I watched 12 Years a Slave which is based on a true story about an African American man named Solomon Northup who was born a free man in the year 1808. The time period of this movie is in the 1840’s to the 1850’s. Solomon lived in up-state New York (saratoga springs) and was a farmer and violinist he also had a wife and two kids. Solomon was approached one day by a colleague with two men, named Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, were looking for a fiddler to go on a “tour” with them. He agreed and shortly after they began their tour. The tour was supposed to be mainly in the North, due to the fear of slavery being legal in southern states, but the men convinced Solomon to travel to do one more show in Washington D.C, they offered him a very generous wage and to pay for his trip home. When in Washington Solomon is drugged and sold into slavery with the identity of a man named Platt, a georgia slave run away, it is later found out that the two men were con men and sold Solomon for money. Solomon is then held in a “slave pen” in Washington with other “slave runaways” they are then taken to Louisiana and sold as well as many other families. Solomon is held captive for 12 years serving as a slave for different families at different plantations. Solomon tried multiple times to inform people that he is a freeman from Saratoga Springs, New York but no one believes him until a Canadian contractor named Samuel Bass hears his story.
I loved this movie and I think that it was really well portrayed being such a heavy topic. The acting was really really good; I think that it must be difficult for some actors to portray these cruel, cold-hearted characters (like the plantation owners) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Solomon Northup) did an amazing job playing his role. As I said before, this is a heavy topic and I think that the story was portrayed very well and the story itself is so intriguing and the film is as well and I think that had to do with the way the movie was shot. Some music was in this movie, when you would expect it to be, a lot of it was sung by the actors and actresses, but the music helped build intensity and set the tone in many scenes. It was interesting in this movie because the lighting was different than many other movies, since its in the 1840s-1850’s in the movie, the only key lighting that would appropriately fit the time period is daylight and candle light. That being said, the way that the lighting was portrayed in this movie was very good, because historically they did not have much to work with but really they made it work. The lighting in many ways set the tone in so many scenes as well because when you see people working hard in a field in hot blazing sun it makes more of a point in a sense then if it wasnt that midday heat. I had to watch this movie two times so that I could watch it from a critic’s perspective, the first time I watched it I was almost too emotional to judge in that way so I just watched it twice! If we were to watch this in class I think that we would talk a lot about the key lighting.
I would recommend this movie because it's such an amazing story and it’s a very interesting story as well that I think more people should know about, the fact that a grown free man was kidnapped and brought into the institution of slavery under a different identity and almost could not do anything about it since no one would believe him his sad and I think more people should see the story. I think this is the type of movie that appeals to many different audiences, I think that it would appeal to many different people, the story is a sad story and it’s almost a moving story which should appeal to everyone's emotions.
