Steve McQueen: Are You Sitting Uncomfortably?: A Culture Show Special The Culture Show


Steve McQueen: Are You Sitting Uncomfortably?: A Culture Show Special

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Transcript


LineFromTo

Well, boy, how you feel now?

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My name is Solomon Northup.

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I am a free man and you have no right whatsoever to detain me.

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You're no free man, you're nothing but a Georgia runaway.

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-MARK KERMODE:

-12 Years A Slave is the story of Solomon Northup -

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a free black man who is kidnapped and sold into slavery.

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It's only the third feature by director Steve McQueen but Oscars

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are expected for both McQueen and his lead actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

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Steve McQueen is not only a respected feature film director

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but also a Turner prize-winning artist.

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He gained a reputation in the '90s as a thoughtful

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and provocative film-maker.

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The transition from art gallery to movie theatre is not always

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successful but McQueen has already won a BAFTA

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and a prestigious Camera d'Or at Cannes.

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There's just a huge truth to him as a man

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and I think that's what he tries to pursue in whatever he's doing.

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I think that's what people respond to in his work.

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He doesn't shy away from provoking and evoking feeling in you.

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I think he wants to get as close to the experience as possible

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and he wants an audience to feel they are inside the experience.

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That's what makes not only his installation work but also

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his film work so particular, because he is so particulous.

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He is so different.

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This is the story behind the making of his latest film

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and the history that shaped it.

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And a look at the prestigious career of an artist and director

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unafraid to deal with uncomfortable and provocative subject matter.

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America has always had a complex and conflicted relationship with its slave history.

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Over 400,000 slaves were shipped to America in the 1620s.

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By the outbreak of the civil war in 1861

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their numbers had grown to four million.

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The memoir of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped by

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slavers, is one of the few first-hand accounts that exists of this time.

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It's the basis of 12 Years A Slave,

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the latest film from British director Steve McQueen.

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The most extraordinary thing about the film, which I think is

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really powerful, and really moving,

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is that I didn't know that story, How did you come across it?

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I always wanted to make a movie about slavery, always,

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and it was always about how one got into the material,

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what was my "in" as such, and I had this idea of a free man

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in the north who basically gets kidnapped into slavery

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and through his journey we, the audience, follow him.

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And I was sort of trying to write this idea, and then what happened

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was, my wife said, "Why don't you look into true accounts of slavery?"

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And I thought, of course, yeah, dur,

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as you do, and, of course, we both

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did this research and what happened was she came across this book

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called 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northup

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and as soon as it was in my hands

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I opened the book, opened the page, and I didn't let it go.

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For me, living in the Netherlands, it was almost like looking at

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Anne Frank's diary, it was this first-hand account of slavery, it's amazing.

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In 12 Years A Slave, Solomon Northup is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor,

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alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender

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and newcomer Lupita Nyong'o.

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Brad Pitt has a cameo appearance as well as producing the film.

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You said that you'd always wanted to make a film about slavery,

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what was it particularly that drew you to wanting to do that?

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Well, for me, it was never represented, really.

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I'm from the West Indies, my parents are from the West Indies,

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and, of course, some of my ancestors were slaves.

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And, for me, not to have that history visualised on film,

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on celluloid, was very strange.

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It's a huge part of not just American history but world history,

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European history, so therefore I needed it to be on film

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and to see, investigate myself through the camera, what occurred, as such.

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Solomon's story begins in 1841.

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His world implodes when his comfortable family life

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in New York state is taken away from him

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and he is sold to work in the plantations of the Deep South.

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Powerless to protest,

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he's unable to get word to his family that he has been kidnapped.

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SHE SOBS

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Eliza.

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STOP! Stop your wailing.

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You let yourself be overcome by sorrow, you will drown in it.

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Have you stopped crying for your children?

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You make no sounds but will you ever let them go in your heart?

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-They are as my flesh.

-Then who is distressed?

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Do I upset the master and mistress,

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do you care less about my loss than their well-being?

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-Master Ford is a decent man.

-He is a slaver!

-Under the circumstances...

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Under the circumstances he is a slaver.

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-You truckle at his boot, you luxuriate in his favour.

-I survive!

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I will not fall into despair!

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I will offer up my talents to Master Ford,

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I will keep myself hearty until freedom is opportune.

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Solomon is somebody who starts off in this story

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believing that he's in a battle for his freedom

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but discovers through this story that he's in a battle for his mind.

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It's an amazing first person account from

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so deep inside this experience that really speaks to...

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I mean, so much of the way the world worked then, the way it works

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now, his way of being able to relate, poetically relate,

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the story of what happened to him so powerfully was so extraordinary.

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And that servant

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that don't obey his Lord shall be beaten with many strikes.

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That's scripture.

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McQueen's regular collaborator Michael Fassbender plays

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a sadistic plantation owner...

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Speak! Man does how he pleases with his property.

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The film has been praised for its unflinching portrayal

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of the brutality that slaves suffered.

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Tell me how you approached the physicality of the subject of

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slavery, because it's very difficult to know exactly what you can show,

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what you can't show and how you can put the audience in those positions.

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Well, I didn't want to censor myself on anything

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so I said to myself, "I'm going to show everything."

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Do you have a completely non-censorious approach

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to your vision?

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I'm a bit weird like that, I suppose.

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No, in this case it was about the truth.

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How could I make a movie about slavery

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-and not show certain aspects of it?

-Yeah.

-I cannot.

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It would be, for my ancestors,

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and for other people's, it would be sort of...

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you know... it would be a travesty. You can't do that. I mean, what is slavery?

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Slavery is sort of, you know,

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making people work in servitude.

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And how do you get them to do that?

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Well, you punish them. You scare the hell out of them.

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And how do you do that? By making examples of people.

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And how do you do that?

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By the most horrible acts of brutality one can think of.

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How am I sitting here? Because certain people survived that.

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So...you know, there was not a choice. It's not a question.

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In the 19th century, slavery divided America both geographically

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and morally.

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At the time of Solomon's kidnap,

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America was split into 13 free states and 13 slave states.

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Part of that free black population came about because...

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a large part came about because of the American revolution.

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By the time Solomon Northup is kidnapped in 1841,

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there is approximately 200,000-250,000 free black Americans

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living across the northern states.

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Slavery becomes very much a southern phenomena, in contrast to

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the northern states, where mostly northern states pass emancipation

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laws which free their slaves at the time of the revolution.

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It's seen very much as contradicting notions of liberty

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and equality, but in the south, southern plantation owners

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interpret liberty as the right to own slaves.

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Well, to be a free black in the northern states

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would be much better than being a slave in the south

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but there were would be all sorts of limitations.

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Both legal and political.

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Solomon Northup is an educated man partly

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because he grows up in the free states and here he's able to

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partake in education, to learn to read and write.

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But I think it's really interesting because

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despite his obvious intelligence,

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despite his interest in culture, in the arts, in music,

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most of the paid labour he performs is manual.

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So that says to me that there's still,

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what Solomon Northup calls, "the burden of colour" in the north.

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Mr Northup, I have two gentleman whose acquaintance you should make.

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America's foreign slave trade ended in 1807, but domestically,

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the practice was still legal.

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Welcome to Washington, Solomon.

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To feed the south's need for slave labour,

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black men and women in the free northern states were kidnapped

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and sold to plantation owners in the slave states of the south.

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Kidnapping is a major issue

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in mid-19th century America.

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One can't quantify how many people were kidnapped but a considerable

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number of free black people were kidnapped and sold into slavery.

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Solomon is sent to the plantations of the Deep South,

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the economic engine room of 19th-century America.

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By the 1850s, the eve of the American Civil War,

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there were approximately four million American slaves.

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Their total dollar value at that time, as an asset,

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as a financial asset, was approximately 3.5 billion.

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That was the single largest financial asset in the entire

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American economy.

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Slaves as property were worth more than all manufacturing,

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all railroads, all banking assets,

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all the rest of the economy put together.

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By the middle of the 19th century, the slave system

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in the United States was the largest in the world, the only

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other country that came close was Brazil.

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It is central to more than just the south,

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slave labour is part of a national economic system.

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In fact, it is part of an international economic system

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and what makes it profitable is the global demand for textile goods,

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so you can follow cotton from the Deep South all the way to

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this country, Liverpool, where it is finished into textile goods

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and put on steam ships, disseminated around the British Empire,

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indeed, around the world.

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Cotton and sugar production demanded backbreaking labour.

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As a consequence,

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the slave mortality rate was at its highest in the Deep South.

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Louisiana really epitomises everything that's bad about slavery.

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Slave people often talk about their fears of being

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sold down the river and when they say this, they are not

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talking metaphorically, they are talking literally because that river

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is the Mississippi, which famously ends in the port of New Orleans.

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Those wouldn't be the places you want to be if you are a slave.

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Those plantations tended to be bigger than your average

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southern plantation, the work conditions tended to be harder,

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the work itself tended to be harder.

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Tell me about shooting in those locations.

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One of the things you were attempting to do was see the world

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through your central character's eyes, but tell me

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about being there and breathing that air.

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Well, you know, New Orleans has this... It's a sweet scent of...

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or the perfume of music.

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It is a very...spiritual, as such or haunted.

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It's got spirits there.

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It has an other dimension, other elements which are within the environment.

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EJIOFOR: 'We shot scenes by lynching trees and it's impossible not to feel that,

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'to know that you are really dancing with spirits.'

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You feel that you are connected to something

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and you are connected to one of the most extraordinary

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experiences that a collective group of people have ever gone through.

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That was really powerful, to be on a set where everything took you

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back to a totally different time.

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I never thought I would be picking cotton in my life and to be

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doing that at the height of summer, the height of noon,

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I just...

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Was faced with how strong these people were that lived through

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these days.

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These people did it for 16, 18, sometimes 20 hours a day.

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That is something to reckon with.

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This is a list of goods and sundries.

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You will take it to be filled and return immediately.

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Solomon is unusual amongst his fellow slaves because he can

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read and write, a fact he has to hide from his slave owners.

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A literate slave is a dangerous slave,

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a literate slave has a form of power,

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a literate slave has the ability to understand the outside world

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and possibly to communicate with the outside world, to read newspapers.

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The literate slave has knowledge or can attain knowledge,

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and knowledge, in this case, not just a cliche, knowledge can be

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power and therefore the literate slave was always dangerous.

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Therefore he is urged, even by his fellow slaves, "Solomon,

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"don't let them know you can read and write."

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Where are you from?

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-I told you.

-Tell me again.

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-Washington.

-Who was your master?

-Master name of Freemen.

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Was he a learn'd man?

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-I suppose so.

-He learn you to read?

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A word here or there. But I have no understanding...

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Don't trouble yourself with it.

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Same as the rest, master brought you here to work, that's all.

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Any more will learn you 100 lashes.

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After 12 years, Solomon is finally liberated.

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His traumatic survival story is published soon after in 1853

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and immediately becomes a bestseller.

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Of the 100 or so accounts of slavery that were written at the time,

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Solomon's is the only first-hand account of a kidnapped free man,

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most never escape their enslavement.

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It's really popular among northern abolitionists,

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as are many other works by formerly enslaved people,

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such as Frederick Douglass's autobiography

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and a whole raft of fictional accounts of slavery as well,

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including Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which really

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exposes to American society the brutality of enslavement.

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It was illegal to have this kind of literature

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if you lived in the south.

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People who were caught selling abolitionist literature

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in the south were dealt with very severely. Yes, yes.

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In some cases you could get ten years for being in possession

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of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

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Despite its initial popularity, Solomon's story disappeared

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from public consciousness after the American Civil War.

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In broad general terms, white Americans are not discussing

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the slavery question any longer,

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they are not discussing the rights of blacks.

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What they want to talk about is the individual valour

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and heroism of northern and southern white soldiers,

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and there is no space in that discussion

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for the African-Americans, so they are kind of written out

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of the popular memory in the late 19th century.

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Americans love a past and a story that says, "We are

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"problem-solvers, we are a people of progress, we are

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"a nation on a trajectory of improvement," or,

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as somebody once said,

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"The United States is supposed to be the country that was born almost

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"perfect and then launched a career at just getting better."

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The slave narratives, the whole story of slavery,

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punctures that.

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-Cut!

-Cutting.

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McQueen's film is a piercing exploration of one

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of America's darkest eras.

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Despite its huge impact on American history and culture, slavery is

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a subject that Hollywood has rarely or accurately explored on film.

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The American film industry has typically depicted slavery

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in rather benign and a rather stereotypical way.

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There's an old joke, nightclub joke, that Lenny Bruce used to say,

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"What's the difference between Lassie and a black man in a movie?

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"At the end of the movie Lassie lives."

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Americans do not deal well with this story of race and slavery

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and most Hollywood efforts and attempts over the many, many

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decades to represent slavery have not been very effective.

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An early depiction of black America featured in DW Griffith's

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1915 epic, Birth Of A Nation, a story that chronicled

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the relationship of a northern and southern family.

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Although a commercial success at the time, it has

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since been highly criticised for portraying

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African-Americans as unintelligent and sexually aggressive

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and the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force.

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The less said about that Ku Klux Klan film, Birth Of A Nation,

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the better. I don't think it has anything to say that is remotely...

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It's power was in its technique rather than its interpretation of what was going on.

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It is completely false and misguided.

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As we move through the century we have Gone With The Wind,

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a family favourite.

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So, Gone With The Wind, as we all know,

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is the plantation writ large,

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you have your Roman columns to simulate Roman power and the

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plantation itself being the bastion of civilisation in the south.

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This notion of architecture and power,

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the big house and enslaved people working in the fields.

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-Quitting time!

-Who says it's quitting time?

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-I said it's quitting time.

-I is the foreman.

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I's the one who says when it's quitting time at Tara. Quittin' time!

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Quittin' time!

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And this was mythologised and romanticised

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and the investment in the happy plantation slave, the singing

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banjo-playing darkie, to use the racist terminology of the time.

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Mammy! Here's Miss Scarlett's vittles!

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You can take it all back to the kitchen, I won't eat a bite!

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Oh, yes, you is! Yous gwanna eat every mouthful of this!

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So, it's problematic in that it's a great picture but it's a lie.

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American television also tackled the subject of slavery.

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In the 1970s, Roots became an overnight hit in the US and Britain.

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Based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Alex Haley,

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it's the story of a family's journey from enslavement in Ghana

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to their struggle to survive the plantations and Civil War.

0:20:520:20:56

The key to Roots and the marketing of Roots,

0:20:560:21:00

which was brilliant, was that it was called Roots -

0:21:000:21:03

The Story Of An American Family.

0:21:030:21:05

So, for Americans, a family.

0:21:050:21:08

Very classic, very Dickensian

0:21:080:21:10

and the storytelling was easy to follow and you could relate.

0:21:100:21:14

I think you're going to make it.

0:21:140:21:17

Lord be praised, Toby, you're going to walk.

0:21:170:21:19

Woman, I told ya, my name ain't no Toby.

0:21:210:21:24

I am Kunte Kinte, son of Omoro and Kairaba Kinte.

0:21:240:21:29

A fighting man from the village of Juffure.

0:21:290:21:31

It was great storytelling in an era of great stories about families,

0:21:310:21:36

The Godfather, Roots, all stories of people who are marginalised

0:21:360:21:42

in American society, Italian-Americans, African-Americans,

0:21:420:21:46

suddenly here they are, and Roots would fit right into that.

0:21:460:21:52

Roots, the great television series of the 1970s, garnered the largest

0:21:520:21:57

audience for a dramatic series in the history of television at that time.

0:21:570:22:03

It was eight hours, eight nights, on national television.

0:22:030:22:07

I was a high school teacher when Roots played.

0:22:070:22:11

I was in a large urban high school,

0:22:110:22:13

half black and half white, in Flint, Michigan.

0:22:130:22:17

And when Roots played on American television, every night for more than a week,

0:22:170:22:22

we had near riots in our hallways.

0:22:220:22:25

This was the 1970s, most American youth were, for the first time,

0:22:250:22:29

learning anything about slavery.

0:22:290:22:32

Most recently, Quentin Tarantino's award-winning Django Unchained

0:22:410:22:45

tackled the subject of slavery and divided the critics.

0:22:450:22:49

Django Unchained is this cartoonish revenge film of the ultimate

0:22:530:22:59

badass hero who kills all the white people

0:22:590:23:02

and rides off into the sunset like in a spaghetti western.

0:23:020:23:06

I saw it in the theatre where people cheered and rollicked

0:23:080:23:12

and had a grand old time.

0:23:120:23:15

I personally found Django Unchained offensive.

0:23:150:23:20

They're spending the night. Go up in the guest bedrooms and get two ready.

0:23:200:23:24

-He going to stay in the big house?

-He is a slaver. It's different.

0:23:240:23:28

-In the big house?

-You got a problem with that?

0:23:280:23:31

Oh, no, I ain't got no problem.

0:23:310:23:33

If that's the lens through which we can get to the history of slavery, we are a sick people.

0:23:330:23:38

Django Unchained is a film-maker's movie.

0:23:430:23:46

There's a lot of historical inaccuracies in it but what

0:23:470:23:50

happens with Django is you never for a moment think

0:23:500:23:53

you are looking at anything that is real. You never do.

0:23:530:23:56

You know that you are going to a Quentin Tarantino picture.

0:23:560:24:00

I've had real arguments with younger black artists,

0:24:000:24:03

but this is a Quentin Tarantino picture,

0:24:030:24:06

do you go see Quentin Tarantino to tell you anything about history? No.

0:24:060:24:12

History was the inspiration for McQueen's feature, 12 Years A Slave.

0:24:120:24:16

160 years after it was first published,

0:24:160:24:19

it's been brought to a cinema-going audience.

0:24:190:24:22

McQueen's film is important in so many ways.

0:24:220:24:26

He takes the slave narrative that is narrated by an individual who

0:24:260:24:30

was born free and sold into slavery as a result of kidnapping.

0:24:300:24:34

What this does politically, artistically, imaginatively,

0:24:340:24:39

is it means the audience are empathetic with an individual

0:24:390:24:42

who is, in inverted commas, like them.

0:24:420:24:45

So, he starts from a position of similarity to get to

0:24:450:24:48

a position of difference and what he does then is create

0:24:480:24:51

a world that is very unfamiliar and that's where the horror of it lies.

0:24:510:24:55

McQueen has a reputation for creating strong, visceral images,

0:25:000:25:04

first practised in his early career as a visual artist

0:25:040:25:08

working primarily with film.

0:25:080:25:10

If you look back at... when you started out working in visual art,

0:25:120:25:17

are there pieces you are proud of and do you still see yourself...

0:25:170:25:22

Do you see yourself primarily as a film-maker or

0:25:220:25:25

primarily as an artist who makes films?

0:25:250:25:28

I don't see myself as anything. I just do stuff.

0:25:280:25:31

I'm lucky enough that I can do stuff.

0:25:310:25:33

Would you go back and do other stuff or has film become your abiding

0:25:330:25:37

-passion?

-I do... No, I do everything.

0:25:370:25:39

It's the same thing, art or film is the same thing.

0:25:390:25:42

I don't see any difference. It's not... I don't see any divide at all.

0:25:420:25:46

Maybe. Of course, I think art is,

0:25:460:25:50

to a certain extent, like poetry.

0:25:500:25:53

It's concise, it's precise, and maybe film-making is

0:25:530:25:57

more of the yarn, the novel, as such, because there's a narrative to that.

0:25:570:26:02

There can be narrative in art as well, but maybe fractioned.

0:26:020:26:06

Anyway, it's the same thing. You use the same language, the same thing. That's all.

0:26:060:26:11

The piece that first brought McQueen to the attention of the art

0:26:150:26:19

world was his 1993 work, Bear.

0:26:190:26:22

It's a film of two naked men wrestling

0:26:240:26:27

and, as Steve told me,

0:26:270:26:29

at that time he wanted there to be two actors

0:26:290:26:31

but one of the actors didn't show up.

0:26:310:26:34

It's a very, very stylised piece so there were moments

0:26:340:26:37

when we had to repeat a lot of movements quite a lot because he was

0:26:370:26:43

very specific about the shape, the shot he was looking for, the angle.

0:26:430:26:48

He is very meticulous. That's one thing about Steve, detail.

0:26:480:26:53

Very often when a powerful work of art appears it triggers a rumour,

0:26:530:26:59

and I lived in Paris at the time, before I lived in London,

0:26:590:27:02

and I had messages from a friend saying it is urgent,

0:27:020:27:05

come to the ICA, there is this extraordinary work of art,

0:27:050:27:08

it left no-one indifferent and created a rumour far

0:27:080:27:11

beyond London that this great new artist had emerged on the art scene.

0:27:110:27:15

The characters, or the two male protagonists, it was very unclear

0:27:150:27:20

whether they were really fighting, whether there was an element

0:27:200:27:24

of homoeroticism in their interaction.

0:27:240:27:28

There were times when they appeared less to be wrestling than to be dancing, in a way.

0:27:280:27:34

You just get captured by the feeling of it, or by the movement of it,

0:27:340:27:39

or by the rhythm of it, or by the... or by...

0:27:390:27:43

There's just something that makes you want to stay a while and watch it.

0:27:430:27:49

McQueen's love of cinema is evident from his early installations

0:27:510:27:55

which reference cinema classics.

0:27:550:27:57

Deadpan is a film that Steve made for a solo exhibition that he

0:27:580:28:03

went on to have here at the ICA in '97.

0:28:030:28:06

Steve took this cinema moment from Buster Keaton where

0:28:060:28:12

the front facade of an entire house falls on top of him.

0:28:120:28:16

Steve reworked this and repeats this motif.

0:28:160:28:21

I think he is really extrapolating

0:28:210:28:24

and sucking out all of the formal

0:28:240:28:29

and cinematic qualities,

0:28:290:28:32

things like the wind that such an event creates

0:28:320:28:37

or the vibrations on the face.

0:28:370:28:39

What I think this introduces into Steve McQueen's work is

0:28:390:28:42

a sense of the body under pressure,

0:28:420:28:45

the body under physical pressure, under mental pressure,

0:28:450:28:49

a sense of physical confinement, and this becomes claustrophobia

0:28:490:28:55

in some of his more recent films.

0:28:550:28:58

It's impossible to be indifferent because the house falls on the viewer as well,

0:28:580:29:01

it falls on Steve, but the viewer as well,

0:29:010:29:04

and it's an incredibly sculptural piece.

0:29:040:29:06

Many of these films

0:29:060:29:08

are relatively short but they are incredibly addictive.

0:29:080:29:12

Someone looks at them again and again and again and again.

0:29:120:29:15

I don't know anybody who has seen Deadpan only once.

0:29:150:29:18

It creates a situation where one cannot stop watching it on a loop.

0:29:180:29:23

In 1999, McQueen was nominated for the Turner Prize.

0:29:270:29:31

Also on the short list were twins Jane and Louise Wilson for their film work,

0:29:320:29:36

Steven Pippin for sculpture and photography and, most

0:29:360:29:40

controversially, Tracey Emin for work which included her unmade bed.

0:29:400:29:45

We wanted Steve to win because the work had this amazing presence,

0:29:450:29:50

amazing formality to it

0:29:500:29:53

and, in a way, a weight that would sustain through time.

0:29:530:29:58

When it came to, "And the winner is..."

0:29:580:30:01

then it pretty much had to be him.

0:30:010:30:03

It was an absolutely timely recognition

0:30:030:30:06

of somebody who produced a compelling

0:30:060:30:09

and really singular body of work,

0:30:090:30:12

not just in Britain but throughout...throughout the world.

0:30:120:30:15

In 2004, McQueen collaborated with movie star Charlotte Rampling,

0:30:170:30:22

in a work that continued to explore the physical discomfort of the body.

0:30:220:30:26

It was an artistic blind date, yep.

0:30:280:30:31

The gallery, the artist Steve McQueen, requires the presence of,

0:30:310:30:35

it wasn't quite that but almost, requires the presence of Charlotte Rampling,

0:30:350:30:38

and would like to know her or get to know her or something,

0:30:380:30:42

because he might have a future project in mind.

0:30:420:30:44

Something like that.

0:30:440:30:46

SHE LAUGHS

0:30:460:30:48

He had a fascination with her face,

0:30:490:30:54

just as an actress.

0:30:540:30:56

And also I think he was really attracted to her bravery,

0:30:560:31:01

she has done a lot of art installation work

0:31:010:31:05

for a number of artists.

0:31:050:31:06

Erm...and a lot of people aren't brave enough to do that.

0:31:060:31:11

It's a piece about resistance to aggression.

0:31:120:31:16

And it all happens just on the eye.

0:31:160:31:19

All you see is a very close-up of my eye.

0:31:190:31:23

And Steve...

0:31:230:31:26

-tries to poke a finger into my eye.

-SHE LAUGHS

0:31:260:31:30

And it's about my resistance to that from of aggression.

0:31:300:31:34

We were shooting it hand-held on 16mm on a macro lens

0:31:340:31:40

and...something electric was happening between the two of them.

0:31:400:31:46

And even, you know, as the operator of the camera,

0:31:460:31:49

I could sense this amazing charge.

0:31:490:31:53

And I think that's what you see in the installation.

0:31:530:31:57

Steve always takes these things and turns them into something else

0:31:570:32:00

and builds an emotion out of the most unlikely images.

0:32:000:32:04

I think with Steve's work

0:32:040:32:06

you're really not meant to sit back and have an easy ride,

0:32:060:32:09

you've got to be working, if you like, as a viewer as well.

0:32:090:32:13

You need to be sort of actively engaged in analysing

0:32:130:32:17

why something looks the way it is,

0:32:170:32:19

why it's been shot in that particular way.

0:32:190:32:22

You know, he wants to unsettle you.

0:32:220:32:24

You know, you're not going to sort of sit back

0:32:240:32:27

and just ease into a Steve McQueen cinematic experience,

0:32:270:32:31

whether it's one made for an art gallery or one made for a cinema.

0:32:310:32:35

GUNFIRE

0:32:350:32:38

In 2003, during the time of the Iraqi war,

0:32:380:32:41

McQueen was made the official artist for the Imperial War Museum.

0:32:410:32:46

The result was this coffin-shaped box

0:32:470:32:50

containing a haunting series of stamps

0:32:500:32:52

that commemorated the fallen, called Queen And Country.

0:32:520:32:56

The installation led to my first meeting with McQueen in 2008.

0:32:590:33:03

I went to Iraq...and it was a situation

0:33:040:33:07

where they only gave me six days to make a piece

0:33:070:33:11

or to investigate and to make a piece.

0:33:110:33:13

-Not been with the military before, not been in Iraq before, not been in a war zone before.

-Yeah.

0:33:130:33:18

I was sort of thrown into a situation where, you know,

0:33:180:33:21

I had to acclimatise, and within that time it was time to go home.

0:33:210:33:26

So, it was a case of really being embedded, where someone is sort of holding your hand all the time

0:33:260:33:30

and monitoring what you saw and what you couldn't see.

0:33:300:33:33

I imagine I was a bit of an irritant for them,

0:33:330:33:35

but it was one of those situations where I came back very frustrated.

0:33:350:33:38

And therefore what happened after that was that this idea came about

0:33:380:33:42

where I thought, OK, I wanted to go back but I couldn't

0:33:420:33:46

because basically things had taken a turn for the worst.

0:33:460:33:49

-You know, people being kidnapped. I couldn't go back.

-Sure.

0:33:490:33:52

So, what happened was that this stamp idea came into my head.

0:33:520:33:55

And I was actually posting a stamp, I was actually paying my taxes,

0:33:550:33:59

and putting a stamp on an envelope of Vincent van Gogh.

0:33:590:34:03

And then... It just happened.

0:34:030:34:05

I thought, "Ah, stamps, soldiers, war letters."

0:34:050:34:09

The narrative of that, and that was the trigger, really.

0:34:090:34:12

What I'm trying to do is enter people's psyche in a way

0:34:130:34:16

which doesn't come through the media,

0:34:160:34:18

which isn't about newspapers, TV, radio, the Internet.

0:34:180:34:20

It comes through people's psyche in a much more everyday, tangible sort of existence.

0:34:200:34:26

So, in some ways it's the whole idea of it going through the bloodstream of the country as such.

0:34:260:34:32

When Steve was sent to Iraq

0:34:340:34:36

as the Royal artist, obviously we would have expected a film

0:34:360:34:39

to come out because that's what everybody thought would happen,

0:34:390:34:42

either a film or a video piece.

0:34:420:34:44

And I think once more, you know, as very often,

0:34:440:34:48

he is full of surprises and he always does unexpected things.

0:34:480:34:52

One can never really predict what he does next.

0:34:520:34:55

2008 was also the year

0:35:020:35:03

McQueen brought out his first feature film, Hunger.

0:35:030:35:07

Based on the story of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands,

0:35:070:35:10

who starved himself to death,

0:35:100:35:13

the film won him Cannes' prestigious Camera d'Or for a first feature

0:35:130:35:16

and also a BAFTA.

0:35:160:35:18

I think it's an extraordinary first feature, but tell me about that subject matter.

0:35:190:35:25

Bearing in mind the other projects you've worked on, why that subject matter?

0:35:250:35:29

It was one of those situations where 1981 was a big turning point for me.

0:35:290:35:31

Tottenham won the FA Cup, which was fantastic,

0:35:310:35:34

a big turning point in my life for sure.

0:35:340:35:36

And then there was the Brixton riots,

0:35:380:35:40

which was another sort of twist in a way.

0:35:400:35:43

And then obviously this guy called Bobby Sands,

0:35:430:35:46

who appeared on the TV screen with a number underneath his image

0:35:460:35:49

which obviously changed every day.

0:35:490:35:51

There was that awareness of some guy who, through not eating,

0:35:510:35:55

was having a voice in one way.

0:35:550:35:58

So, at 11 years old, it was almost like an awakening for me,

0:35:580:36:01

finding out who I was, what I was,

0:36:010:36:03

almost like a real sort of... The outside world looked different.

0:36:030:36:08

I mean, a tree looked different after those kind of events.

0:36:080:36:11

It seems to me, in a rather crude way in my interpretation,

0:36:110:36:15

that there are obvious parallels that one would make

0:36:150:36:17

with the post-9/11 world.

0:36:170:36:19

I mean, it is impossible now to look at a film of somebody imprisoned being maltreated

0:36:190:36:25

and somebody who is willing to effectively commit suicide

0:36:250:36:28

for their cause

0:36:280:36:29

without drawing comparisons

0:36:290:36:31

with what's happened in the world since 9/11.

0:36:310:36:33

That's the whole idea, that's the whole beauty of making this film,

0:36:330:36:37

that it is about 1981 but it is about now.

0:36:370:36:40

You know, people tend to forget what happened in a British prison cell 27 years ago.

0:36:400:36:46

People talk about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib,

0:36:460:36:49

but in Her Majesty's prison in Belfast

0:36:490:36:52

there were other things going on.

0:36:520:36:54

It's always something happening in a distant country

0:36:540:36:57

and actually, you know what, it happened right in our own back yard.

0:36:570:37:00

You've been working within the medium of film throughout your career

0:37:000:37:03

from the early installations to now the feature.

0:37:030:37:06

I mean, has it all fed naturally into the next project?

0:37:060:37:10

Erm...the only way I can really answer question

0:37:100:37:13

is the fact that when I was in art school I wanted to be in film school,

0:37:130:37:17

and when I was in film school I wanted to be in art school.

0:37:170:37:20

Because I was at Goldsmiths before and then when I left I went to NYU,

0:37:200:37:24

I did grad film, but I left after three-and-a-half months because I hated it.

0:37:240:37:27

So, every time... I mean, it's not so linear as far as a progression,

0:37:270:37:34

it's all about the idea rather than the medium.

0:37:340:37:37

It's not about a camera, a big camera or a small camera,

0:37:370:37:40

or a paintbrush or a wooden sculpture or whatever, it's all about the idea.

0:37:400:37:43

One of the most striking elements of Hunger is a 17-minute scene

0:37:430:37:47

between Bobby Sands and a priest filmed in one long, continuous take.

0:37:470:37:52

I want to know whether your intent

0:37:520:37:54

is just purely to commit suicide here?

0:37:540:37:56

You want me to argue about the morality of what I'm about to do

0:38:000:38:03

and whether it's really suicide or not?

0:38:030:38:06

For one, you're calling it suicide, I call it murder,

0:38:060:38:09

and that's just another wee difference between us two.

0:38:090:38:12

We're both Catholic men, both Republicans,

0:38:120:38:14

but while you were poaching salmon in lovely Kilrea, we were being burnt out of our house in Rathcoole.

0:38:140:38:19

Similar in many ways, but life and experience has focused our beliefs differently.

0:38:190:38:22

-You understand me?

-I understand.

0:38:220:38:24

I have my belief and in all its simplicity that is the most powerful thing.

0:38:240:38:29

Why did you choose to do that scene as a single take?

0:38:290:38:32

It's like watching a tightrope walker,

0:38:320:38:33

the further you get into that scene the more you think,

0:38:330:38:35

"How many times did they have to do this to get it right?"

0:38:350:38:39

-I mean, it's one single take.

-Yeah.

0:38:390:38:41

And, I mean, Bobby smokes three cigarettes during the course of it.

0:38:410:38:45

-Hmm.

-It's like setting yourself the most difficult task.

0:38:450:38:48

"I know, we'll just do that whole scene in one take."

0:38:480:38:51

How I structured it was this.

0:38:510:38:52

Often it's the case, in a conversation like this,

0:38:520:38:55

a two-shot in a movie, the camera is on one person

0:38:550:38:59

and then it cuts to another person.

0:38:590:39:01

So what it is is the conversation is not with the two people

0:39:010:39:05

having their conversation, the conversation is with the audience.

0:39:050:39:08

-Yes.

-So what I wanted to do, I didn't want that,

0:39:080:39:10

I wanted a situation where the conversation was with the two people.

0:39:100:39:12

By having two people talking to each other intimately

0:39:120:39:16

and in some ways being a bit disregarding of the audience,

0:39:160:39:19

what happens is the audiences lean in more and they listen more carefully.

0:39:190:39:23

At the same time, they know they're not supposed to be there because it's an intimate conversation,

0:39:230:39:27

so everything becomes much more sharp, listening gets sharper, vision gets sharper.

0:39:270:39:32

So, in order to play that central role of Bobby Sands,

0:39:330:39:37

Michael Fassbender had at one point...

0:39:370:39:39

you had to stop the production so that he could massively lose weight.

0:39:390:39:43

Tell me about what happened, how did that process work?

0:39:430:39:46

Well, we stop the production for two-and-a-half months,

0:39:460:39:50

and Michael took himself to LA, I think around Venice Beach,

0:39:500:39:54

and he went onto the situation of losing the weight.

0:39:540:39:58

We had a doctor with him, of course.

0:39:580:40:00

So it was a medically-assisted fast?

0:40:000:40:02

And then when Michael came back, of course, onto the set

0:40:020:40:05

we were all anxious, "Michael's coming and we don't know how he's coming."

0:40:050:40:08

And he walked in the door and it was just...

0:40:080:40:11

His sort of hollows here had sunk...and he looked very ill.

0:40:110:40:16

I was quite concerned.

0:40:160:40:18

Erm...but he had this sort of...

0:40:180:40:23

Yeah, he was ready, you know?

0:40:230:40:26

He was ready. It's almost like, "Yes, now I'm here. I'm ready. I'm there."

0:40:260:40:30

The Hunger was probably one of the most haunting experiences I think I've had with watching a film.

0:40:460:40:51

And the way he constructed the film too, which was before he really was getting into film,

0:40:530:40:58

so for me it was in-between like a video installation and a film.

0:40:580:41:02

It was... And it really got it.

0:41:020:41:05

I don't know why things get it but they do and he got it.

0:41:050:41:07

McQueen cast Fassbender again in Shame, his second feature,

0:41:190:41:23

which explores the subject of sex addiction.

0:41:230:41:26

It left such an impression on me

0:41:290:41:31

that when I was in New York on the subway,

0:41:310:41:33

I was so afraid to look at anyone.

0:41:330:41:35

I was just so afraid, cos I was like, "Oh, I don't know what you're thinking and I don't want to know."

0:41:350:41:40

So, that was a memorable, memorable movie.

0:41:400:41:44

And, again, Steve doesn't shy away from the hard subjects.

0:41:440:41:48

And we all know that these things are going on, you know, and we don't face them.

0:41:480:41:51

And he does, you know. And he just doesn't look away.

0:41:510:41:56

In Shame, set in New York,

0:41:560:41:59

Fassbender plays a troubled loner, Brandon,

0:41:590:42:01

and Carey Mulligan his equally anguished sister, Sissy.

0:42:010:42:05

Look, you get the sofa and you get your arse off it before I leave every morning.

0:42:050:42:09

-I know. I promise I will. Mwah!

-OK. OK. OK.

-Mwah!

0:42:090:42:13

SHE SIGHS

0:42:130:42:15

-We leave in 15.

-OK!

0:42:150:42:17

The conversations around Shame came out of so many different things,

0:42:170:42:20

but, you know, primarily it came out of our interest in how people

0:42:200:42:23

find intimacy in the 21st-century when you can Facebook and tweet

0:42:230:42:28

and grind and twerk and do whatever you need to do,

0:42:280:42:31

you know, to connect and have relationships.

0:42:310:42:34

And yet you don't necessarily have the day-to-day normal conversational interaction

0:42:340:42:39

that perhaps our parents had, or the dating system.

0:42:390:42:41

'In 2011, I met McQueen to talk about Shame,

0:42:410:42:46

'a film which, despite its difficult subject matter, received widespread acclaim,

0:42:460:42:50

'particularly for Fassbender's central performance.'

0:42:500:42:53

Wait, you'll see.

0:42:530:42:55

Tell me what you meant by calling it Shame?

0:42:550:42:57

What happened was when we spoke to people with sex addiction

0:42:570:43:00

was what they would do was go on these sexual escapades as such

0:43:000:43:03

and...when they would come out the other end...

0:43:030:43:07

what would happen is there would be a sense of self-hate,

0:43:070:43:10

of self-loathing and ultimately shame.

0:43:100:43:14

And this word "shame" kept coming up again and again and again through our interviews.

0:43:140:43:18

There's a key confrontation between Brandon and Sissy at one point

0:43:180:43:22

-in which she says, "We're not bad people but we come from a bad place."

-Right.

0:43:220:43:26

One of the things that I admire very much about the film

0:43:260:43:28

is that you're never explicit about what that bad place is.

0:43:280:43:32

Tell me what you can about what that line meant?

0:43:320:43:36

I wanted to make their past familiar rather than mysterious.

0:43:360:43:42

I think when people come to the cinema and sit on these seats...

0:43:420:43:45

they bring their history, they bring their luggage, they bring their baggage with them.

0:43:450:43:49

And when they're presented with something on screen, they have an idea of what it could possibly be

0:43:490:43:54

or what happened or what has happened to Sissy and Brandon,

0:43:540:43:58

all the possibilities.

0:43:580:44:00

And I think that's much more exciting for them and, you know,

0:44:000:44:03

much more sort of close to the audience.

0:44:030:44:06

I could have told a long yarn about, "OK, this is what happened

0:44:060:44:09

"and this and this and that and the other," but it makes it so specific.

0:44:090:44:14

And also I didn't want it to be a let-out for Brandon.

0:44:140:44:19

-You mean like an explanation?

-Precisely, for what he does in the movie.

0:44:190:44:23

I mean, you know, it's their past. And again when we meet people in our lives,

0:44:230:44:27

we know nothing about them other than what they present.

0:44:270:44:30

-I'm David.

-Sissy.

-It is a pleasure to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

0:44:300:44:33

-I think you're absolutely fantastic and you look great in the dress too. Please, sit down.

-Thank you.

0:44:330:44:37

The actual script is really the last 60 pages of the film,

0:44:370:44:42

cos we actually threw away the first 40 pages.

0:44:420:44:45

And, you know, I was always had this idea that we need to see Brandon go to sex therapy,

0:44:450:44:49

and we need to see him in a therapist's room,

0:44:490:44:51

and I want the tap-tap-tap of a fan going, and I want him at the end redeemed.

0:44:510:44:55

And he goes into the therapy and we start to understand why he is the way he is.

0:44:550:44:58

And Steve was really good about going, "No, I don't think we need that,

0:44:580:45:02

"I think we just pull it right back to the central story,

0:45:020:45:04

"which is a man who is driven by his addiction and destroyed by his addiction."

0:45:040:45:08

The central theme that runs all the way through the film

0:45:120:45:14

is that you have fleshly contact, but he's psychologically more and more withdrawn

0:45:140:45:20

the more contact he appears to have.

0:45:200:45:22

He can only do what he can do as long as it's completely objectified

0:45:220:45:25

and there isn't any compassion.

0:45:250:45:27

Yes, as long as he's in control. As long as he's in control.

0:45:270:45:30

I don't think he wants to let anyone in.

0:45:300:45:31

I think to fall in love with someone or to be in love with someone

0:45:310:45:34

is, you know, pretty brave. You know, that person could break your heart.

0:45:340:45:38

I think for him, somewhere along the line in his life,

0:45:380:45:42

he didn't want that to happen

0:45:420:45:44

or didn't want that possibility of being vulnerable.

0:45:440:45:48

There are sort of recurring themes,

0:45:510:45:53

these long extended shots are something that Steve within his artwork has explored extensively.

0:45:530:46:00

And that has come over into the film work as well.

0:46:000:46:05

Particularly in Shame when Michael goes for a run.

0:46:050:46:08

You know, what's the point of the edit in that case?

0:46:080:46:12

There's no need, the character is off running.

0:46:120:46:15

By just simply following him we are, you know, we're observers.

0:46:150:46:21

And we can start to project what might be happening in his mind

0:46:210:46:26

as opposed to being distracted by a series of edits.

0:46:260:46:31

I just love the way he sees the world

0:46:330:46:35

and I love the way he somehow seems to communicate things to me

0:46:350:46:38

without ever speaking, and I don't know how he does it.

0:46:380:46:42

I think he's just...

0:46:420:46:44

There's just a huge truth to him as a man

0:46:440:46:46

and I think somehow that's what he tries to pursue in whatever he's doing.

0:46:460:46:49

I think that's what people respond to in this work

0:46:490:46:52

is the kind of ultimate...fearless desire

0:46:520:46:56

to point the camera towards the truth.

0:46:560:46:59

ALL HUM SPIRITUAL

0:46:590:47:03

Despite its scale, the sense of intimacy of Shame and Hunger

0:47:050:47:09

is retained by 12 Years A Slave,

0:47:090:47:12

a modern epic with painstaking attention to period detail

0:47:120:47:15

and a large cast led by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

0:47:150:47:19

Tell me about working with Chiwetel. I mean, it's an extraordinary performance from him.

0:47:190:47:23

He's done great work before, I think anyway, but tell me about him,

0:47:230:47:27

how you cast him and how you discussed the role with him?

0:47:270:47:30

Well, I asked when I rang him on the phone.

0:47:300:47:33

I said, "Have you read the script?" He said, "No."

0:47:330:47:36

He said, "No." I said, "What?!"

0:47:360:47:38

"I just offered you..." He said, "No."

0:47:380:47:41

-Because?

-I think because, as he has said before,

0:47:410:47:44

it was like having the role that you've been waiting for all your life

0:47:440:47:48

and this thing landing on your lap and...him being paralysed,

0:47:480:47:52

and him saying to himself, "Well, I can't do this."

0:47:520:47:55

I'm not filming that.

0:47:550:47:57

'I was just very aware, first of all, of the responsibility of it.'

0:47:570:48:01

You know, the responsibility of telling Solomon Northup's story.

0:48:010:48:04

-Because it's a real story and an important story?

-Yeah, it's this man's life and his experience.

0:48:040:48:09

There's a responsibility to him, to his descendants, you know,

0:48:090:48:13

there was a responsibility to the overall idea.

0:48:130:48:15

I'd never seen a story like this before, I'd never read a story that was so deep inside this experience.

0:48:150:48:21

And I was shocked by it, I was compelled by it obviously, but I was also...

0:48:210:48:26

It took me a moment, it took me some pause.

0:48:260:48:29

So we worked, we worked together, we talked a lot about...

0:48:290:48:33

Valentino, Buster Keaton, silent movie stars.

0:48:330:48:37

Because what's interesting about them is their face, their eyes.

0:48:370:48:40

I concentrated on his eyes all the time. Eyes, eyes, eyes,

0:48:400:48:44

because he has to communicate something which is in him to the audience.

0:48:440:48:48

I mean, you are Solomon Northup as the audience member, you are him,

0:48:480:48:51

so when you see his face you have to recognise yourself somehow or what he's thinking.

0:48:510:48:55

Cos oftentimes he can't express who he is really at all,

0:48:550:48:58

he can't sort do certain things, but you have to feel it.

0:48:580:49:02

I remember so distinctly him walking onto the set for the first day.

0:49:020:49:06

So everyone was fairly relaxed and when the camera turned over,

0:49:060:49:09

Chiwetel turned it on and it was electric!

0:49:090:49:13

And you could see every other actor in the room suddenly pricking up and thinking,

0:49:130:49:17

"Oh, my God! We're going to have to act our socks off here now just to keep up with him."

0:49:170:49:23

Days ago I was with my family

0:49:260:49:29

-HE SIGHS

-In my home.

0:49:290:49:32

Now you tell me all that's lost.

0:49:340:49:36

Tell no-one who I am, that's the way to survive?

0:49:380:49:41

Well, I don't want to survive...

0:49:450:49:47

..I want to live.

0:49:480:49:50

One of the crucial things about his performance is, of course,

0:49:500:49:53

-the stance and the stances that he adopts during the film.

-Yeah. Uh-huh.

0:49:530:49:56

Yeah. I mean, at the very beginning we did a lot of test shots of him in his costume,

0:49:560:50:01

the various costumes he had in the film.

0:50:010:50:03

And it was a woman called Paddy Norris, who's an amazing costume designer,

0:50:030:50:08

and she used to take soil samples from each plantation and match them with the costumes.

0:50:080:50:12

It's just the level of detail.

0:50:120:50:14

So, what happened was that when he put clothes on, he was standing in different ways.

0:50:140:50:19

It was kind of wonderful to look at cos it was one of those things

0:50:190:50:22

which occurred through the clothes and the attire. "OK, what am I wearing now?

0:50:220:50:26

"Where am I in this journey?" And through that the stances would change.

0:50:260:50:30

Solomon's story is a nightmarish reversal of the American dream

0:50:300:50:35

as he goes from free man to slave.

0:50:350:50:38

CHAINS RATTLE

0:50:380:50:40

SOLOMON GROANS

0:50:510:50:52

It's all right, Solomon. There's no shame in it. No shame at all.

0:50:540:50:59

We identify with him as a person who's been captured and taken away from his family.

0:51:040:51:09

We as the audience identify with him, so we move along...

0:51:090:51:13

we move along the narrative with him.

0:51:130:51:16

And that's Solomon's crutch in the movie, we are actually in the audience helping him,

0:51:160:51:21

so when he doesn't say anything,

0:51:210:51:23

when he's looking at us, we are him filling in the blanks.

0:51:230:51:27

So the whole idea of what's happening inside him is happening to us,

0:51:270:51:30

we understand what's going on in his head because other people don't.

0:51:300:51:33

And that's what helps the narrative very much, the audience.

0:51:330:51:37

Without the audience, of course, he sort of falls flat.

0:51:370:51:40

Solomon's chief tormentor is the plantation owner Edwin Epps, played by Michael Fassbender.

0:51:400:51:46

-You come here.

-Master...

-I said come here!

0:51:510:51:54

I brought her back just like you...

0:51:540:51:56

Michael Fassbender is now in the third feature in which you've directed him,

0:51:560:52:00

you have a very sort of close relationship, you've done incredibly intimate and intense work with him.

0:52:000:52:06

How did you and he talk about that character?

0:52:060:52:10

You know, we talked about Epps as a person who is in love with Patsey,

0:52:100:52:16

he's totally besotted with her.

0:52:160:52:18

So we talked about it in a way that he...

0:52:180:52:22

As a character who doesn't understand his love for this woman,

0:52:220:52:26

because she's a slave.

0:52:260:52:28

You know, she's a black woman.

0:52:280:52:30

So he had to deal with grappling with that situation of him being in love with this slave

0:52:300:52:36

as well as him being who he is.

0:52:360:52:38

And how he deals with it is obviously...

0:52:380:52:41

through trying to destroy his love for her.

0:52:410:52:45

And he tries to do that by trying to destroy her in an unfortunate way.

0:52:450:52:49

So it's very twisted.

0:52:490:52:51

-I went to master Shaw's plantation.

-Ah, you admit it?

0:52:510:52:55

Yes. Really. And you know why?

0:52:550:52:58

I got this from Mistress Shaw.

0:52:580:53:01

Mistress Epps won't even grab me no soap to clean with.

0:53:010:53:05

-SHE SOBS

-I stink so much I make myself gag!

0:53:050:53:10

500lb of cotton day in, day out!

0:53:120:53:18

More than any man here!

0:53:180:53:20

And for that I will be clean!

0:53:200:53:22

And what about Patsey?

0:53:220:53:25

Well, Patsey...that was Lupita Nyong'o.

0:53:250:53:29

It was like searching for Scarlett O'Hara, it really was.

0:53:290:53:32

It was over 1,000 girls we auditioned for that part.

0:53:320:53:35

It had to be someone who was new, it had to be someone we had to find cos there's no-one like that.

0:53:350:53:39

So it was a long and hard hunt.

0:53:390:53:41

And we found this girl who had not graduated from Yale yet

0:53:410:53:47

and she was just amazing.

0:53:470:53:49

And that was it...a star is born.

0:53:490:53:53

SHE HUMS

0:53:530:53:54

I had to recognise that I had the privilege of doing this character

0:53:560:54:03

in an imaginary world.

0:54:030:54:05

And the woman who I was representing had no choice,

0:54:050:54:07

that this was actually her life,

0:54:070:54:09

these atrocities actually happened to her.

0:54:090:54:12

And that always just grounded me and reminded me of what's important,

0:54:120:54:16

that I couldn't sentimentalise the experience

0:54:160:54:19

and I had to get to it in a very practical way.

0:54:190:54:23

That Patsey was working through her pain not wallowing in it.

0:54:230:54:26

In 12 Years A Slave, McQueen explores the moral ambiguity that slave owners faced.

0:54:290:54:35

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Solomon's first and more sympathetic owner, Master Ford.

0:54:350:54:41

You must know that I'm not a slave.

0:54:430:54:45

I cannot hear that.

0:54:450:54:47

-Before I came to you I was a free man.

-Aye, and I saved your life!

0:54:470:54:51

One of the most conflicted characters is that played by Benedict Cumberbatch

0:54:520:54:56

and there's a line about, "He's a good man. No, he's a slaver."

0:54:560:54:59

And the film is full of those contradictions,

0:54:590:55:02

it goes out of its way to not paint people with simple strokes.

0:55:020:55:06

I think that's one of the powerful things about this story

0:55:060:55:09

that it's about human beings, you know, who are forced into circumstances together.

0:55:090:55:14

You know Ford, that Benedict plays brilliantly,

0:55:140:55:17

is somebody who understands that it's all wrong, you know,

0:55:170:55:21

that he has, as he describes in the film, he has debts to be mindful of.

0:55:210:55:26

And...he allows himself to behave in this way, to be part of this system,

0:55:260:55:32

because it's a system to which he owes his entire reality.

0:55:320:55:37

And so why would he break it? You know, how can he break it?

0:55:370:55:40

It's a very strange character and I think he's maybe the worst of all three of them,

0:55:400:55:45

because he...he's not...he knows what's going on but he does nothing about it.

0:55:450:55:50

But at the same time he's in that environment where it's very difficult to fight back,

0:55:500:55:54

it's very difficult to say anything against it.

0:55:540:55:57

But at the same time he's...I think he's one of the biggest villains, actually.

0:55:570:56:01

HAMMERING

0:56:010:56:04

I thought I told you to commence to putting on clappers?

0:56:040:56:07

McQueen takes the audience out of familiar cinematic territory,

0:56:070:56:11

he is candid in his portrayal of difficult subjects.

0:56:110:56:15

It can be uncomfortable viewing.

0:56:150:56:18

-Goddamn you! I told you!

-I did as instructed.

0:56:180:56:23

If there's something wrong, it's wrong with the instruction!

0:56:230:56:27

You bastard! You got goddamn...black bastard!

0:56:270:56:34

Strip your clothes.

0:56:340:56:36

-Strip.

-I will not.

0:56:380:56:41

Do you think there's a comparison between this story and your interest in it and something like Hunger,

0:56:410:56:47

which again is about somebody suffering great physical pain

0:56:470:56:51

and anguish in the pursuit of a cause?

0:56:510:56:55

Well, you know what, I've only made three films.

0:56:550:56:58

Thank goodness I've made three films. My goodness, I've made three films!

0:56:580:57:01

I've only made three films, so the next film, hopefully, or whatever's next, will be something else.

0:57:010:57:06

I don't have any kind of journey that I'm on in this way,

0:57:060:57:10

it's just, I don't know...

0:57:100:57:13

I think, you know, you're a critic, you want to tie things up neatly.

0:57:130:57:18

"OK, he's this or he's that."

0:57:180:57:20

But I don't know what I am yet, because I'm just starting.

0:57:200:57:23

You know, I've been lucky enough to have made three films, that's all.

0:57:230:57:27

What would you like people to take away from seeing 12 Years A Slave?

0:57:270:57:32

I think it's each individual person's responsibility in a way,

0:57:350:57:38

not necessarily about this particular subject of slavery,

0:57:380:57:42

but in any subject in who you are, what you do today.

0:57:420:57:44

But one of the great things about cinema is that it does have a very populist and lasting effect.

0:57:440:57:49

Cinema is the living, breathing storytelling of the day, isn't it?

0:57:490:57:53

Yeah. Look, all I hope...

0:57:530:57:55

All I could hope is that people have two minutes to think about their surroundings

0:57:550:58:02

and what they can do about it, that's all, end of story.

0:58:020:58:05

You know, we're powerless,

0:58:050:58:07

all we can do is try and do something for five minutes and then we die, that's all.

0:58:070:58:10

So you've got to always hope that's about it, end of story.

0:58:100:58:14

I think the movie's really great, I wish you all the best success with it,

0:58:140:58:16

and I look forward to whatever you do next.

0:58:160:58:19

-And congratulations.

-Cheers, mate. Thank you very much.

0:58:190:58:21

# Row, Johnny, row

0:58:210:58:23

# Row, Johnny, row

0:58:230:58:26

# My soul arise in heaven, Lord

0:58:260:58:29

# When you and Johnny row Hallelujah!

0:58:290:58:32

# Row, Johnny, row

0:58:320:58:35

# Row, Johnny, row

0:58:350:58:38

# My soul arise in heaven, Lord

0:58:380:58:41

# When you and Johnny row

0:58:410:58:44

# Everybody say Row, Johnny, row

0:58:440:58:47

# Row, Johnny, row

0:58:470:58:50

# My soul arise in heaven, Lord...#

0:58:500:58:53

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