{"id":34375,"date":"2013-10-19T20:38:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T20:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=34375"},"modified":"2013-10-20T00:31:17","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T00:31:17","slug":"an-essentially-american-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=34375","title":{"rendered":"An Essentially American Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Essentially American Narrative<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2013-10-11<\/p>\n

Nelson George<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Discussion of Steve McQueen\u2019s Film \u201812 Years a Slave\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Amid comic book epics, bromantic comedies and sequels of sequels, films about America\u2019s tortured racial history have recently emerged as a surprisingly lucrative Hollywood staple. In the last two years, \u201cThe Help,\u201d \u201cLincoln,””Django Unchained,””42\u201d and \u201cLee Daniels\u2019 The Butler\u201d have performed well at the box office, gathering awards in some cases and drawing varying degrees of critical acclaim.<\/p>\n

The latest entry in this unlikely genre is \u201c12 Years a Slave<\/a>,\u201d the director Steve McQueen\u2019s adaptation of Solomon Northup\u2019s<\/a> 1853 memoir<\/a>. A free black man living in Saratoga, N.Y.<\/a>, Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor<\/a>) was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into brutal servitude in the Deep South. During his ordeal, he labors at different plantations, including the one owned by the sadistic Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender<\/a>), who has a tortured sexual relationship with the slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong\u2019o<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Following a buzzed-about preview screening<\/a> at the Telluride Film Festival and the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival<\/a>, \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d arrives in theaters Friday amid much online chatter that it may be headed for Oscar nominations. But Mr. Ejiofor, who portrays Northup, and Mr. McQueen, known for the bracingly austere \u201cHunger\u201d and \u201cShame,\u201d both say that getting audiences to see an uncompromisingly violent and quietly meditative film about America\u2019s \u201cpeculiar institution\u201d is still a challenge even with the presence of a producer, Brad Pitt<\/a>, in a small role.<\/p>\n

While the material was developed by Americans (including the screenwriter John Ridley<\/a>) the director and most of the major cast members are British, a topic of concern among some early black commentators.<\/p>\n

On a sweltering afternoon in SoHo<\/a> last month, the author and filmmaker Nelson George led a round-table discussion at the Crosby Street Hotel with Mr. Ejiofor and Mr. McQueen. Joining them to provide a wider historical and artistic context were the Columbia University professor Eric Foner<\/a>, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning \u201cFiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery,\u201d among other books; and the artist Kara Walker<\/a>, whose room-size tableaus of the Old South employing silhouettes have redefined how history and slavery are depicted in contemporary art and influenced many, including the \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d production team. Current civil rights issues including the New York police practice of stop and frisk, recently declared unconstitutional; sexuality and slavery; Hollywood\u2019s version of American history; and the themes of Obama-era cinema were among the topics of the sharp but polite dialogue. These are excerpts from the conversation…<\/p>\n

Q. I wanted to start with contemporary analogues. One thing that came to mind was stop and frisk<\/a>, a way the New York City police could stop a black or Latino male. I thought of Solomon as a character who, for a lot of contemporary audiences, would be that young black person. [To Mr. McQueen and Mr. Ejiofor] When you were seeking a way into the slave story, was what happens now part of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve McQueen<\/strong> Absolutely. History has a funny thing of repeating itself. Also, it\u2019s the whole idea of once you\u2019ve left the cinema, the story continues. Over a century and a half to the present day. I mean, you see the evidence of slavery as you walk down the street.<\/p>\n

What do you mean?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

McQueen<\/strong> The prison population, mental illness, poverty, education. We could go on forever…<\/p>\n

…Servitude and Sexuality\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of things to say about sex in the film, but one of the things that is going to leap out is Alfre Woodard\u2019s<\/a> character [Mistress Shaw, described in the book as the black wife of a white plantation owner].\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

McQueen<\/strong> In the book, she doesn\u2019t say anything. I had a conversation with John Ridley, and I said: \u201cLook, we need a scene with this woman. I want her to have tea.\u201d It was very simple. Give her a voice.<\/p>\n

Walker<\/strong> It\u2019s not that it was that uncommon. That planter would be sort of the crazy one, the eccentric one, and she\u2019s getting by.<\/p>\n

Ejiofor<\/strong> It was against the law to marry, but it did happen.<\/p>\n

Foner<\/strong> There were four million slaves in the U.S. in 1860 and several hundred thousand slave owners. It wasn\u2019t just a homogeneous system. It had every kind of human variation you can imagine. There were black plantation owners in Louisiana, black slave owners<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

…Solomon has a wife beforehand. In the film it seems as if he lived with Eliza [a fellow slave]. Then obviously [he has] some kind of relationship with Patsey, a friendship. But I wondered about Solomon\u2019s own sexual expression.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ejiofor<\/strong>\u00a0 His sexuality felt slightly more of a tangent. I think the real story is where sex is in terms of power.<\/p>\n

Foner<\/strong> Remember, this book is one of the most remarkable first-person accounts of slavery. But it\u2019s also a piece of propaganda. It\u2019s written to persuade people that slavery needs to be abolished. He doesn\u2019t say anything about sexual relations he may have had as a slave. There\u2019s no place for such a discussion because of the purpose of the book.<\/p>\n

Walker<\/strong> But in \u201cIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl<\/a>\u201d [by Harriet Ann Jacobs<\/a>] and other slave narratives written by women, that\u2019s always kind of the subtext, because there are children that are produced, relationships that are formed or allegiances that are formed with white men in order to have freedom.<\/p>\n

Foner<\/strong>\u00a0 Harriet Jacobs was condemned by many people for revealing this, even antislavery people.<\/p>\n

Walker<\/strong> Yes, but it\u2019s always the subtext. Even \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin.\u201d It\u2019s like, there\u2019s little mulatto<\/a> children, and that\u2019s the evidence…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Essentially American Narrative The New York Times 2013-10-11 Nelson George A Discussion of Steve McQueen\u2019s Film \u201812 Years a Slave\u2019 Amid comic book epics, bromantic comedies and sequels of sequels, films about America\u2019s tortured racial history have recently emerged as a surprisingly lucrative Hollywood staple. In the last two years, \u201cThe Help,\u201d \u201cLincoln,””Django Unchained,””42\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,13743,8,6940,20],"tags":[16171,16174,16173,13665,2640,16172,16170,2327],"class_list":["post-34375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-chiwetel-ejiofor","tag-eric-foner","tag-kara-walker","tag-nelson-george","tag-new-york-times","tag-solomon-northup","tag-steve-mcqueen","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}