Laura: Yes. It's got five for me. It is very difficult. Obviously. This was a hard one to talk about if you couldn't tell. Um, yeah.
Ryan: I think we got through it, though.
Laura: We did. We're at the end now, so that's good. We don't have to talk about Twelve Years of Slave again, even though I'd be happy to talk about it more. I do really like this movie, but it is difficult. I love Steve McQueen. I'm like a big Mcqueener over here. I'm a big fan. So there isn't anything of his that I've seen that I haven't liked. And all of his stuff is very difficult yeah. In terms of his films. So, anyway, five stars. It's great.
Ryan: Good.
Laura: This is a great movie.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So yeah. Um, thank you guys so much for being here and sharing Twelve Years of Slave with us, sharing with us Mcqueeners and celebrating our boy, Sir Steve McQueen. And if you ever want to catch up with us and see what we're watching or see what we're up to, you can follow us on Letterboxd. All of our links to all of our socials are somewhere in our Instagram page, so if you're not following us, go ahead and find us. We're at on the Beat bitte, and that's pretty much us across all the social media. So you should find us there. There you can also find what films we're watching next on the podcast.
Ryan: Yeah. If you follow any of our social media pages, you will find a link tree in the description and that will give you all of the connections for everybody.
Laura: Yeah, that's good. So you can watch whatever weird Sci-Fi movie I'm watching on a Wednesday night that may or may not be penis related on our letterboxed. So thanks again, guys. And coming to you from Saratoga, New York, and not Washington, DC. I have been Laura.
Ryan: I've been Ryan.
Laura: Thank you so much. And yay. Mcqueeners. Hooray.
Ryan: We finished it.
Laura: I hope he makes another movie soon.
Ryan: Well, he is.
Laura: Yay.