Form and Function: How the casting and the actors served the function of 12 Years A Slave.

A third watch of Steve McQueen's essential Oscar winner "12 Years A Slave" proves my initial feeling upon seeing it..That it was a monumental achievement. Awe inspiring and humbling in its precision and its cinematic language. The subject matter itself should humble anyone tackling it, but prior to 12 years, (and to some extent after) I don’t know that that humility has been felt or present in many films on the subject matter. Foregoing the self assured faux moral exactitude of previous efforts on the subject, it seems like a benevolent understanding of the importance of being in service to not only the work, but the story- is ever present in McQueen's film. 12 Years moves beyond the painstaking processes of the cinematic to the spiritual, and yet does this by way of attention to the painstaking processes of the cinematic, and this goes doubly for the facet of the movie that I know and love as a familiar - Acting. What I'm seeking to pierce and dive into more specifically is how much of the casting (Truly exceptional work by Francine Maisler) and the way the actors employ their particular skills ends up deepening, lending weight to, and underlining a central, but sub textual theme of just how institution goes beyond any individual, and inversely institutions continue and thrive precisely because of individual behavior. How the film illustrates that there is no kind of white person above slavery, no “kind” slaver, and how cowardice, capitalism and fear held a stranglehold over all. It does the same for the slaves, acknowledging humanely how easy betrayal comes in a system that is in and of itself a betrayal of humanity. Compassionately but with a steely eye portraying just how one moment of self survival or self care could impact a life of one or many. I've never seen a movie so thoroughly, so vastly reach out onto the nebulous black void of slavery and pull back something that gives a meaningful semblance of just how exhaustive, traumatic, and complex the institution was while informing the ways in which its arms still extend into our current ideology, construction , and function, and deploy a litany of actors in such interesting ways very very near devoid of ego and bias towards outside factors like financing or nepotism.

Scoot McNairy and Taran Killiam “Brown and Hamiliton"

The first two demons we meet in McQueen's slavery inferno are at first sight harmless. They present themselves not as the duplicitous actors in an unforgivable transaction they are, but as the embodiment of opportunity. This is an example of the tendrils of routines refined and sometimes developed during slavery. New forms of restriction, reduction, and harm, are often presented as opportunities, from “broken windows” to ebonics to neoliberalism. To properly nail down the constitution, make up, and disposition of these “actors”, you want actors that bring exactly what Mcnairy and especially Killiam bring. Killiam, has a tenderness about the face that comes mostly from him seeming to have retained baby fat , but his eyes bare a quality of mischief easily tapped into, and something more sinister if deployed with more skill. There is a natural softness to him that he handily employs in service of the narrative. In a underrated scene emblematic of and comparable to white liberalism, he strokes the face of Solomon Northup - our soon to be beleaguered protagonist with a wipe after purposely getting him drunk and drugging him for the purpose of selling him off into trauma and degradation. Hamilton's conscious is clearly riddled with guilt, and shame, but his best offering is merely a few kind words, not an actual reversal of his behavior followed by contrition. It’s not only the only thing he can muster, it’s the only thing he will. Killiam and McNairy are not asked to stretch beyond their skills, ( the latter of whom I think has considerable range to excavate) merely to stand in what we naturally see in each. Mcnairy for his part has always shared an uncanny ability to conjure up balmy sleaze in a way that mirrors much of what Ben Mendelsohn does, save that its more straightforward and also a bit more compassionate. These two represent the cowardice, beleaguered morality, and baby face of an evil empire of individual avarice thus also serving as placeholders for the ills of capitalism and in that the evil of a racist system itself is emphasized not over, but with the individual. In case we doubt this particular point, the ending shot of the result of their treachery is a pan upwards from Solomon’s cell, past the sturdy bricks that hold him prisoner, to the top of the building where the White House can be seen just but maybe a few miles away as Solomon cries out for help… The individuals are backed by the apparatus.

Michael K Williams “Robert"

By the time “12 Years A Slave” was released actor Michael K. Williams had already solidified himself as an actor heavy with his iconic role as Omar in the definitive TV show of its era “The Wire”, and was now well on his way to a Hollywood favorite. Here though he is employed not as a 4 to 5th billed character actor, but in such a manner that if you blinked you might’ve missed him, a day player one might say. Having an actor of his repute show up and be clearly recognized only to dispatched so rapidly with surgical indifference surprises the audience in a way similar to Janet Leigh being murdered in the early portion of “Psycho”. Both to varying degrees provide voyueristic horror and a reinforcement of the tenuous nature of life itself under murderous, psychotic, and dehumanizing forces, but one (Psycho) emphasizes the lone psychotic individual, 12 Years emphasizes individuals as well as a psychotic system of oppression. In this system being explored and reenacted before our eyes our “Michael K Williams” is not celebrated, he is not here to remind us of how good the movie we are watching is, or of its prestige, he is merely a function. We meet “Robert” (Michael K Williams) on a slave ship churning across the river. He is introduced just as a conversation between another enslaved man “Clemens” (Chris Chalk) and Solomon about the proper philosophical approach to their predicament is being held. Clemens advice and approach regarding survival amounts to “shut up and keep your head down”, and no sooner than he finishes his sentence, Robert appears head down, with a contraption that gags his mouth. A slaver whose face is never shown comes down only foot in frame, his hands come into screen releasing the contraption with a further warning…“keep your mouth shut”. Robert looks up at the slaver, then at the Clemens and Solomon and the very next scene is Robert passionately exclaiming “I Say We Fight!” It is potent and gifted that potency through William’s elegant skill for emotional sincerity, repressed anger and vehemence. Williams had a possessive hold over roles like Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire where this seething but quiet rage was put to similar use in scenes where he would exclaim “I ain’t building no bookcase”. The bookcase scene in Boardwalk showed a similar character serving a different purpose. Chalky is as belligerent, and rebellious as Robert in 12 years, but he is now also a agent in the wheel of capitalism, as well as a victim of racism. The black capitalist in Chalky might cast aspersions on the likes of a Robert. Implied in the messaging of that very Bookcase scene is “I ain’t my ancestors", but here is Chalky's ancestor saying he wasn’t either, but the wages were so often death, and over time death can act as a a greaser for revisionist history. These subtle representations of various out growths of slave mentality from the “Coonery” (which in this case I prefer traumatic conditioning) in Clemens, to the colorism represented in a light skin woman unchained serving water to Adepero Oduye's “Eliza” and her children condescendingly telling her to “Cheer up and don’t be so cast down”. Each representative in and of themselves could warrant a piece of their own, such is the nature of the exhaustively precise and yet STILL incomplete portrait of slavery McQueen paints to as a means to connect the various functions. Returning to Robert, the character tries to conjure up a plan to commit mutiny with an impassioned plea alluding to the degradation and horrors that lie ahead in Solomon's future.. Nothing comes of it, the boat churns on and the next scene is yet another slaver creeping downstairs with the sole intention to rape Eliza. Robert commits his last act of rebellion to put his hands on the slaver. Was it to plea with him? To harm him? To ask him for something? Most likely one of the former two but we never know, for a knife from the slaver is plunged into him so fast we barely have time to recognize what has happened, until it is revealed. Solomon awakens shocked at what has taken place, and Clemons who has been awake “but in full praxis of his head down theory, also jumps to aid. Eliza stands by clearly in shock and most likely additionally traumatized, watching this man die trying to protect her, which for what we know does not even work (it stands to reason that this fiend continued on his original intent). The whole scene is a microcosm of the ripple effect. One act of discriminatory violence, and the way the horror, confirms, conditions, and harms those that witnessed it, including us the audience. The next we see Michael K Williams he is in a body bag being tossed over like laundry by those who witnessed his death, and he is no more. Status, reputation, station, in the cinematic context of this film, makes no more difference than his humanity in the context of slavery, and the film underscores that through the main character of Solomon and by way of characters like “Robert” being played by an actor like Michael K Williams. Both are reminders that the radical nature of this film lays not in its meaning or messaging, (which we know by knowledge and blood) but in its execution and exploration of both.

Paul Giamatti “Freeman”

Paul Giamatti is one of the most versatile actors of this or any other era. Able to alternate between deploying degrees of inviting approachability or repulsive menace in different (Sideways, Duplicity) and sometimes the same roles (The Illusionist). Here McQueen encourages the combination, and it expresses mostly the capitalist POV while not for a moment ignoring the anti blackness and racism involved in the character of these men. Giamatti's Freeman is a slaver/auctioneer, a very explicit profiteer in the market of black bodies, and as Giamatti's effortless congeniality serves the capitalistic endeavor, his menace serves the racist. The tone is set from jump. Freeman appears in front of the newly named Platt ( Solomon), Eliza and others calling out their names for record, in this opening introduction he feels much like a cordial teacher in front of a class, (but therein also lies the paternalistic nature of racism) yet not but a few moments later when Solomon (who does not yet know they have changed his name to Platt) tells him his name is Solomon, the menace makes itself known. These two faces do not alternate, they are both there in Giamatti in the same way one might mix red and blue and get purple. They are there as he slaps Solomon and calls for “These niggers to be brought to my cart” intertwining and giving the application of the word a sort of straightforward nonchalance that is appalling in its own right. This nonchalance is the purpose of this particular chapter, this portion of slavery. McQueen moves the camera in this very same manner of straight to the pointedness. It moves as if it were from a patron's pov following Giamatti's “Freeman” around as he shows off “the merchandise". The camera is not preaching or sermonizing, or even telling , its just there to see, and we see in plainness very real, a very civil, and very vile behavior. Now back fully into the weaponized cordial pleasantness common to a salesman, Giamatti, giving no actorly sense of the sentimentality or burden of truth, parades around these people with a sensible matter-of-factness that grows increasingly and almost to a crescendo of gross joviality until it is interrupted by a slave named Eliza's ( Adepero Oduye) pleas to keep her and her family together. Here we are also introduced to Benedict Cumberbatch, but I’ll get to him later. Freeman hits, slaps, pats and yells at these men and women as if they were..well livestock, and it is all intentional as is backed by an interview with Giamatti in “The Collider” speaking about McQueen..

“He was amazing! He is a really, really interesting guy. The way it was shot, he is a very interesting dude. This movie could easily be freaky. His whole take on it is to kind of take any kind of modern sensibility off of it and just create a world in which its completely normal that people get chained up and beaten and sold to each other. He wanted to create a sense in which its totally normal, so he’s not commenting on it, at all.”

When asked about his sentimentality, by Cumberbatch's Ford, Freeman answers “it extends the length of a coin”. The intertwining of capitalism and racism, their synergistic relationship now expressed in laymans terms through John Ridley's script, McQueen's eye, and embodied in Paul Giamatti's ability to flexibly play at being agreeable while being pathetic and putrid. This circle of hell now complete and explained he moves on.

Paul Dano and Benedict Cumberbatch “Tibeats and Ford"

Paul Dano has not only a small role in 12 years but also one of the more recognizable archetypes in both Slavery and “Race” films made from white perspectives and/or for white audience. The overt racist, the man meant to conveniently symbolize and summarize racism. Benedict Cumberbatch as slave owner Ford, is much like the inverse of Danos archetype, the character meant to remind white folk of their inherent good, their disdain and “redemptive”sorrow at the whole enterprise, so they're nowhere near as interesting alone as what McQueen has them form together, a good cop bad/cop act that looks to be separate but is actually co-dependent and cooperative. Tibeats announces himself as Fords head carpenter, but he acts quite a bit like a overseer himself, and most of what he does seems to be backed up by and co-signed by Fords actual overseer, which by proxy means its co-signed by Ford himself. It should be understood that’s the objective of good cop bad cop, to cover up the cooperative nature of your oppressors. To shock the supposed perpetrator into fealty and compliance by bombarding them with an emotional 1-2 punch. A presentation of what seems like extremes in choice to herd and corral them into a false sense of security so that they may become useful to the system. It’s also worth noting that cops are descended from slavery, and that our introduction to Tibeats includes him gleefully singing a song about “Pattyrollers” ( Slave Patrols) catching negroes, so again we see a direct connection and correlation between functions, strategies, attitudes, and archetypes that live on today even in our police, in our state, in our election. 12 years tells the story of Solomon markedly different then the book, which is more a straightforward telling that misses some of the greater ironies and intricacies of the order of things. McQueen and crew want us to notice that Solomon himself is blinded and in some ways has blinded himself to what America is, and what he is. The former occurs in a flashback where he remembers the way a white man took special note of him in a store where another black man is retrieved harshly and peturbedly by his owner, the latter occurs later at the very Mr Fords plantation, where Solomon does not and refuses to see the connection between Tibeats and Ford. In order to reinforce the “act" of good and bad, which seemed to fool even the real Solomon Northup in the book, its important to get two actors that demonstrate themselves the extremes needed, and in Cumberbatch and Dano you could find no wider apart duo. What each actor does, what they're known for, is extremely far apart. Cumberbatch is a lead, who can character act on occasion, Dano a pure character actor. Dano's previous roles include a role in Denis Villeneuve's “Prisoners” as the “Person of interest” in a series of child abductions, and as the enemy of Daniel Plainview “Eli Sunday” in Paul Thomas Anderson's modern classic “There Will Be Blood”. There is an unorthodox quality to Dano's work born of both training but also a willingness to rebel against it. Much of Dano's work consist of playing meek, and withdrawn characters with ferocious underbellies of cruelty and rage lurking underneath. Dano like Kiliam also has a baby faced quality that makes him appear boy- like, innocent, and a relaxed, almost slack quality around his shoulders that makes him appear low, and lowly. His voice constantly breaks (which adds to his boyishness) whether he’s screaming in There Will Be Blood, sobbing in Prisoners or singing in 12 years a Slave, all of this serves the portrait of Tibeats as an icky, petrified child who wants so desperately to be a big strong adult. There’s a sliminess there in Danos Big Baby Huey act that makes you want to hit Dano, and it aids in allowing the audience to see how Solomon could end up snapping and beating the tar out of him, in the same way it helped us understand what made Daniel Plainview despise him, and aided in our complicitness in maybe mentally supporting if only but a little Hugh Jackman’s actions in Prisoners. It’s a Trumpian sensibility, that makes him easy to hate set in direct opposition to (Biden like) Cumberbatch. It covers the synergistic relationship between he and Ford, whom fair tempered though he may be is still a slaver. He abuses, then Cumberbatch comes in with kindness, He sings the A selection the Ford comes in with the sermon. Cumberbatch is a rigidly trained actor it’s what helps and hurts him. Here it helps. Arguably Cumberbatch's best weapon is his voice, and the way he deploys it nearly yells classical training. It has a beautiful, engrossing, and forced quality that fits Fords demeanor perfectly selling his cultured, and curated sense of benevolence and authority. It is especially effective during Fords Bible readings, ( which McQueen never allows to be read alone they are always intertwined with either Eliza's suffering, or Tibeats dreadful singing of the dreadful song “Run nigger run". Cumberbatch's qualities serve well to illustrate and illuminate a very specific kind of authority, the paternalistic racist father figure, and the falsehood behind it, one which another character in the film brings to plain sight.

Adepero Oduye “Eliza”

12 Years could be looked at as two different things, and Eliza's role becomes clearer in the one than the other. If a sobering, unflinching, intentional education on slavery, then shes just a token of representation of suffering that either works or doesn't work. If a story of the journey of one man through not slavery, but the fable of his existence as a black person in the hell of American slavery as an institution, (be it south or north) Eliza is a a prop character with depth, whom through her journey we are reminded ( then he is reminded) that this is indeed hell. Its still a weakness of the script for 12 years that its women feel underserved, but in Eliza's case there is still something vital to be mined from her experience. For it is Eliza who most tells not just by way of words but through her entire history in the movie on the fable and folly of Solomon’s approach and on the cruelty of Master Ford and thereby on anyone involved in the whole foul business. From the way he's willing to separate her for his needs, (which he views as a kindness) to the way he allows her to be gotten rid of merely because she mourned her children “too much” for the tender ears of his privileged wife, Fords benevolent cruelty is laid bare. If you focus too much on Solomons “I will surivive!” rant you will miss the heavenly glory of Eliza’s retort which serves as the most poignant representation of not only the humble of approach of the makers of this film in that moment, but of the enterprise of oppression, and of its effects on those whom it harms.

There are two sections to Eliza's portion or role in this film, and both are colored by way of Adepero's acting and her youth. Just but two years earlier Adepero played a 17 year old in Dee Rees endearing portrait of a coming of age lesbian in “Pariah". In that story she is on the path to embracing, here she has embraced, who she is and what she means to the institution, and it is of no aid to her, or her sadness. This is the first section, embracing her grief, her despair, and looking firmly into the hypocrisy of the whole enterprise. It is important, because Solomon is under the false impression that he can strategize his way out of this, that he can figure, that there is some way to know his way through it, and Eliza having now arrived where he will just now begin to see, knows better, for reasons better explained by a black woman, black women have always been able to stare straight into a thing and see it for exactly for what it is, be it anything from their children to a predicament, save maybe their romantic situation very few things escape their intuitive glare. For all that this movie doesn’t give them, that much is made plain through Eliza, Alfre Woodard's Mistress Shaw, Patsey, and even the knowing eyes of the elderly black woman who sings the spirituals. Solomon and Eliza are two trains passing in the night who would be headed for the same destination were it not for chance and Solonon not being born into it. There lies a privilege in Solomon, hes not keen on seeing, and for that matter, Eliza's presence reminds Ford, Solomon, and even us the audience of it and its uncomfortability. Her misery is a discomfort, her truth is a discomfort, and her fate is a discomfort to all involved. How many times are we, must we be reminded that black women's pain is an inconvenience to us, an affront even to black men. This begins the second section, pay attention to how Solomon acts both as she cries, but even as she reads him for exactly whom he is. Two of the best bits of acting in this film are to be found in this scene and given by Adepero. The enunciation and body language that accompanies the word “luxuriate” is something I can't easily forget it's like those portions of a great song that you always anticipate and wait for. This is followed by Adepero's delivery of the line “So you settle into your role as “Platt”. It lacks judgment but it's nonetheless a powerful strike for its statement and assessment of what Platt has done. I love it when actors bring Things to words statements phrases that ultimately back up what the script means to imply or something that they will later say so that when Eliza then says (and I paraphrase) I don't judge you Solomon I've done things myself it now has been reinforced we know it to be true because ultimately it's there in her words and in the way they are delivered just before. Adepero's authenticity is vital because this is an important aspect to the discussion that's going on here and again a kind of commentary that while allowing points to be seen does not necessarily feel the need to vocalize them in a way that preaches to the audience. For myself I hear Eliza's words and it reaches across time to speak to me of the issue of humility in community action. Eliza does not stand in judgment because she knows she herself has committed acts that no one including she herself would be proud of for the sake of survival, she understands this instinct coming from Solomon but she rightfully puts him in his place and lets him know what exactly it is he's doing and what she views as the folly of what he is doing. This is something I see in today's discourse, constantly missing the idea that those who commit certain acts for the sake of their survival are victims in and of themselves and a sort of connective tissue between the “I" and the “them” and I'm talking only between people who are mostly likely in in the same “house". Solomon and Eliza though different are mostly in the same “house" but not so vastly different that Eliza can stand in judgement of him anymore than he can her. Though Solomon has privileges that he holds over Eliza it is not as if he is free, and Eliza herself is a sober reminder of that. The True Villain of all villains here is the institution and then directly under that the actors who directly incompetently, implicitly, and explicitly, and in any number of ways help aid the system. Those who were victimized by and have varying types of reactions to the institution and the oppression are still victims, they may also become agents, but even as a house nigger you are a victim. So why Eliza stands firm and tall in her defense of her morning and in the truth of her view this hell, she does not stand in judgement of Solomon and his desire to be free by the way that he knows how, she just points out plainly and righteously it will not incur the desired effect. I'm reminded of Audre Lorde speaking on the way her impotence under oppression made her hate it in others before she caught herself. It is powerful and beautifully plain acting making a beautifully plain point. The point being Ford is an actor in all of this and he is no more free events wheel desires and blame than we are and as a matter of fact pure fact he is actor in evil, where we are merely just fallible because of it.

Lupita Nyong'o “Patsey”

The most difficult scene in this film for me is not Patsey's whipping, and or her rape though those too are difficult. It is not Solomon's near hanging either, though that also is difficult, it is to eliminate all other competitors none of the physical acts of violence displayed or portrayed throughout the movie.. it is Patsey begging Solomon to end her life. Lupita Nyong'o adds such a spiritual weight to the plea it is almost too much for me to bear. It’s such a unrelentingly tragic scene I tear up at the thought of it. I am angered by it too. It’s Lupita's sanguin smile as she thinks the thought before she reveals it to us and the Solomon when uttering the words “I have a request”. Its the bodily shift, and the embers of hope and desperation now fully ablaze in her eyes as she says “There is God Here!”. It’s the way her hand hovers over his back, as she watches the flame of hope extinguish. I won’t go too deep into Patsey because I feel her pain is so uniquely her own and black women’s there are definitely parts of it I genuinely dom’t understand. I also feel she is the one portion of he film where Ridley and McQueen missed the mark. She feels dimensionally cheated, and the meat of her soul is left solely upon the shoulders of Lupita to outline to us what is not there in story. Whereas Eliza suffers like all in the film but has an arc, it feels like Patsey merely suffers, but again it is Lupita who provides a quiet soulful and heart breaking sense of poetic melancholia to the role without romanticizing it. In fact it is Lupitas work that most assuredly brings to light the cruelty of fetishization, and the oppression of love from someone who doesn’t even view you as an equal, or consider you in the equation at all. The tragedy of Patsey is the combined tragedy of a silencing of the full experiences of black women throughout years of this heinous endeavor, and of Lupita’s Godly work in a role where there is none.

Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson Mr and Mrs “Epps"

“Do not set yourself up against Patsey, my dear. Cos I will rid myself of you well before I do away with her.” It is a fiery quote and one that encapsulates the power dynamics of the relationship between white women and white men in this country for some time. When Bill Burr went on his brutally truthful rant about white women inserting and centering themselves after playing such a significant role in said oppression I thought immediately of Sarah Paulson's Mrs Epps, a cruel cantankerous, self pitying woman who laid her frustrations at the feet of a black woman because she was intimidated by her, and jealous of her husband's desire, and also because she could. Paulson has that quality so many of the greats have, where the same quality that makes them affable, can be inverted to appear nasty, menacing, repulsive, a la Harrison Ford, (the aforementioned Giamatti) or Bette Davis ( Though not as skillfully and flexibly as Davis). Paulson carries a polite stiffness well. Especially noted in her work in much of Ryan Murphy's shows, and here all she needed to do was turn off the polite. If you watch Mrs Epps she doesn’t move much in any action and her movements are always precise and without flourish. This aids and upholds the believability of the backstory her husband gives us that she does not come from money. This is practiced. As a woman whose station itself is precarious you would think she would identify and relate to those who also lack agency and power but so many times this is not the case, instead as practice she clings to what little power she has, and views Patsey as an imminent threat to it. It’s not a reach to suppose that if Epps knows of what has transpired across the way with the “lothatrio” on the Shaw Plantation and fears Shaw beguiling Patsey, than his wife would (knowing of what happened on the Shaw Plantation with Mistress Shaw) fear the exact same. White women it seems have always both known the tenuous nature of their stature in a white male dominated hegemonic society and enjoyed the fruits of it, but it leaves them often times in perpetual limbo, and Paulson works as an avatar for this precisely because she has that ability for both repulsion and affability as an actor. Now in the case of her movie husband, Mr Epps Fassbender’s work is in my opinion the central acting force of the film. As Epps Michael Fassbender conjures something so ugly, so hideous, it’s jarring. It defies being called villainy, it’s far too human for that, and yet it doesn't defy being called evil. Fassbender is so spot on in his depiction, so wild eyed and authentic in it, I think it has caused a hesitation by the audience to look directly into the black abyss of humanity he created and critique or praise the performance. Epps is a small man who quite literally leans on others to give himself height and strength, so its understandable, he is also vile and a serial rapist so its understandable that there is a moral question that raises itself out of the root of the importance of storytelling as well as the consequence. What is the value of praising such a performance? The consequence? What if Fassbender had won the Oscar, after an avalanche of praise for playing to the absolute hilt one of the worst human beings this side of Hitler. It’s a question with no easy answers, so I will try and talk about Fassbender's work with as much rigidity and frankness as is possible without being effusive. Fassbender has always had a piercing stare…Shame, the 300, Fish Tank, in various ways he made use of this in all of these films, but here is where the stare being Eddie Brock, found its sentient symbiote in the character of Epps and became literal venom. Where Fassbender finds Epps is in his unadorned trivialities, his nude bitterness, and his matter of factly belief in the institution. He does not give his words the fervor of hate, he gives them the fervor of a believer, and yet not a “True” believer. The most pertinent example being in his conversation with Brad Pitt's “Samuel Bass”. Epps argument is not dressed in elegant actor fire, in fact some words barely make it out they're so understated. When Bass calls Epps slaves laborers, he scoffs, but though it comes with the proper amount of bewilderment, his “what the hell?” is so plainly delivered it almost feels under his breath. He responds “They ain’t hired help, they're my property” and Bass responds “You say that with pride”, he responds back “I say it as fact"..He is right, Fassbender delivers the line exactly as if it were fact, and like many believers his supposition and disposition rest upon a foundation of constant and consistent reinforcement. In one way or another to cause Epps any form of disbelief in the purity of the system that props him up is a threat. It makes Patsey a threat because he is in love with her, Solomon a threat because he is much smarter than he, and Bass a threat because he is outright questioning the institution as a white man and subsequently Epps righteousness.. and what does Epps have if he doesn’t have his rationalizations of his cruelties? Thing is though Fassbender doesn’t play Epps for depth, he plays him for simplicity, and finds Epps complexity through it. He stares at Platt holding him close, the proximity a thinly veiled threat, but also the bodily admission of something underneath, (admiration, kinship, maybe even some form of desire) and the stare directly into Solomon is one one would give a map, trying to divine from it its secrets. He accepts Epps explanation for the accusation he was writing a letter, less because it seems the truth, which is much too complex for him to ascertain, and more because he is happy with Epps capitulation to his superiority. Had the movie chose to follow Epps outward beyond the Epps home, it would be easy to see him as one kept just outside the circle of elite who know well what and who he is, but find him useful a simpleton propped up by numbingly violent, and hypocritical institution as machine for capital. A tool happy in his work and also confused by it. His “moods”, his drinking being propelled by it. Fassbender's performance is compelling, and pure, there is little to no “acting” in it, and it is by far his best work to me, and by far the most difficult to celebrate, but in him and through him we see the mechanical touch of the empire in a way that shines away from morality plays that were so common in the telling of this bleak history, and into something that took the immorality as evident without need of extra service, and instead chose to focus on the viscera, and the inner workings of this body. Let us find our emotion through it, and in that approach it deployed each and every one of its actors as tools to represent it machinery to tune it, and tighten it, and allow it to run to its conclusion.

12 Years as told in the hands of McQueen, Ridley and the other storytellers is a not just an epic telling of one man’s horrific experiences through the various hells of slavery, it’s an attempt at trying to do justice to the various gears, nuts, bolts and the ideological deformity of the institution that served as the foundation of a world super power by way of acknowledging the inaccessibility of the whole, and focusing on the parts. Solomon ‘s story as a story to be told for the awe and approval of the audience, is eschewed for his story being told as a way into individuals performing and reacting as a collective in their roles in service of an idea regardless of its merits or harm. In other words its good in the way that best fits the limits and the strengths of this medium we call film. Each person is specific in his or her work, and casting wise each is perfectly employed in that usage. Its amongst the greatest cast in cinematic history, not just in talent but again in, the way that they each and every one so perfectly imperfect, so authentic, and the way the work they’ve done before made them ready for the work they would do here. From the highest to the lowest, from Ejiofor to Alfre Woodard, to Garrett Dillahunt ( Armsby, the white overseer turned slave) great or small, marquee or character, they are given roles large or small according to what the film needed exactly, and they find their mark with a precision unseen in very many films. The films sole miss is its casting of Brad Pitt as Bass, who brings too much actorly imposed confidence, and righteousness to a role, that would've much better been served and played with more apprehension and less modernity. The approach of McQueen's work is worth questioning, so too the film in some manners, it goes in a certain context as the tension with praising Epps goes, should such beauty, skill, and craft be used in such a way, for such a subject? In the same way ( though not necessarily the same degree ) I find some significant hesitation in my desire to praise Fassbender's work, I find that hesitation in celebrating the craft. This Laurren Michele Jackson piece was foundational in helping articulate my own tensions. It’s an astoundingly intelligent ( as in I feel the borders of my intelligence in reading it ) well written and conceptualized breakdown of the power, significance, and maybe most importantly flaws of this film, which spoke to me of, and illuminated for me what lies behind tension of a film I consider an absolute favorite, that I don’t particularly like yelling about. What I’m left with after this watch is an appreciation for the genius behind casting and its vital importance when we discuss the great acting ensembles and performances, a great respect for all the actors involved, for the craftspeople involved, especially Francine Maisler, for the tapestry, and for the ways in which in the words of another Fassbender character “David” from “Prometheus” big things have humble beginnings.