But, movie buff that I am, I went nonetheless. Knowing fully well what I would see.
Hollywood's annual nominee devoted to making us remember again one of the following:
1. The Holocaust.
2. The AIDS virus.
3. The history of slavery in this country.
Go back over the Oscar rolls the past two decades. You will always find at least one Best Picture nominee devoted to one or all of the above. Of course, if a producer really wants to pin down that Oscar, you'd develop a plot line of a Jewish Black man whose ancestors survived both Auschwitz and the burning of Atlanta now afflicted with AIDS. Wow. Back up the truck for the golden trophies now.
But I digress.
"12 Years A Slave" is one more movie devoted to reminding us all of the ugly history this nation ultimately endured. You've see the plot over and over and over. The movie, indeed, is no different than an episode of "Roots" or "The Color Purple" or two dozen other films devoted to the same subject. And, despite that fact that this one is "based on a true story," you can actually predict everything that happens minute by minute.
God, America's a horrible country, isn't it? How the hell could this have possibly happened?
Well, it did. And it was horrific.
And it also happened a century and a half ago.
At the beginning of "12 Years A Slave,"we meet Solomon Northup, a violinist living in Saratoga, NY around 1840. Blessed with a wife and two children, they are the Huxtables of the pre-Civil War era.
Solomon goes out to dinner one night with two traveling magicians, the Penn and Teller of the 19th Century. Before you can say "Whoopi Goldberg," Solomon is unconscious. He wakes up in chains somewhere in the South. Talk about your bad karma. Slave trader Paul Giamatti slaps him around a bit and then sells him off to the highest bidder. We are now off to the Camptown races.
Solomon winds up being called 'Platt" and ultimately ends up in the hands of the most despicable White plantation owner you have ever met, played with overwrought ferociousness by Michael Fassbender. What follows is an endless series of beatings, whippings, and other assorted means of torture. The movie is relentless in its violence. The audience around me was appalled by every slap and punch. What the hell did they think they were going to see? This isn't advertised as "The Band Wagon" with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Meanwhile, if Solomon lived 12 years a slave, so did I. For me, it was "Two Hours and Fourteen Minutes A Slave."
Director Steve McQueen (no, not the guy who screwed Ali McGraw) never lets the audience up from the canvas for a single moment. Platt and the other slaves are pummeled constantly and so were we. Uncle! Then, to complicate things ever further, we meet fellow slave Patsy, played with constant tears and sobs by Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong'O. Along with holding the plantation's record for most cotton picked in a single day (that's not a joke---it's really in the script), Patsy also regularly "services" Fassbender's character. You know that never ends well in these films, because I've seen it two dozen other times on screen. Patsy is ultimately tied to a tree and, at this point in the movie, we are numb to any further abuse. Poor Patsy. Poorer us.
Meanwhile, McQueen's direction here is so heavy-handed that the audience might as well be hit in the head repeatedly with a pair of pliers. You are telegraphed repeatedly who are the good guys and who are the bad ones. All the slaves speak eloquently like they're from the Royal Shakespeare Company while every White slave owner sounds like Jethro Bodine. Of course, the only White character who has a conscience and becomes a hero is the one played by Brad Pitt. Wait, Brad is also one of the executive producers of the film. Hmmm, how did that happen? And just what past sin is Pitt trying to absolve himself of? Gee, that might be a more interesting movie.
Okay, okay, I'm not belittling the plight of slaves in our country's history. I wish it had never existed, because, frankly, we have never been allowed to escape it. Thanks to movies like this, we get constant reminders and our nation has never been allowed to move on. Despite the fact that this country has made humongous strides in race relations, especially over the past fifty years, we are continually shown what happened in the past. We always are forced to remember, because we are not allowed to forget.
This is Hollywood's way of being socially conscious. Yet, if hack filmmakers like Steve McQueen really wanted to make some movies that can help us as a country and a population, why not take a look at what is happening today? Hey, film what happens every single weekend on the south side of Chicago. There are hundreds of other stories that need to be told that will help us today, not remind us of yesterday.
But they won't. Because it's a lot easier to make trash and propaganda like "12 Years A Slave," which is not entertainment, but a history lesson. Simply tie a slave to a tree and beat him to a pulp.
How many more Oscars can we whip out of that?
LEN'S RATING: One star. Barely.
Dinner last night: Had a big lunch so just a sandwich.
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