by BU2B 10 Replies latest social entertainment
Has anyone here seen best picture winner 12 years a Slave? What did you think?
It was tough to watch at times, and made me tear up a couple times. It was a very well written well acted film with great cinematography, and was extremely moving.. I think it was a deserving winner.
I will see it but the title reminds me of an apostate book,
It certainly was a great and very important movie. It forced back into the public conscious the evil of slavery, which is something most of America tries to ignore. It also made the injustice very intimate, instead of clinical like a history program.
That being said I liked Her more.
America still ignores slavery.
We are all still slaves to the 1% who kindly allow us to earn just enough to feel "warm & fuzzy". They may even get their political puppets to raise minimum wage for the bottom run slaves to $9.00/hr. Let's calculate that. . . . . . $9.00/hr X 29 hours (can't work a person 30 hours or the biz is obligated to provide health insurance) = $261.00 per week ($1122.00 per month or $13,500 per year). But then, like the slaves of old, they turn around and offer free housing through HUD or Section 8, free food via Food Stamps, WIC, etc and free medical care through Medicaid. Fortunately, they tolerate rampant alcohol and drug abuse to help subdue the pain.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Doc
(I must be in a pissy mood today.)
BTW -- The movie had some extraordinary acting, writing, directing. AND, did you see the Steve McQueen jump after his acceptance speech? He isn't a small guy and doesn't appear to be a jock type. He was elated!
Overall though I thought it was a bad year for the movie industry.
None of them did I bother to buy a ticket to see (waited to download) and none of them would I bother to view again.
The movie is a masterpiece. Through the simple telling of a true story it makes you think about a lot more than only slavery.
I really feel everyone should see this movie.
lisaBObeesa- That's exactly what I mean when I said it made it intimate. By telling an individual's story it forces us to confront the horrors personally and gives us someone to empathize with. It makes you think about how you would react if put into that situation. A stroke of genius.
I haven't seen it yet, but how does it differ or compare to Roots?
I think Brad Pit is obsessed with the number 12. ie. " !2 Years a Slave, " " 12 Monkeys", "12 Years in Tibet"
I found it very moving, there were so many parts where individuals had no control over their lives, all they could do was submit. Notice how the bible was used to supress many.
This part of history must never be forgotten, never. Kate xx
Yes.
I have spent 11 years and more collecting books and reading other sources that reveal the origins, effects, and afterward of American slavery. Also how the white and Native American slavery of the American colonial period played out. There is a lot of complexity in the business and the brutal personal and social effects of slavery.
Reading the enduring effects in convict leasing, debt peonage, Jim Crow laws and the faultering weakness of reconstruction in behalf of former slaves as well as the pogroms of black communities into the 1900's,you see how ignorant the public is--including many in black communities--of the DNA of slavery on U.S. society. Black and white.
I agree with LisaObeesa, all should see this film. If you are not well informed on the complicated befores and afters of black slavery, before speaking one way or the other on race issues in our communities---- see this film.
Yes, there was a war that officially freed blacks. But the slaveholders and those who felt/feel that blacks are fundamentally inferior and (choke, gag) benefited from forced labor i.e. free food and housing, they didn't have a change of heart just because the South was defeated in 1865. They raised sons and daughters, who raised sons and daughters. They were the landholders, business men and community leaders who shaped policy up to this day. The changes in civil rights since slavery were meager and were on paper but there were black men and women 100 years later who died in the south for trying to live according to those laws.
Racism has a long half life.
See this film.
