Comments on 12 Years A Slave.

It has been said that 12 Years A Slave is an authentic representation of slavery. I would agree and give a lot of credit to director Steve McQueen and his team for how they portrayed the condition of slavery in the most realistic fashion possible.

The brutality of punishment enhances the authenticity of this film a great deal. The severity of abuse is put in plain view and never hidden from start to finish. Physical pain and suffering is also repeatedly shown in an unfiltered manner which has the effect of never letting the viewer ignore it. In continuation, the worthlessness and helplessness in the attitude of the slaves is made particularly poignant by the first class acting. It gives a veritable picture of how the structure and mechanics of the slave society totally destroyed the self worth of African Americans. Multiple scenes show slaves just wondering around, unrestrained, however they show not even a flicker of thought towards trying to escape or fighting back. This representation is a great strength of the film and its sense of realness. 

Smaller details provide the same outcome. Solomon having his name changed to Platt shows how the identity, history and significance of slaves was torn away from them completing a total degradation of character. One of the harshest realities of slavery which the film portraits very successfully.

The image of slavery that 12 Years A Slave presents has a broad scope and depth. It triumphantly investigates a range of characters from blacks slaves, white slave owners and white sympathisers.

Both Ford and Epps (slave owners) are products of the slave society and are equally enslaved by it themselves. Despite being a compassionate man, Ford still sells Solomon down the river to work for Epps to save a financial blunder. Although Ford knows he is selling a man, whos character he somewhat admires, to a more ruthlessly punishing plantation owner in Epps. He cannot help Solomon.

Epps on the other hand has clearly been driven somewhat insane by his infatuation with Patsey, religious ignorance and the continued, merciless beatings and whippings that he carries out. Epps is an example of how the empowerment of whites in the slave society had them too, trapped.
Also in the film Epps says that there is no sin where his property is concerned. This highlights how white slave owners justified the crimes upon humanity they were committing. Epps uses the filters of religion and the slave society to protect himself from mental and moral self annihilation.

Bass broadens the scope of the film further. As a sympathiser of Solomon he offers an anti-slave/anti-Epps narrative strand which provides hope and later a means of freedom and justice. This character maintains the reality of the film by not letting viewers forget that not everyone in the USA during this period was racist and pro-slavery.