Baldwin & 12 Years a Slave

In many ways, it felt like I went into Baldwin's text with the most historical knowledge (as compared to say, Balakian, where I was learning about an event), which was interesting because it allowed me to focus on Baldwin's more prominent philosophical and existential issues with his place in contemporary American society and culture.

One thing Baldwin continues to come back to (and which is appropriately detailed in the book's first essay) is the idea that America has never completely explored or come to terms with how African-Americans were socially destroyed by the actions of the past; and thus their marginalization continues. He initially lays out the foundation of this problem in his assessment of the failures of the 'protest novel' with Uncle Tom's Cabin up through his contemporary society where the same challenges are faced by him and other black artists/intellectuals.

Being a film person, this got me thinking about 12 Years a Slave and how that film seems to be the most direct confrontation with America's past, yet refuses to fall into the trappings and failures that Baldwin found in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Two things about that movie interested me in relation to this book. The first is the lack of direct message in the film. Obviously, the film is anti-slavery, but rather than seeking to argue a thesis (as Stowe's novel does, to it's detriment in Baldwin's mind), it simply shows us things as they were and lets us take from it what we will. There are no winners in the film. It distinctly lacks the sort of shiny spin that other historical films on the same topic (or historical "issue" movies as a whole) typically have. We might call that the Spielberg-moment; whatever it is, it's certainly absent here.

In conjunction with that idea, the other interesting thing about the film in relation to Baldwin's thoughts was that it was made by a non-American. It's director, Steve McQueen, is black, but British. I've wondered how that affected the approach to the film, as he isn't clouded with the sort of cultural/historical fog that Baldwin finds in many American works on the same subject. It seems to be that McQueen's non-Americanness is of paramount importance in his ability to approach and execute the material in the manner that he does. I wonder if perhaps his European upbringing gave him the sort of lens and perspective that Baldwin tried to find through his European emigration.

Perhaps this became a bit of a rant, but here's some (much more well developed thoughts) on 12 Years and it's cultural siginificance from former Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris: http://grantland.com/features/the-cultural-crater-12-years-slave/