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British film director Steve McQueen has a reputation for fixing his unflinching gaze on difficult subjects. His new film "12 Years a Slave" is drawing international attention for its depiction of the brutality of slavery in the South in the 1840s. 


McQueen was in the Twin Cities this weekend to appear at a dialogue at the Walker Art Center, and at a question-and-answer session after a screening in Brooklyn Center. 


McQueen said he wanted to make this film to learn about slavery. 


"It's one of these things that is often swept beneath the carpet," he said. "But I wanted to look at it and examine it and investigate it, and bring myself into a situation where I could delve into it in an honest way." 


He had an idea about writing a story of a northerner being sold into slavery, but the script wasn't coming together. Then he said his wife gave him a copy of Solomon Northup's memoir, "12 Years a Slave."

Review: "12 Years a Slave" is the movie of the year so far


"And it was one of those strange things that when you have an idea, and the idea is manifested already in your hand, and there it is, your idea in full script form. Virtually," he said. "It was just too compelling, and necessary. It was necessary for me to make that movie." 


The book, and now the film, tells of how Northup, who had been living as a free man in the north was drugged, kidnapped, and sold to slavers. Sitting in a boat with other victims heading down to New Orleans, he tries to come to terms with what is happening to him.


"Days ago I was with my family, in my home," Northup says in the film. "Now you tell me all is lost, tell no-one who I am, that's the way to survive. Well, I don't want to survive: I want to live." 
 
"12 Years a Slave" is a brutal film. This horror is heightened by moments of extraordinary beauty of the lush Louisiana countryside. 


"Unfortunately the most horrific things happen in beautiful places," McQueen said.  


McQueen started his career as a painter. When asked how this influenced "12 Years a Slave," he talks about the Spanish artist Goya. He created pictures of war so beautifully McQueen says people had to confront the horrors he was depicting. 


McQueen and his crew shot much of the film on two historic plantations in Louisiana.


"Walking around and filming there was like dancing with ghosts," he said. "It was troubling in a way. This was ground where people were tortured, people were in bondage, people were in slavery." 


In the film Solomon Northrup, played by actor Chewitel Ejiofor, is ground down physically and mentally by a succession of slave masters. He learns the dangers of even a brief conversation, like when a plantation owner's wife asks about a past owner.


"A word, here or there," he says. "But I have no understanding of the written text," he lies.


"Well, don't trouble yourself with it," she interrupts. "Same as the rest, master brought you here to work and that's it. Any more'll earn you 100 lashes."  


Like McQueen, Chiwetel Ejiofor is British, and Michael Fassbender, who plays a brutal slave owner is German-Irish. While some observers have claimed it needed people from outside the U.S. to make a film such as this, McQueen points out the bulk of the cast and crew are American.


"The whole idea of slavery for me was never in ownership of the United States," he said. "Slavery was a world industry. And I am evidence of that. My parents are from the West Indies, and the only difference between me and an American person who looks like me is their boat went right, and my boat went left." 
 
McQueen said he sees "12 Years a Slave" as a film about love: the love that people in slavery showed as they tried to survive -- and protect their children. He feels it personally.


"I just have to be very thankful for my ancestors -- it sounds corny to say this -- and my mother and my father and everything else because I am here because of love. This movie is about love more than anything else."    


A video of Steve McQueen dialogue at the Walker Art Center will be posted on the Walker site shortly.

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British film director Steve McQueen was in the Twin Cities this weekend to appear at a dialogue at the Walker Art Center, and at a question-and-answer session after a screening in Brooklyn Center.

At the Walker, McQueen says '12 Years a Slave' a story of survival, love and life

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