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12 Years a Slave
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteve McQueen
Screenplay byJohn Ridley
Produced by
Starring
CinematographySean Bobbitt
Edited byJoe Walker
Music byHans Zimmer
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • August 30, 2013 (2013-08-30) (Telluride Film Festival)
  • November 8, 2013 (2013-11-08) (United States)
  • January 10, 2014 (2014-01-10) (United Kingdom)
Running time
134 minutes[1]
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20[2][3]–22 million[4]
$18 million after tax rebates[4]
Box office$178.7 million[5]

12 Years a Slave is a 2013 British-American historical drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African American man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before his release. The first scholarly edition of Northup's memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account and concluded it to be accurate.[6]

This is the third feature film directed by Steve McQueen. The screenplay was written by John Ridley. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northup. Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, and Alfre Woodard are all featured in supporting roles. Principal photography took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from June 27 to August 13, 2012. The locations used were four historic antebellum plantations: Felicity, Bocage, Destrehan, and Magnolia. Of the four, Magnolia is nearest to the actual plantation where Northup was held.

12 Years a Slave received widespread critical acclaim, and was named the best film of 2013 by several media outlets. It proved to be a box office success, earning over $178 million on a production budget of $18 million. The film won three Academy Awards: Best Picture (becoming the first film made by a black director or producer to receive the award), Best Supporting Actress for Nyong'o, and the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Ridley.[7][8] It was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized the film with the Best Film and the Best Actor award for Ejiofor.[9]

Plot

In 1841, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free African-American man working as a violinist, who lives with his wife and two children in Saratoga Springs, New York. Two men (played by Scoot McNairy and Taran Killam) offer him a two-week job as a musician if he'll travel to Washington, D.C. with them, but once they get there they drug Northup and he wakes up in chains, about to be sold into slavery.

Northup is shipped to New Orleans and is renamed "Platt," the identity of a runaway slave from Georgia. Beaten repeatedly, he is ultimately purchased by plantation owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). Northup manages to stay on good terms with Ford, a relatively benevolent master. Northup engineers a waterway for transporting logs swiftly and cost-effectively across a swamp, and Ford presents him with a violin in gratitude. Over-seer John Tibeats (Paul Dano) resents Northup and begins verbally harassing him.

The tensions between Tibeats and Northup escalate; Tibeats attacks Northup, and Northup fights back. In retaliation, Tibeats and his friends attempt to lynch Northup, who suffers many hours standing on his tip-toes while in the noose. Ford explains that in order to save Northup's life he must be sold to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Northup attempts to reason with Ford, explaining that he is actually a free man. Ford states that he "cannot hear this" and responds "he has a debt to pay" on Northup's purchase price.

Epps believes his right to abuse his slaves is biblically sanctioned. The slaves must pick at least 200 pounds (91 kg) of cotton every day, or be beaten. A young female slave named Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) picks over 500 pounds (230 kg) daily, and is praised lavishly by Epps. He also repeatedly rapes her, and seems to fall in love with her against his better judgement. Epps' wife (Sarah Paulson) is envious of Patsey and frequently humiliates and attacks her.

The abuse of Patsey worsens as Epps continues to rape her. Patsey wishes to die and asks Northup to kill her; he refuses. Sometime later, an outbreak of cotton worm befalls Epps' plantation; he decides that the new slaves are the cause, a plague sent by God. He leases them to a neighboring plantation for the season. While there, Northup gains the favor of the plantation's owner, who allows him to play the fiddle at a neighbor's wedding anniversary celebration, and to keep his earnings.

When Northup returns to Epps, he attempts to use the money to pay a white field hand and former over-seer, Armsby, (Garret Dillahunt) to mail a letter to Northup's friends in New York. Armsby agrees to deliver the letter, and accepts all Northup's saved money. Northup is betrayed by Armsby, and Northup is narrowly able to convince Epps that the story of a letter is a lie. Northup tearfully burns the letter, his only hope of freedom.

Northup begins working on the construction of a gazebo with a Canadian laborer named Bass (Brad Pitt). Bass earns Epps' displeasure by expressing his opposition to slavery, by trying to explain to Epps that he could have a little compassion towards those working for him. Epps sees them as his property.

One day, Epps becomes enraged after discovering Patsey missing from his plantation. When she returns, she reveals she was gone to get a bar of soap from Mistress Shaw (Alfre Woodard), having become sick from her own stench as a result of being forbidden soap by Mary Epps. Epps doesn't believe her and orders her stripped and tied to a post. Encouraged by his wife, Epps forces Northup to whip Patsey. Northup reluctantly obeys, but Epps eventually takes the whip away from Northup, savagely lashing her.

Northup purposely destroys his violin, and while continuing to work on the gazebo, he asks Bass where he's from. Bass replies that he is from Canada. Northup confides his kidnapping to Bass. Once again, Northup asks for help in getting a letter to Saratoga Springs. Bass, risking his life, agrees to send it.

One day, Northup is called over by the local sheriff, who arrives in a carriage with another man. The sheriff asks Northup a series of questions to confirm his answers match the facts of his life in New York. Northup recognizes the sheriff's companion as a shopkeeper he knows from Saratoga. The man has come to free him, and the two embrace. Though Epps angrily resists and Patsey is distraught, Northup leaves immediately.

After being enslaved for twelve years, Northup is restored to freedom and returned to his family. As he walks into his home, he sees his whole family, including his daughter, who presents him with his grandson and namesake. Concluding credits recount the inability of Northup and his legal counsel to prosecute the men responsible for his being sold into slavery as well as the mystery surrounding details of Northup's death and burial.

Cast

Alfre Woodard at the premiere of 12 Years a Slave

Production

Development

John Ridley at the 2013 San Diego Film Festival

After meeting screenwriter John Ridley at a Creative Artists Agency screening of Hunger in 2008, director Steve McQueen got in touch with Ridley about his interest in making a film about "the slave era in America" with "a character that was not obvious in terms of their trade in slavery."[10] Developing the idea back and forth, the two did not strike a chord until McQueen's wife found Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir Twelve Years a Slave. McQueen later told an interviewer:

I read this book, and I was totally stunned. At the same time I was pretty upset with myself that I didn't know this book. I live in Amsterdam where Anne Frank is a national hero, and for me this book read like Anne Frank's diary but written 97 years before – a firsthand account of slavery. I basically made it my passion to make this book into a film.[11]

After a lengthy development process, during which Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment backed the project, which eventually helped get some financing from various film studios, the film was officially announced in August 2011 with McQueen to direct and Chiwetel Ejiofor to star as Solomon Northup, a free negro who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South.[12] McQueen compared Ejiofor's conduct "of class and dignity" to that of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte.[13] In October 2011, Michael Fassbender (who starred in McQueen's previous films Hunger and Shame) joined the cast.[14] In early 2012, the rest of the roles were cast, and filming was scheduled to begin at the end of June 2012.[15][16]

To capture the language and dialects of the era and regions in which the film takes place, dialect coach Michael Buster was brought in to assist the cast in altering their speech. The language has a literary quality related to the style of writing of the day and the strong influence of the King James Bible.[17] Buster explained:

We don't know what slaves sounded like in the 1840s, so I just used rural samples from Mississippi and Louisiana [for actors Ejiofor and Fassbender]. Then for Benedict [Cumberbatch], I found some real upper-class New Orleanians from the '30s. And then I also worked with Lupita Nyong'o, who's Kenyan but she did her training at Yale. So she really shifted her speech so she could do American speech.[18]

After both won Oscars at the 86th Academy Awards, it was reported that McQueen and Ridley had been in an ongoing feud over screenplay credit. McQueen reportedly had asked Ridley for shared credit, which he declined. McQueen appealed to Fox Searchlight, which sided with Ridley. Neither thanked the other during their respective acceptance speeches at the event.[19] Since the event, Ridley has noted his regret for not mentioning McQueen[20][21] and denied the feud.[22][23] He spoke favorably of working with McQueen, and explained that his sole screenplay credit was due to the rules of the Writers Guild of America.[24] McQueen has not commented on the alleged feud.[19][21][22][23]

Filming

Director Steve McQueen at the premiere of 12 Years a Slave at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival

With a production budget of $20 million,[2] principal photography began in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 27, 2012. After seven weeks,[25] filming concluded on August 13, 2012.[26] As a way to keep down production costs, a bulk of the filming took place around the greater New Orleans area – mostly south of the Red River country in the north of the state, where the historic Northup was enslaved.[27] Among locations used were four historic antebellum plantations: Felicity, Bocage, Destrehan, and Magnolia.[28] Magnolia, a plantation in Schriever, Louisiana, is just a few miles from one of the historic sites where Northup was held. "To know that we were right there in the place where these things occurred was so powerful and emotional," said actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. "That feeling of dancing with ghosts – it's palpable."[29] Filming also took place at the Columns Hotel and Madame John's Legacy in the French Quarter of New Orleans.[30]

Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, the film's primary camera operator,[31] shot 12 Years a Slave on 35 mm film with a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio using both an Arricam LT and ST. "Particularly for a period piece, film gives the audience a definite sense of period and quality," said Bobbitt. "And because of the story's epic nature, widescreen clearly made the most sense. Widescreen means a big film, an epic tale – in this case an epic tale of human endurance."[32]

The filmmakers avoided the desaturated visual style that is typical of a more gritty documentary aesthetic.[33] Deliberately drawing visual comparisons in the filming to the works of Spanish painter Francisco Goya, McQueen explained,

When you think about Goya, who painted the most horrendous pictures of violence and torture and so forth, and they're amazing, exquisite paintings, one of the reasons they're such wonderful paintings is because what he's saying is, 'Look – look at this.' So if you paint it badly or put it in the sort of wrong perspective, you draw more attention to what's wrong with the image rather than looking at the image.[34]

Design

Part of a series on
Forced labour and slavery
Shackles
Contemporary
Historical
Antiquity
Medieval Europe
Muslim world
Atlantic slave trade
Topics and practice
Naval
By country or region
Sub-Saharan Africa
North and South America
East, Southeast, and South Asia
Australia and Oceania
Europe and North Asia
North Africa and West Asia
Religion
Opposition and resistance
Related

To accurately depict the time period of the film, the filmmakers conducted extensive research that included studying artwork from the era.[35] With eight weeks to create the wardrobe, costume designer Patricia Norris collaborated with Western Costume to compile costumes that would illustrate the passage of time while also being historically accurate.[36] Using an earth tone color palette, Norris created nearly 1,000 costumes for the film. "She [Norris] took earth samples from all three of the plantations to match the clothes," McQueen said, "and she had the conservation with Sean [Bobbitt] to deal with the character temperature on each plantation, there was a lot of that minute detail."[37] The filmmakers also used some pieces of clothing discovered on set that were worn by slaves.[38]

Music

Main articles: 12 Years a Slave (score) and 12 Years a Slave (soundtrack)

The musical score to 12 Years a Slave was composed by Hans Zimmer, with original on-screen violin music written and arranged by Nicholas Britell and performed by Tim Fain.[39] The film also features a few pieces of western classical and American folk music such as Franz Schubert's "Trio in B-flat, D471" and John and Alan Lomax's arrangement of "Run, Nigger, Run".[40] A soundtrack album, Music from and Inspired by 12 Years a Slave, was released digitally on November 5 and received a physical format release on November 11, 2013 by Columbia Records.[41] In addition to Zimmer's score, the album features music inspired by the film by artists such as John Legend, Laura Mvula, Alicia Keys, Chris Cornell, and Alabama Shakes.[42] Legend's cover of "Roll, Jordan, Roll" debuted online three weeks prior to the soundtrack's release.[43]

Historical accuracy

African American history and culture scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a consultant on the film, and researcher David Fiske, co-author of Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave, provided some material used to market the film.[44] Nevertheless, news and magazine articles around the time of the film's release described a scholar alleging some license that Northup could have taken with his book, and liberties that McQueen definitely took with Northup's original, for dramatic, modernizing, or other reasons.

Scott Feinberg wrote in the The Hollywood Reporter about a September 22 New York Times article that "dredged up and highlighted a 1984 essay by another scholar, James Olney, that questioned the 'literal truth' of specific incidents in Northup's account and suggested that David Wilson, the white amanuensis to whom Northup had dictated his story, had taken the liberty of sprucing it up to make it even more effective at rallying public opinion against slavery."[45] According to Olney, when abolitionists invited an ex-slave to share his experience in slavery at an antislavery convention, and when they subsequently funded the appearance of that story in print, "they had certain clear expectations, well understood by themselves and well understood by the ex-slave, too."[44]

Noah Berlatsky wrote in the The Atlantic about a scene in McQueen's movie version, shortly after Northup is kidnapped, when he is on a ship bound south, when a sailor who has entered the hold is about to rape a slave woman when a male slave intervenes. "The sailor unhesitatingly stabs and kills him," he wrote, and "this seems unlikely on its face—slaves are valuable, and the sailor is not the owner. And, sure enough, the scene is not in the book."[46]

Forrest Wickman of Slate wrote of Northup's book giving a more favorable account of the author's onetime master, William Ford, than the McQueen film. In Northup's own words, "There never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford," adding that Ford's circumstances "blinded [Ford] to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery." The movie, however, according to Wickham, "frequently undermines Ford."[47] McQueen also undercuts Christianity itself as well, in an effort to update the ethical lessons from Northup's story for the 21st century, by holding the institutions of Christianity up to the light for their ability to justify slavery at the time.[48] Northup was a Christian of his time, writing of his former master being "blinded" by "circumstances"[47] that in retrospect meant a racist acceptance of slavery despite being a Christian, a position untenable to contemporary Christians[49] and to Christian abolitionists of the 19th century but not contradictory to Northup himself. Valerie Elverton Dixon in The Washington Post characterized the Christianity depicted in the movie as "broken".[48]

Emily West, an associate professor of history at the University of Reading who specializes in the history of slavery in the U.S., said she had "never seen a film represent slavery so accurately".[50] Reviewing the film for History Extra, the website of BBC History Magazine, she said: "The film starkly and powerfully unveiled the sights and sounds of enslavement – from slaves picking cotton as they sang in the fields, to the crack of the lash down people’s backs. We also heard a lot about the ideology behind enslavement. Masters such as William Ford and Edwin Epps, although very different characters, both used an interpretation of Christianity to justify their ownership of slaves. They believed the Bible sanctioned slavery, and that it was their ‘Christian duty’ to preach the scriptures to their slaves."[50]

Release

Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o at the 2013 New York Film Festival

12 Years a Slave premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2013,[51] before screening at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6,[52] the New York Film Festival on October 8,[53] and Philadelphia Film Festival on October 19, 2013.[54]

On November 15, 2011, Summit Entertainment announced it had secured a deal to distribute 12 Years a Slave to international markets.[55] In April 2012, a few weeks before principal photography, New Regency Productions agreed to co-finance the film.[56] Because of a distribution pact between 20th Century Fox and New Regency, Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired the film's United States distribution rights.[57] However, instead of paying for the distribution rights, Fox Searchlight made a deal in which it would share box-office proceeds with the financiers of the independently financed film.[58] 12 Years a Slave was commercially released on October 18, 2013 in the United States for a limited release of 19 theaters, with a wide release in subsequent weeks.[59] The film was initially scheduled to be released in late December 2013, but "some exuberant test screenings" led to the decision to move up the release date.[60]

Marketing

Due to both the film's explicit nature and award contender status, 12 Years a Slave's financial success is being watched closely. Many analysts have compared the film's content to other epic drama films of a similar vein such as Schindler's List (1993) and The Passion of the Christ (2004), which became box office successes despite their respective subject matters.[29][58] "It may be a tough subject matter, but when handled well ... films that are tough to sit through can still be commercially successful," said Phil Contrino of Boxoffice Magazine.[61] Despite its content, the film's critical success has assisted its domestic distribution by Fox Searchlight that began with a limited released aimed primarily towards art house and African American patrons.[62] The film's release was gradually widened in subsequent weeks, similarly to how the studio had successfully done in years prior with films such as Black Swan and The Descendants.[63] International release dates for 12 Years a Slave were largely delayed to early 2014 in order to take advantage of the attention created by awards seasons.[3]

During its marketing campaign, 12 Years a Slave received unpaid endorsements by celebrities such as Kanye West and Sean Combs.[64] In a video posted by Revolt, Combs urged viewers to see 12 Years a Slave by stating: "This movie is very painful but very honest, and is a part of the healing process. I beg all of you to take your kids, everybody to see it. ... You have to see this so you can understand, so you can just start to understand."[65]

Reception

Box office

As of April 3, 2014, 12 Years a Slave had earned $178.7 million including $56.7 million in the United States.[5] During its opening limited release in the United States, 12 Years a Slave debuted with a weekend total of $923,715 on 19 screens for a $48,617 per-screen average.[66] The following weekend, the film entered the top ten after expanding to 123 theatres and grossing an additional $2.1 million.[67] It continued to improve into its third weekend, grossing $4.6 million at 410 locations. The film release was expanded to over 1,100 locations on November 8, 2013.[5][68]

Critical response

Brad Pitt at the premiere of 12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave received near-universal acclaim by critics and audiences, for its acting (particularly Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o), Steve McQueen's direction, John Ridley's screenplay, its production values, and its faithfulness to Solomon Northup's account.

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics gave the film a "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 258 reviews with an average score of 9/10, with the site's consensus stating, "It's far from comfortable viewing, but 12 Years a Slave's unflinchingly brutal look at American slavery is also brilliant—and quite possibly essential—cinema."[69] Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 97 (out of 100) based on 48 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "universal acclaim". It is currently one of the site's highest-rated films as well as the best reviewed film of 2013.[70] CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an "A" grade.[71]

Richard Corliss of TIME heralded the film and its director, Steve McQueen, by stating: "Indeed, McQueen's film is closer in its storytelling particulars to such 1970s exploitation-exposés of slavery as Mandingo and Goodbye, Uncle Tom. Except that McQueen is not a schlockmeister sensationalist but a remorseless artist." Corliss draws parallels with Nazi Germany, saying, "McQueen shows that racism, aside from its barbarous inhumanity, is insanely inefficient. It can be argued that Nazi Germany lost the war both because it diverted so much manpower to the killing of Jews and because it did not exploit the brilliance of Jewish scientists in building smarter weapons. So the slave owners dilute the energy of their slaves by whipping them for sadistic sport and, as Epps does, waking them at night to dance for his wife's cruel pleasure."[72]

Gregory Ellwood of HitFix gave the film an "A-" rating, stating, "12 Years is a powerful drama driven by McQueen's bold direction and the finest performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor's career." He continued by praising the performances of Fassbender and Nyong'o, citing Nyong'o as "the film's breakthrough performance [that] may find Nyong'o making her way to the Dolby Theater next March." He also admired the film's "gorgeous" cinematography and the musical score, as "one of Hans Zimmer's more moving scores in some time."[73]

Paul MacInnes of The Guardian scored the film five out of five stars, writing, "Stark, visceral and unrelenting, 12 Years a Slave is not just a great film but a necessary one."[74]

The reviewers of Spill.com gave it high acclaim as well, with two reviewers giving it a "Better Than Sex," their highest rating. However, the reviewers agreed that it was not a film they would watch again anytime soon. When comparing it to the miniseries version of Roots, reviewer Cyrus stated that "Roots is The Care Bears Movie in comparison to this."[75]

Benedict Cumberbatch signing autographs at the premiere of the film at TIFF, September 2013

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised it as "a new movie landmark of cruelty and transcendence" and as "a movie about a life that gets taken away, and that's why it lets us touch what life is." He also commented very positively about Ejiofor's performance, while further stating, "12 Years a Slave lets us stare at the primal sin of America with open eyes, and at moments it is hard to watch, yet it's a movie of such humanity and grace that at every moment, you feel you're seeing something essential. It is Chiwetel Ejiofor's extraordinary performance that holds the movie together, and that allows us to watch it without blinking. He plays Solomon with a powerful inner strength, yet he never soft-pedals the silent nightmare that is Solomon's daily existence."[76]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, gave the film a four-star rating and said: "you won't be able to tuck this powder keg in the corner of your mind and forget it. What we have here is a blistering, brilliant, straight-up classic." He later named the film the best movie of 2013.[77]

Manohla Dargis wrote, in her review for The New York Times, "the genius of 12 Years a Slave is its insistence on banal evil, and on terror, that seeped into souls, bound bodies and reaped an enduring, terrible price."[78]

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Robey granted the film a maximum score of five stars, stating that "it's the nobility of this remarkable film that pierces the soul," while praising Ejiofor and Nyong'o's performances.[79]

Tina Hassannia of Slant Magazine said that "using his signature visual composition and deafening sound design, Steve McQueen portrays the harrowing realism of Northup's experience and the complicated relationships between master and slave, master and master, slave and slave, and so on."[80]

David Simon, the creator of the TV series The Wire, highly praised the movie, commenting that "it marks the first time in history that our entertainment industry, albeit with international creative input, has managed to stare directly at slavery and maintain that gaze".[81]

The film was not without its criticisms. Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice was more critical of the film. While praising Ejiofor's work, she stated: "It's a picture that stays more than a few safe steps away from anything so dangerous as raw feeling. Even when it depicts inhuman cruelty, as it often does, it never compromises its aesthetic purity."[82] Peter Malamud Smith of Slate criticized the story, saying, "12 Years a Slave is constructed as a story of a man trying to return to his family, offering every viewer a way into empathizing with its protagonist. Maybe we need a story framed on that individual scale in order to understand it. But it has a distorting effect all the same. We're more invested in one hero than in millions of victims; if we're forced to imagine ourselves enslaved, we want to imagine ourselves as Northup, a special person who miraculously escaped the system that attempted to crush him." Describing this as "the hero problem", Malamud Smith concluded his review explaining, "We can handle 12 Years a Slave. But don't expect 60 Years a Slave any time soon. And 200 Years, Millions of Slaves? Forget about it."[83] At The Guardian, black Canadian author Orville Lloyd Douglas said he would not be seeing 12 Years a Slave, explaining: "I'm convinced these black race films are created for a white, liberal film audience to engender white guilt and make them feel bad about themselves. Regardless of your race, these films are unlikely to teach you anything you don't already know."[84]

Top ten lists

12 Years a Slave has been named as one of the best films of 2013 by various ongoing critics.[85]

Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by 12 Years a Slave (film)

12 Years a Slave has received numerous awards and nominations. It earned three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[86] It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama.[87] The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, while Ejiofor received the Best Actor award.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ "12 YEARS A SLAVE (15)". Fox Searchlight Pictures. British Board of Film Classification. February 19, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  2. ^ a b Fuller, Graham (April 10, 2012). "Steve McQueen's 'Twelve Years a Slave' Set to Shine Light on Solomon Northup's Ordeal". Art+Auction. Louise Blouin Media. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  3. ^ a b Cieply, Michael (October 28, 2013). "The International Fate of '12 Years': Steve McQueen's Film Is a Box-Office Test Case". The New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2013.
  4. ^ a b Horn, John (March 4, 2014). "Oscars: '12 Years a Slave' puts spotlight on Hollywood's approach to race". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 6, 2014. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ a b c "12 Years a Slave (2013)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  6. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1353/cwh.1969.0065, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1353/cwh.1969.0065 instead.
  7. ^ "Sign of the times". The Hindu. Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  8. ^ Lacob, Jace (March 2, 2014). "'12 Years A Slave' Wins Best Picture Oscar At 86th Annual Academy Awards". Buzzfeed. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  9. ^ a b "Baftas: Gravity and 12 Years a Slave share glory". BBC News. February 17, 2014. Retrieved February 17, 2014.
  10. ^ Thompson, Anne (October 16, 2013). "John Ridley Talks Writing '12 Years a Slave' and Directing Hendrix Biopic 'All Is by My Side'". IndieWire. Snagfilms. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  11. ^ "'12 Years A Slave' Was A Film That 'No One Was Making'". NPR. October 24, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  12. ^ Sneider, Jeff (August 17, 2011). "McQueen tallying '12 Years' at Plan B". Variety.
  13. ^ Truitt, Brian (June 18, 2013). "First look: 'Twelve Years a Slave'". USA Today. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
  14. ^ Kroll, Justin (October 12, 2011). "Duo team on 'Slave'". Variety.
  15. ^ Sneider, Jeff (May 24, 2012). "Thesps join McQueen's 'Slave' cast". Variety.
  16. ^ Kroll, Justin (June 5, 2012). "Giamatti, Paulson join 'Slave'". Variety. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  17. ^ Scott, Mike (October 28, 2013). "'12 Years a Slave': Five cool things to know about the New Orleans-shot historical epic". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved October 29, 2013.
  18. ^ Lytal, Cristy (September 28, 2013). "'12 Years a Slave' dialect coach Michael Buster speaks up". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 29, 2013.
  19. ^ a b Sneider, Jeff. "Oscars: '12 Years a Slave' Screenplay Rift Between Steve McQueen, John Ridley Boils Over". The Wrap. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  20. ^ Sacks, Ethan (March 10, 2014). "'12 Years a Slave' screenwriter John Ridley: I regret not mentioning director Steve McQueen in Oscar speech". Daily News. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  21. ^ a b Child, Ben (March 10, 2014). "12 Years a Slave's John Ridley regrets not thanking Steve McQueen at Oscars". The Guardian. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  22. ^ a b Schmidlin, Charlie (March 5, 2014). "John Ridley Says He's "Grateful" For Steve McQueen, Claims Feud With '12 Years A Slave' Director Is Nonexistent". The Playlist. Indiewire. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  23. ^ a b Walker, Tim (March 4, 2014). "'12 Years A Slave' Oscar tarnished by feud over screenplay". The Independent. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  24. ^ Gettell, Oliver (March 10, 2014). "'12 Years a Slave' writer John Ridley denies Steve McQueen feud". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
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