Imagine your whole life– including your name, your family, and your humanity– is stolen in the time it takes for a drug to wear off. This week, The Cineamerican Dream breaks down Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013). Hosts Joseph and Lila are not simply going through a historical drama, but they are breaking down a systemic nightmare.
The film focuses on Solomon Northup, a free New York violinist, who, in 1841, is drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in New Orleans. Stripped of his identity and with no legal way out, Solomon is forced to traverse the horrifying continuum of enslavers, from the pretentious good-natured to the truly sadistic, while the person he knows himself to be slowly erodes under the institution of American slavery.
Joseph and Lila immerse themselves in the sensory violence of the film, like the way McQueen contrasts the lush, fertile beauty of the South with the inhumanity of slavery on an industrial scale. They dig into how McQueen’s direction employs various techniques to compel the audience to understand the loss of the individual under slavery. They also unpack the significance of who tells this story– a British director, a predominantly non-American cast, and a film released in the wake of the Obama era’s complicated post-racial mythology.
The new episode of The Cineamerican Dream is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts!
