The film industry, the Oscar blogging industry, Hollywood and the Oscars themselves have never seen anything like 12 Years a Slave. Even the best reviewed films of the last ten years did not achieve similarly universal acclaim. This praise comes from international critics as well, not just the Americans. It’s worth noting because we are headed into the hottest competition month of Oscar season. November. By December, the pieces start stacking up behind a handful of contenders. Any film that presents itself now and moving forward has to best 12 Years, which now has the best reviews of any film, but has also won the Audience Award at Toronto.
It’s a formidable Oscar contender at the moment, challenged by Alfonso Cuaron’s crowd pleasing Gravity, which keeps on making money everywhere. Both of these films will leave the Kodak on Oscar night with at least one Oscar but probably more. What, if anything, can trump a film that seems to confront Hollywood’s treatment of slavery, and in its own way, Oscar’s history. How many, if any, films have there been about the horrors of slavery that have won? The only film that has won Best Picture that had anything remotely to do with history was Gone with the Wind, which won in 1939. But that film featured “happy slaves” who were willing to follow their masters anywhere. The beautifully subtle version of Scarlett O’Hara was an unflattering portrait of a spoiled, selfish woman was an appropriate symbol for the Confederacy – but they never went there. But the horrors of slavery? Untouched.
Schindler’s List depicted the brutality and horror of the Holocaust. Titanic was a romanticized view of the tragedy but it also revealed the truth about who died that night and who was saved. And so we come to 12 years a Slave, a film that finally tells the cold, hard truth from the perspective of those enslaved. Why did it take so long? Why did it take a British director and tricky financing to get it made?
Either way, however the Oscar race turns out, it’s worth noting how the critics have reacted. Expect 12 Years to sweep most of the critics awards, probably New York, Los Angeles, National Society, Southeastern, Online, Chicago, etc.