After opening in UK cinemas this Friday, the film, 12 Years a Slave, picked up the Golden Globe earlier this week for best motion picture. A good forecast for the awards it’s tipped to win at the Oscars later in February.
The film is hard to watch due to its graphic portrayal of the brutalities that defined slavery in the American South pre-Civil War. What is most saddening is that this tale is a true one. Based on the book of the same name by Solomon Northup, it tells the story of how a black man living free in the North was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 1800s, leaving his young family behind.
The film has both a British director, Steve McQueen, and a British actor playing the leading role of Solomon, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Speaking to press about the film’s release, both highlight the need for slavery to be more widely taught in schools across the UK, comparing its importance to lessons about the Holocaust and the two World Wars. I think they make an important point as I cannot remember ever learning about the plantation slavery of America whilst at school, although it has apparently been a part of the national curriculum since 2008.
It is mostly unknown that the enslavement of Africans played a large role in Britian’s own history, but in fact many of the country’s most famous estates were both built and financed by the transatlantic slave trade.
To read more on this issue and the South West’s connections to slavery have a look at the article I wrote whilst working for the Bath Chronicle:
The film is the best thing I have seen in a long time. You will come out feeling weak from the harrowing scenes of suffering forced on you, but it is something everyone needs to see. Ejiofor also puts on an excellent performance and is thoroughly deserving of the best actor awards he’s nominated for.
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