I couldn’t write about this film without giving my input on slavery. His performance was truly outstanding and worth every award that he received. His performance is incredible, and every time I watch it, it sucks me in and one can’t help but cry. Solomon is forced to experience horrendous acts of humanity (or inhumanity), but he always maintains a certain dignity and honourability that makes his plight even more emotional. This is how Ejiofor and the audience become one, thus forcing the audience to tears, myself included. In consequence, Ejiofor is forced to make use of body language and facial expressions through his eyes much of the time. Due to Northup’s position as slave, he is unable to speak his mind but he does on more than one occasion which gets him beaten or even hanged by some overseers to the point of near death. Now, everybody should know who he is after being nominated for an Oscar and winning a BAFTA for his portrayal of the great character. Not many know about Ejiofor but I believe this film and this performance will be his career defining role. Edwin Epps: I say it as fact.Ĭhiwetel Ejiofor (American Gangster) is in the titular role of Solomon Northup and his performance was flawless. Samuel Bass: The conditions of your laborers, it’s all wrong. In the final year of his enslavement, Solomon’s incidental encounter with a Canadian abolitionist called Brass (Brad Pitt) will eternally change his life. Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. Facing cruelty and suffering from a terrifying sadistic slave owner, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) as well as unexpected kindnesses from the more human characters but also spineless, such as Master Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). It’s set in pre-Civil War America in 1841 and Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from Saratoga in New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Her self-syndicated book reviews appear in more than 260 newspapers.Based on the autobiography by Solomon Northup, this is one man’s fight for survival and freedom. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 12,000 books. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. For readers who love history, “Twelve Years a Slave” is one incredibly powerful story. He comments on the absurd to the point that you can almost hear his eyes rolling from 1853, the year this book was originally published.Įven if you’ve seen the movie, I think you owe it to yourself to read this book on which it’s based. We read statements such as that Epps couldn’t let Northup die because it would’ve meant “the death of an animal worth a thousand dollars” or that another slave hoped “his master would buy me” – thus reminding us, and not gently, that this book is a memoir.Īnd yet, despite that brutality, Northup exhibits a sense of sly humor here. It surely reads like one – that is, until author Solomon Northup slams us into reality. Get a dozen pages into “Twelve Years a Slave,” and you could be forgiven for forgetting that this isn’t a novel. For a dozen years, he endured 20-hour workdays, meager rations and daily beatings.Īnd then he met the man who put into motion events that would save his life. Platt tried to escape once, but returned to his master’s plantation for safety.įor 12 years, Platt kept quiet, his eyes open for a real opportunity to flee and return home to his wife and children. Edwin Epps alternated between anger and drunkenness and ran his small plantation with a handful of slaves and regular whippings. John Tibeats had almost killed Platt because Platt dared to stand up to his rage. Later Ford fell on hard times and reluctantly sold his slaves, though he retained some ownership of Platt.Īs much as his first master had been kind, Platt’s second master was cruel, as was his third and last. Still, having been beaten into silence once and threatened, Platt kept the truth to himself and worked hard. His first master was a “kind, noble… Christian man” named Ford who, perhaps, could’ve been trusted with the facts of abduction and enslavement. They had three small children and were enjoying a certain level of prosperity when Solomon, trusting two new friends, went to play his violin and was poisoned, captured, beaten, renamed “Platt” and sent to the south as a slave. He lived in New York, married a “colored girl” with “the blood of three races” in her veins, which gave her a “singular but pleasing expression.” Born in July 1808, Solomon Northup was the grandson of slaves, the son of a free man, born a free man himself.
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