There are some movies that you will only watch once. They are so intense and deal with subject matter that makes you not want to repeat the experience. Yet, when you finish viewing it you are grateful for the experience. You find that you have an insight that you would otherwise not have.
Twelve Years a Slave is such a movie. It is brutal in an unflinching way. There is genuine despair portrayed and the viewer sees human suffering without a filter. But when you are done you are thankful for the time spent.
The story is based on a true account of a freedman named Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Elofor). Living in New York, his life is fulfilling. He is married and has a son and daughter. His skill as a fiddler adds to the quality of his life.
Michael Parnell
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He is introduced to two men (Scoot McNairy and Taran Killiam) who offer him employment in as a fiddler. They transport him there and get him drunk.
When Northup awakens he is in chains. These two so-called employers have sold him into slavery. He is transported to Georgia and sold to Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Ford is a good master. He treats Northrup well, even allowing him to create a new means of transport of the lumber that makes Ford’s living. But this rubs a white employee the wrong way.
This employee (Paul Dano) has an altercation with Northup where Northup ends with the upper hand. This leads the man to an attempt to hang Northup. The overseer of the plantation sees this. He stops the hanging from being fulfilled, but does not take Northup down. He hangs there for a day and a night.
When he taken down, Ford reports that Northup cannot stay there any longer. He is fearful of what would happen if Northup stayed. The white man has drummed up support to have Northup killed and harm to come to Ford for harboring him. Ford sells Northup to Epps (Michael Fassbender).
Epps is a cruel master. He beats his slaves daily if they do not pick the proper amount of cotton.
Epps continually molests and rapes one of his female slaves named Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). She produces the largest amount of cotton each day and he sexually assaults her out of some psychotic desire to possess her essence.
Both Ford and Epps provide religious instruction for their slaves, but they make sure that they interpret the Bible’s to justify slavery. They use passages that speak of beating a disobedient slave and that slavery is God’s will.
This shows the trouble that comes when we misapply what Scripture says and use it to keep people in line. These masters use the Bible as a threat, not as a promise.
The slaves seem to see past this, for their songs in the fields speak of God coming one day to free them from their oppression.
I think that is a lesson for those of us who want to preach or teach from the Bible. We need to be careful when we “rightly explain the word of truth.” Jesus was quick to declare of those who cause people to stumble by their instruction that it would be better for them to have a millstone hung around their neck and thrown into the sea.
Director Steve McQueen presents a powerful story of how terrible slavery was in our country. He does not soft pedal or sugarcoat any aspect. He holds before us a picture of our nation at a time when we did not believe in total equality.
The performances in this picture are Oscar-worthy. Lupita Nyong’o and Chiwetel Elofor should be nominated and probably will win.
It may be hard to see, but every person needs to view this movie once. It shows us the portrait of a time in our past that helps us understand where many of our prejudices against African-Americans arose, but also helps us see how misguided that kind of thinking is.
This is one of the best pictures of this year or any year.
Michael Parnell (drparnell@embarqmail.com) is pastor of Beth Car Baptist Church in Halifax, Va.
Twelve Years a Slave
Rated R for violence/cruelty, some nudity and brief sexuality
Directed by Steve McQueen
Written by John Ridley, based on the book by Solomon Northup
WITH: Chiwetel Elofor (Solomon Northup), Scoot McNairy (Brown), Taran Killam (Hamilton), Benedict Cumberbatch (Ford), Paul Dano (Tibeats), Michael Fassbender (Epps), Lupita Nyong’o (Patsey)