12 years a slave
Yesterday, I finally went to the cinema and saw 12 Years A Slave, a film that is currently a huge success in France. I don't care if Steve McQueen is an asshole with journalists, he is a terrific filmmaker and strikes once more here.
To be honest I was a bit nervous about the film, because it was an adaptation, because the trailer looked quite Hollywood-like, because I was wary of the "fresque historique" genre, and I feared that McQueen had sort of lost his way. He did not. It is a McQueen film through and through.
Of course Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic in it, conveying so much with his body and face, with his voice that can be so smooth and yet breaks a few times. But I already knew that, as I have loved him since Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, found him to be the shining gem in Serenity (as much as I like Nathan Fillion's charming ways, he doesn't belong to the same acting league) and to be always excellent even in minor or mediocre films. It's such a generous performance, the most physical one he has ever made, but it's never showy -- which makes me think he might not get the Oscar unfortunately --, and he managed to express so many different emotions and thoughts. In a lesser film there would be a voice-over, but McQueen trusted him to just act and be gorgeous.
And Chiwetel acted the hell out of it.
The rest of the cast is up to the task too. And what a supporting cast!
Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o (who both deserved their Oscar nominations for they are terrific!), Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson! We even got cameos by Garret Dillahunt and Omar from The Wire (Michael K. Williams has a very small part). Paul Dano's character is probably a bit too one-dimensional, and Brad Pitt's one isn't really fleshed out -- and would have looked like Hollywood self-indulgence by producer Brad Pitt if it weren't a true story --, but all the characters Salomon met through his journey in Hell are quite fascinating.
Aside from the performances, 12 Years A Slave is beautifully filmed which is a given with Steve McQueen, but still there are some stunning shots in there, and a sense of mise-en-scène that are simply brillant.
Now don't look behind the LJ- cut if you don't want to be spoiled by my thoughts and by pics!
Salomon waking up and finding himself to be in chains for the first time in his life is one first strong moment that is just perfectly directed and acted. When he's beaten up afterwards, it's again a masterful shot and a clever angle that McQueen chose. Later when the boat takes him to New Orleans aka Hell, there are again a few shots that couldn't have been made by another director: the wheels of the boat tearing the screen, cutting an old life away, and the subsequent wake. Magnificent.
And then the gorgeous landscapes of the South are glorified by McQueen's camera. He also captures the rythme of plantations in an unique and refreshing way. His trademark, his style, since his film-debut, is combining raw realism and sheer poetry, harshness and gentleness. He succeeds here again, not only because his lead actor gives off such smoothness and heart in a world of brutality, but because of the beauty of the photography.
Among so many amazing scenes, there is one that stands out IMO. It's a hauting scene, both awful and magnificent. Years ago, when I reviewed Hunger, I said that McQueen was an alchemist who could chang shit into gold.
Here again he manages to film ugliness while creating a "wonderful" scene. It shows Solomon left to hang, literally between life and death, his toes barely touching the muddy ground, the rope clenching his throat like a boa constrictor...and it's filmed from afar so you can see the house and the pretty tree, and the slaves going about their business behind Solomon, ignoring him.
There is no music, only the sound of birds and cicadas, and the laughters of children playing in the background. It would be a lovely scene, an idyllic tableau....if it weren't for a half-lynched man hanging there. Yet it's part of the frame, and oddly fitting in. Because that's how the system worked in plantations, that's what the beautiful South was, dreamy locations filled with casual nightmares. McQueen doesn't tell, he shows.
And the scene uncomfortably lingers on, stretching into a long take, suggesting the endless torture, and it's both beautiful and painful, because among the charming bucolic sounds, disturbing the prettiness of the whole painting, there are the throat noises that the hanging man keeps making and the sound of his feet sticking the mud, the one reminder of the human hurt. No words, not even a cry, an almost imperceptible sound.
Everything is said in that scene, and that scene only should justify every award Steve McQueen gets for this film.
I could ramble on about many precious moments, on Patsey's tragic figure or on the ways McQueen avoids Hollywood clichés here and there. I want to point out too other things. First off, there's the use of flashbacks that are there to tell the story but also to show us that Solomon is becoming aware of things he hadn't quite noticed or understood before, he is also becoming aware of the man he used to be. I mostly think of the flashback showing him and his family in New York, entering a store to buy some bag for his wife, and bargaining. The street scene catches the eyes of another black man who is obviously astonished enough to follow them...until his master roughly commands him to leave the store. Solomon was a good man, but also a proud man, with a certain amount of prejudice, a man who easily turned a blind eye on slavery...until he was forced to face it first hand.
Solomon doesn't represent victims or black people, he embodies humanity in general, and Americans in particular. He is also the audience's surrogate, watching/witnessing what is happening to others (Eliza's storyline mainly), and finally suffering with them and opening his eyes even more.
He becomes what he thought he was not, and could never be...that is "a nigger", and he makes us all niggers in the same time, hurting in unison. His final "Forgive me" to his family, speaks volume.
The other thing I wanted to point out, is the way McQueen studies the torturers, here the men (and women!) who benefit from the slavery system, either the slave-trader, the plantation owners, the white workers (steward, carpenter, etc).
They are all weaks, frustrated and damaged in one way or another.
At one point, it is summed up by something Garret Dillahunt's character tells Ejiofor's : when you do what you do to other human beings -- in that case whipping slaves--, you either find an excuse to keep doing so (racism but also religion) or you find a way to forget it (alcool, sex...). In other words, the torturers also suffer from the oppressive and cruel system, are alienated by said system. It's a great definition of the notion of "crime against humanity", that the crime dehumanizes not only the victim but also the torturer, that the crime negates humanity in both of them.
In Hunger Steve McQueen already broached that idea by focusing on the jailers -- guards who did torture the inmates at the unfamous Maze, and who were obviously harming themselves in the process -- before focusing on Bobby Sands' ordeal.
So even though the director doesn't tone down the horror of slavery, even though he doesn't shy away from showing plantation mistresses just as guilty as the male masters -- thus breaking the cliché of the gentle Southern lady à la Mrs Ellen O'Hara --, his tale isn't simplistic and manichean.
Fassbender's character is a villain, but he is also the embodiement of the ravages of slavery. He is a sick man, and several scenes stress it out, either showing his foolish fury, or his creepy tender ways, or making him trip over among pigs or fall down in front of Solomon, or showing him in an undressed state. The man is a mess, a maniac that ends up lacking the dignity that Solomon manages to salvage.
It is such a complex role that it is no surprise that McQueen gave it to his favourite actor.
Michael Fassbender is lucky to work with such a great film maker, and I'm so happy that Steve McQueen gave Chiwetel Ejiofor the role that makes the world see at last how wonderful an actor he is.
It's about time!
To be honest I was a bit nervous about the film, because it was an adaptation, because the trailer looked quite Hollywood-like, because I was wary of the "fresque historique" genre, and I feared that McQueen had sort of lost his way. He did not. It is a McQueen film through and through.
Of course Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic in it, conveying so much with his body and face, with his voice that can be so smooth and yet breaks a few times. But I already knew that, as I have loved him since Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, found him to be the shining gem in Serenity (as much as I like Nathan Fillion's charming ways, he doesn't belong to the same acting league) and to be always excellent even in minor or mediocre films. It's such a generous performance, the most physical one he has ever made, but it's never showy -- which makes me think he might not get the Oscar unfortunately --, and he managed to express so many different emotions and thoughts. In a lesser film there would be a voice-over, but McQueen trusted him to just act and be gorgeous.
And Chiwetel acted the hell out of it.
The rest of the cast is up to the task too. And what a supporting cast!
Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o (who both deserved their Oscar nominations for they are terrific!), Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson! We even got cameos by Garret Dillahunt and Omar from The Wire (Michael K. Williams has a very small part). Paul Dano's character is probably a bit too one-dimensional, and Brad Pitt's one isn't really fleshed out -- and would have looked like Hollywood self-indulgence by producer Brad Pitt if it weren't a true story --, but all the characters Salomon met through his journey in Hell are quite fascinating.
Aside from the performances, 12 Years A Slave is beautifully filmed which is a given with Steve McQueen, but still there are some stunning shots in there, and a sense of mise-en-scène that are simply brillant.
Now don't look behind the LJ- cut if you don't want to be spoiled by my thoughts and by pics!
Salomon waking up and finding himself to be in chains for the first time in his life is one first strong moment that is just perfectly directed and acted. When he's beaten up afterwards, it's again a masterful shot and a clever angle that McQueen chose. Later when the boat takes him to New Orleans aka Hell, there are again a few shots that couldn't have been made by another director: the wheels of the boat tearing the screen, cutting an old life away, and the subsequent wake. Magnificent.
And then the gorgeous landscapes of the South are glorified by McQueen's camera. He also captures the rythme of plantations in an unique and refreshing way. His trademark, his style, since his film-debut, is combining raw realism and sheer poetry, harshness and gentleness. He succeeds here again, not only because his lead actor gives off such smoothness and heart in a world of brutality, but because of the beauty of the photography.
Among so many amazing scenes, there is one that stands out IMO. It's a hauting scene, both awful and magnificent. Years ago, when I reviewed Hunger, I said that McQueen was an alchemist who could chang shit into gold.
Here again he manages to film ugliness while creating a "wonderful" scene. It shows Solomon left to hang, literally between life and death, his toes barely touching the muddy ground, the rope clenching his throat like a boa constrictor...and it's filmed from afar so you can see the house and the pretty tree, and the slaves going about their business behind Solomon, ignoring him.
There is no music, only the sound of birds and cicadas, and the laughters of children playing in the background. It would be a lovely scene, an idyllic tableau....if it weren't for a half-lynched man hanging there. Yet it's part of the frame, and oddly fitting in. Because that's how the system worked in plantations, that's what the beautiful South was, dreamy locations filled with casual nightmares. McQueen doesn't tell, he shows.
And the scene uncomfortably lingers on, stretching into a long take, suggesting the endless torture, and it's both beautiful and painful, because among the charming bucolic sounds, disturbing the prettiness of the whole painting, there are the throat noises that the hanging man keeps making and the sound of his feet sticking the mud, the one reminder of the human hurt. No words, not even a cry, an almost imperceptible sound.
Everything is said in that scene, and that scene only should justify every award Steve McQueen gets for this film.
I could ramble on about many precious moments, on Patsey's tragic figure or on the ways McQueen avoids Hollywood clichés here and there. I want to point out too other things. First off, there's the use of flashbacks that are there to tell the story but also to show us that Solomon is becoming aware of things he hadn't quite noticed or understood before, he is also becoming aware of the man he used to be. I mostly think of the flashback showing him and his family in New York, entering a store to buy some bag for his wife, and bargaining. The street scene catches the eyes of another black man who is obviously astonished enough to follow them...until his master roughly commands him to leave the store. Solomon was a good man, but also a proud man, with a certain amount of prejudice, a man who easily turned a blind eye on slavery...until he was forced to face it first hand.
Solomon doesn't represent victims or black people, he embodies humanity in general, and Americans in particular. He is also the audience's surrogate, watching/witnessing what is happening to others (Eliza's storyline mainly), and finally suffering with them and opening his eyes even more.
He becomes what he thought he was not, and could never be...that is "a nigger", and he makes us all niggers in the same time, hurting in unison. His final "Forgive me" to his family, speaks volume.
The other thing I wanted to point out, is the way McQueen studies the torturers, here the men (and women!) who benefit from the slavery system, either the slave-trader, the plantation owners, the white workers (steward, carpenter, etc).
They are all weaks, frustrated and damaged in one way or another.
At one point, it is summed up by something Garret Dillahunt's character tells Ejiofor's : when you do what you do to other human beings -- in that case whipping slaves--, you either find an excuse to keep doing so (racism but also religion) or you find a way to forget it (alcool, sex...). In other words, the torturers also suffer from the oppressive and cruel system, are alienated by said system. It's a great definition of the notion of "crime against humanity", that the crime dehumanizes not only the victim but also the torturer, that the crime negates humanity in both of them.
In Hunger Steve McQueen already broached that idea by focusing on the jailers -- guards who did torture the inmates at the unfamous Maze, and who were obviously harming themselves in the process -- before focusing on Bobby Sands' ordeal.
So even though the director doesn't tone down the horror of slavery, even though he doesn't shy away from showing plantation mistresses just as guilty as the male masters -- thus breaking the cliché of the gentle Southern lady à la Mrs Ellen O'Hara --, his tale isn't simplistic and manichean.
Fassbender's character is a villain, but he is also the embodiement of the ravages of slavery. He is a sick man, and several scenes stress it out, either showing his foolish fury, or his creepy tender ways, or making him trip over among pigs or fall down in front of Solomon, or showing him in an undressed state. The man is a mess, a maniac that ends up lacking the dignity that Solomon manages to salvage.
It is such a complex role that it is no surprise that McQueen gave it to his favourite actor.
Michael Fassbender is lucky to work with such a great film maker, and I'm so happy that Steve McQueen gave Chiwetel Ejiofor the role that makes the world see at last how wonderful an actor he is.
It's about time!