Oscars 2014: If We Picked The Nominees (Best Picture)

5. 12 Years A Slave

The third film on this list that made the Academy's Best Picture lineup, and one that has a very real chance of winning the big prize, 12 Years a Slave has been in the "best of" conversation since the film made its premiere on the fall film festival circuit. In fact, the presumptive declaration on the part of some Oscar pundits upon the film's unveiling that the Best Picture race was over led to an unfair backlash against the film that the film has never fully recovered from. With nine nominations though, including for the aforementioned Best Picture, Best Director (Steve McQueen), Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Fassbender), Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o), and Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley), no matter how many of these categories it actually wins, you can't feel too badly for the film. Based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in Upstate New York during pre-Civil War America who was kidnapped into slavery in the south, many of the pundits who declared the Oscar race in favor of the film did so because of the perceived importance of the story. Slavery has been scantly addressed in the history of cinema, which makes 12 Years a Slave somewhat of a historical novelty, but this sense that the film is some sort of obligatory fulfillment has ultimately done more damage to the movie than it has helped it. Too easily have many dismissed 12 Years a Slave as simply "the slave movie" which has blinded some from appreciating the individual artistic merits of the film. It is true that during the film's opening act, we are treated to what feels like a cinematic documentation of the horrors of slavery. There are some powerful scenes in this section that are effectively enacted by McQueen and crew, but the lack of real character development for Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) does give the proceedings a bit of a sterile feeling. However, after these initial horror scenes, when Solomon is bought by Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), the "nice" slave owner, and then particularly when his ownership is transferred over to the sadistic slave master Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), Solomon's character is slowly revealed, and anyone who sees the film as just an academic exercise at this point just isn't watching with an open mind. The film also relies a lot on the strength of its actors, who all pass with flying colors. From the relatively smaller parts of actors like Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, and Brad Pitt, to the more significant roles of Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong'o, and particularly Michael Fassbender, not too mention the film's star, Chiwetel Ejiofor (who deserved a nomination just for his performance in the "Roll Jordan Roll" scene alone), the ensemble does exemplary work all around. It may not quite be a masterpiece, but 12 Years a Slave is fine cinema nonetheless.