12 Years a Slave

Director Steve McQueen started out as a photographer.  His first two features, "Hunger" and "Shame," showed it.  They were frequently wordless affairs, telling their respective stories through mesmerizing visuals.

It's therefore a bit jarring to see how conventional McQueen's third film, "12 Years a Slave," is at times.  The movie starts in media res, with our hero near his lowest point.  It then cuts to the beginning of the story, showing our hero as a shining, smiling, upstanding citizen, completely unaware that any harm could befall him.  Eventually, there's a kindly white man (played by Brad Pitt, recycling his ridiculous Southern accent from "Inglorious Basterds") who's willing to give our hero a helping hand.

I suspect McQueen saw his opportunity for the brass ring--Oscar glory and better opportunities to make films--and took it.

But that reading is too cynical.  There's some fine filmmaking here.  McQueen isn't afraid to stop the action and give us a lyrical shot of willow trees or the Mississippi River.  (Terrence Malick would approve.)  He also holds shots to let them sink in.  Most notably, he spends several minutes showing our hero standing on his toes with a noose around his neck, struggling desperately to avoid strangulation.  (Most Hollywood directors would have cut from that scene in under 30 seconds.)  The film's best scene, which eventually leads to our hero whipping another slave, is shot in a single long take.  As with recent release "Gravity," the lack of cutting makes the scene almost unbearable, leaving the viewer with a sense that there's no way out.

"12 Years a Slave" also functions as an acting clinic.  Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a fine performance as the hero.  Occasionally the material overwhelms him, but there's no shame in that, given the extreme degree of difficulty for the role.  Michael Fassbender is tremendous as a loony slave owner; he shows how slavery destroys the dignity of masters as well as slaves.  Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, and Paul Giamatti all do nice work in small roles.

"12 Years a Slave" is a tad too conventional to be great.  It's not "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "There Will Be Blood."  Nonetheless, it's a very good film.  We need more of those--particularly depicting the horrors of slavery.