But while it’s difficult to know what to say about “12 Years” — save that the film should be seen— I suspect (and hope) that it will inspire lots of talking afterwards. That is every bit as it should be. It is a film that opens a door for conversations that we are often anxious to avoid, or worse don’t even see the need for. This summer we paid a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. Amongst the historic buildings, quaint shopfronts, and restaurants and gift shops, the tobacco plantation, with its program on the slave experience, had to be sought out— the plantation was set apart and the program required registration and was for limited numbers. As we sat on rough log benches under the blazing July sun, the historical interpreters — Robert Watson and Henry Caldwell— laid out candidly but sensitively the history of American slavery: such as the system of triangular trade, changes in laws of primogeniture made to preserve slavery as an institution, the devastating effects of the slave trade on family, sexual violence against women slaves, the genocide of Native Americans, how Christianity was deployed in the defense of slavery. They passed around heavy metal shackles, copies of slave market announcements, we stood in the hot fields picking bugs off tobacco leaves, we heard the crack of the lash against the plantation’s “whipping tree.” It was a powerful afternoon. Yet, our guides noted how nearly everyday, there are those who attend their program who deny that slavery happened in the way they depict. Many want desperately to believe we live in a post-racial America, that even if we accept this history that it has all been undone.
Somewhere in the first third of the film, Northup/Platt finds himself being punished by an overseer he has offended, who is determined to put him in his place. Northrup is strung up on the thick branch of a giant oak there in the plantation’s front yard, and though he is saved before he is killed, the act that protects Northup’s life is not so just as to allow for cutting him down. Instead, Northup is left dangling, surviving by the barest of margins as he stands on tiptoes struggling to maintain his balance in a tiny puddle of mud. As the camera lingers, life resumes around Northup: the master who saved him eventually departs, the terrified slaves emerge from their quarters where they have taken refuge, a couple of children play in the yard, the plantation’s mistress comes out to look for a time, then retreats back into her elaborate home. All the while, Northup literally hangs in the balance, struggling to make his footwork hold. Only one slave girl risks bringing him a tin cup full of water. That scene seemed to me to capture so much of what “12 Years A Slave” is about: the horror and violence of slavery is right there in front of us; can we find a way to discuss it and learn from it, rather than let privilege, hatred, or even fear allow us look away?
