12 Years A Slave

“12 Years a Slave” may not be the first movie made about slavery, but it sure was the one that stopped American cinema from selling lies on this topic, which they had been doing for over a century now . “12 Years a Slave” is a slave narrative directed by Steve McQueen. A slave narrative is a literary form that grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans. Naomi Zack in her book “Thinking about Race”, states that “Race, and the idea the word stands for have meant very different things throughout the Western Europe and American History.”(Zack, 7). The concept of race has played a very durable role in the way Americans think about it. Race has continued to lure a lot of people into this wrong belief that American involvement in race related …show more content…
He is kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in the south – which back in the days was a very common thing. Solomon has his past, his identity and his humanity taken away from him, he is renamed "Platt" by his slave owners. We follow his dreadful journey as a slave which starts when he is sold to a plantation owner, who has a comparatively kind and understanding behavior which contradicts his slave owner status, but after experiencing the rage of a brutal and cruel farmhand, "Platt" is sold to Edwin Epps, a hot-headed man of border line psychotic behavior whose craving for a young slave girl seems to be dragging him into an abyss of uncontainable …show more content…
It can also be viewed as a flawlessly organized movie that makes you think about the choices the slaves had to make in order to live, which included complete submission to their master’s wishes. On broader picture “12 Years a Slave” reveals the American history of slavery, image by image, and shows it as a system and destroys all its myths, and lies about lovable masters and happy slaves. This movie has no messages or final-act synopses or talks. Mr. McQueen’s method is more actual and rebellious mainly because of its old-fashioned, Hollywood-style