Essay Example on 12 Years a Slave: A Detailed Review of Racism, Slavery, and Justice

The 12 Years a Slave film tells the story of a free black and educated man living in New York back in the late 1840s named Solomon Northup. The man gets abducted, and he is shipped towards the South, where he is sold to Slavery. This film portrays a lot of themes, the common ones being racism and Slavery, truth and justice, the power of music, among many other themes based on Solomon Northup's suffering for twelve years. The paper is, therefore, premised on a detailed review of 12 Years a Slave, based on the storyline, actors, sound, and editing, Genre, storyline, and its impacts on society.

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On the aspect of storytelling, the film starts with Northup and other slaves in the sugarcane field, and later Northup's story follows as an extended flashback. As identified, Northup was a freeman from New York, and he lived there with his two daughters and wife. He previously worked as a violinist, and two white men named Hamilton and Brown offered him short term employment if he agreed to travel with them to Washington D.C. Northup decided to take the offer. However, after arriving, he was delivered to a slave pen run by Burch. For the 12 years that followed, he survived as a slave serving different masters (McQueen n.p). After 12 years, he was saved by his friends who came to rescue him.

On the part of acting, the film contains many actors, and at the end of the film, the whole cast is presented with their real names, including the director Steve McQueen, and the producers such as Brad Pitt. However, the most common actors cast names to include Northup, Epps, Patsey, Mary Epps, William Ford, Armbsy, Eliza, among many others. These actors act in what can be described as historical scenes to put across the themes in the film effectively. Northup is in most scenes of the film because the storyline revolves around him.

With the view of cinematography, twelve years a slave captures a moment in time for an extended period, and everything thing seems real. The film's cinematographer Sean Bobbitt argues that it was essential for the film's audience to get the reality of Slavery from the actors within the film (Moakley par 10). More so, the cinematography of the movie shows a sufficient passage of time, which is not very common for most films. When watching the film, one can note the time duration of the day as it goes through the day's heat and drifts towards the evening as the slave actors' work under supervision.

On the aspect of editing, the producers of the film achieved a significant effect through stylistic devices. For instance, they used overlapping sound designs and disjointed editing schemes. Such devices were enough to complicate any notion of seeing the whole truth within the movie despite the associated violence (McQueen n.p). Besides, there is a staggering sequence of edited pieces of music to make the film enjoyable to the audience.

Notably, sound also played a critical part in the review. The sound from the soundtrack and the way the actors speak seems to be well directed to create Slavery and a historical tone. It is evident that no one knows what slaves' backs in the late 1840s spoke like, but by listening to the actors, one can tell the uniqueness in their speech. Finally, the film contains a unique soundtrack that seems to rhyme with whatever goes on around the movie. The soundtrack within the movie is also accompanied by violin music and several instances of Western music.

Style and directing techniques might involve any aspects of the film, including editing, sound, attitude, and dialogue within the film. The twelve years a slave film seems to have used the Hollywood technique to direct towards the slave era in America. The film seems to capture language and dialects of what slaves would sound like making the actors in the movie sound different. The design of the film seems to have researched extensively to bring about the reality of Slavery by the dress code of the actors, among many other scenarios of slaves working in the plantations.

The film Twelve Years a Slave offers many insights on the vices that should be avoided in society. Some of these vices include Slavery and racism. Besides, the film helps its audience understand history and what Slavery was like. The film further due to love from the audience, and effective cinematography, 12 Years a Slave was named as the best film in 2013 by several media outlets (Bauer Par 1). More so, the film won some awards such as the best picture, the best screenplay, as well as the award of the best supporting actor.

The Genre of twelve years a slave can be identified as a memoir or an autobiography. The memoir is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, who was a black freeman kidnapped and sold into Slavery. The slave narrative describes Northup's 12 years as a slave of different masters and how he ended up being freed.

Counclusion

In summary, The 12 Years a Slave is based on a true story of Solomon Northup, whose life within the twelve years of Slavery mirrors the general struggles that slaves went through in the hands of their masters. His rescue, after twelve years, symbolized an end of Slavery when concerns arose that slaves are also human and deserve better treatment. The director of the film uses various stylistic elements and features with the objective of imaging the real struggles that slaves went through based on the life of Solomon Northup and his time of Slavery. As such, the film effectively merits documentation as one of the historical films that mirror significant events that led to the need for crafting of the American dream.

Works Cited

Bauer, Patricia. 12 Years a Slave. Britannica, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/12-Years-a-Slave Access on 17 June 2020.

McQueen, Steve. 12 Years a Slave. 2013. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/ Access on 17 June 2020

Moakley, Paul. Behind the Moving Image: The Cinematography of 12 Years a Slave. Time. https://time.com/3807491/behind-the-moving-image-the-cinematography-of-12-years-a-slave/ Access on 17 June 2020