Steve McQueen’s upcoming historical drama 12 Years a Slave may be the first film to define the horrific story of slavery on the big screen while also making history itself during awards season.
Coming off screenings at film festivals in Telluride and Toronto, some of Hollywood’s most reputable reviewers are deeming it the Oscar frontrunner for best picture, comparing it to Schindler’s List and suggesting McQueen might also receive honors for best director.
If such prophecies were fulfilled, McQueen would top a remarkable year for black cinema by becoming the first black filmmaker to receive the award.
He would do so for a subject matter typically untouched by the movie business.
“12 Years a Slave bears the hallmark of being the defining film of an atrocity almost too huge to appropriately define in cinema,” Joe Neumaier, Film Editor and movie critic for the New York Daily News tells theGrio. “Other attempts have focused on elements of it, like Amistad and Glory notably…or they’ve fictionalized it like in Beloved.”
In McQueen’s version however, the eyes and ears of oppression become the narrative’s harrowing voice, a true recitation based on the autobiography of former slave Solomon Northup written in 1853.
“Our eyes into the horrors of slavery go with the character,” Neumaier explains. “Our discovery of the day to day nightmares of slavery are also his, so we really have an affinity and connection. Those earlier films don’t necessarily grab us and bring us along with it.”
The first film to unearth the ‘horror’ of an era
Though McQueen’s highly-anticipated new feature doesn’t hit theaters until October, the reaction from those who’ve seen it has been unanimously positive.
Overwhelming, impressive, devastating, dynamic, extraordinary; these are but a few words critics are offering to describe what now seems like a surefire Academy Award contender.
The movie follows Northup, a free black man who is kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, as he spirals into the depths of violence, evil and bondage.
Of only a handful of films that have even addressed slavery, it will arguably be the most uncompromising.
“One reason it caused such a profound emotional reaction is because it gets under your skin, and personalizes the horror of this era,” observes Anthony Breznican, Senior Writer and Chief Oscar Correspondent for Entertainment Weekly. “Black, white, whatever your gender or ethnicity, it’s easy to identity with Solomon Northup. He’s a free man. He wasn’t born into slavery. We experience the confusion he experiences, the shock and the horror. He considers himself different than the slaves, and now we are all in his shoes and that is an important and rare thing for a film.”
At Toronto International Film Festival, Breznican remembers the audience as “speechless” with their “circuits blown” following a screening of the movie.
Theatergoers left not knowing how to react, yet paradoxically with a profound understanding of what was achieved.
From Breznican’s perspective, the lack of films dealing with this topic relates to its volatility, as well as a scarcity of personalized material.
The structure and process of enslavement may be aptly documented, but too many human faces left the Earth with no formal record of their journey.
What remain have become imagined scenarios on screen, some, Django Unchained for instance, more farfetched than others.
“Django actually pales in comparison to 12 Years a Slave,” Breznican feels. “It would be like if we didn’t have so many wonderful films about World War II and only had Inglourious Basterds.”
“Inglourious Basterds is fine because we’ve had serious looks at World War II and the Holocaust,” he continues. “It’s okay, as time goes on, to have a little fun in the context of some unspeakable human tragedy because we have taken it seriously at other times. In this case, we had Django, but we haven’t had a serious picture about slavery in a really long time.”
Kyle Buchanan, Movies Editor for New York magazine, agrees calling 12 Years a Slave a “landmark film,” and definite Oscar win for best picture.
“There is a troubling lack of movies about slavery,” he points out. “Inglourious Basterds was able to mash up decades of World War II films with a healthy helping of irreverence; [Tarantino] brought the same approach to the often-larky Django, but there wasn’t that same breadth of movies about slavery to play against. In Django, we’d gotten the movie that treats slavery as grist for a spaghetti western before we’d gotten the defining movie that presented it as it truly was.”
That quintessential story, that “defining” moment, will likely be found in 12 Years a Slave.
Not about race but survival
McQueen, nevertheless, has been the first to point out he isn’t focused on drumming up some intricate racial diatribe on the matter.
During a press conference at TIFF, the filmmaker said he hopes to move beyond race with this movie, looking more at means of survival.
“It’s one thing to read about slavery, but when you see it within a narrative, it’s different. Now if that starts a conversation, wonderful, excellent,” McQueen said. “But for me, this film is about how to survive an unfortunate situation.”
Inevitably, the race conversation will and has already begun, particularly given the lively debates that have ensued around Lee Daniel’s The Butler and Fruitvale Station.
“The movie is going to provoke all sorts of discussion — some of it intended by McQueen, and plenty of it inevitably whipped up by the media,” Buchanan notes. “I do agree with McQueen’s statement that the movie is, at its essence, about survival; I also thought long and hard while watching it about our endless capacity for cruelty, man’s inhumanity to man. It will surely inspire plenty of talk about racism and slavery, too, and while some of that talk may be gaffe-laden or frustrating, all of it is overdue. “
Brad Pitt, who plays a small role in the film and also served as producer, has likewise noted the startling shortage of slave stories in cinema, and told the press at Telluride Film Festival that this movie was why his production company Plan B “got into the film business in the first place.”
“If I never get to participate in a film again,” he said, “This is it for me.”
What Oscar wins could mean for black filmmakers
If 12 Years a Slave performs as critics expect, it will reel in many Oscar nods, and possibly a win for McQueen.
Beyond accolades, it could potentially expand the definition and opportunities for black filmmakers in Hollywood.
Mike Sargent, Member and Co-Founder of the Black Film Critics Circle, believes boundaries are already being negated.
“In the next six months, with all these black films that are coming out, the notion of what is a black film is going to change forever,” he says. “There’s this myth that black films don’t travel. That they can’t play in other countries. That there’s no market for black film…The whole idea that the stories of black people, the diaspora on the planet, whether it’s in Africa, Jamaica, Grenada, America, I think it’s a legitimate genre. It will become a legitimate genre.”
According to Sargent, McQueen’s got an edge both with audiences and critics because he’s viewed as an “auteur,” and his British outlook may be more objective than an African-American’s.
He’s obscure — a “foreign” artist if you will — something that could have denied him credit in the past, but may further his cause at present.
Similarly, Neumaier notes McQueen may lack the “fearfulness, anger, timidity or didacticism” that an American filmmaker would have if granted the same story line and platform.
For whatever politics are involved, both imply McQueen’s unique vision and voice will raise the bar, and the awards will serve as a boost up the ladder.
“Especially in a year where there’s so much diversity,” Sargent adds. “Because there will be so many awards and nominations coming out of these films, it’s going to make people have to take them seriously as opposed to the ghetto where black film occupies now.”
A promise made back when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won lead acting awards in 2002, this year’s Oscar race will likely be filled with many African-American contenders, potentially more than ever.
From Fruitvale Station, 12 Years a Slave and The Butler to upcoming films like Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Black Nativity, variety and talent have taken the spotlight.
The next ‘Schindler’s List’?
And while it defies expectation, 12 Years a Slave is also drawing comparisons to an older masterpiece, 1993’s Schindler’s List, the winner of seven Academy Awards.
“Both films are about the mechanism of inhumanity that dominated a particular era,” comments Breznican. “Not just one person’s crime against another, but sort of a widespread accepted insanity.”
Adds Buchanan, “It has the sweep and significance of Schindler’s List, another seminal film about a tragic period in history, and it’s carried off with dazzling formal ability.”
Breznican hesitates to put too many Oscar tags to the movie’s name for fear it brings ego and superficiality onto the table, but he stresses his use of award-dropping as a way to drive people to theaters.
“Any year this film came out would be a major event, it would be one of the best pictures of the year,” he feels. “It’s a major accomplishment by Steve McQueen.”
Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @CourtGarcia