《为奴12年》奴隶的心酸史

First though, "12 Years a Slave", a film released this week that along with "American Hustle" has attracted ten BAFTA nominations just one behind "Gravity". These nominations include Best Film and Best Actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor. "12 Years a Slave" is an adaptation of the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, a free black man living with his family in New York, who was captured and sold into slavery in the south. When he was eventually liberated, Northup described in detail his treatment under various masters. The book became a bestseller in part of the abolitionist debate of the 1850s. British director Steve McQueen has respectfully followed that narrative but imbued it with an intense yet unsentimental subjectivity, bringing the audience right into Northup's experience in all its horror and cruelty in the midst of the lush beauty of Louisiana. As Northup, Chiwetel Ejiofor is present in almost every shot. His big screen career includes Stephen Frears' "Dirty Pretty Things" and Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men", as well as roles for Woody Allen, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg. When we met he explained that his first encounter with "12 Years a Slave", was the adaptation rather than the memoir itself.

I actually read the script before the book. When I first spoke to Steve McQueen, he sent me the script. In a sense when I read the script, I didn't see Solomon in a way. I just saw the sort of a story of a man who went through this kind of extraordinary circumstances. It was only when I read the book that I really that he kind of just sort of came out.