jazzeum
Four Star General
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
- Messages
- 38,439
I saw this last night -- not sure why it took so long -- and it's one of the most remarkeable and gripping movies I've ever seen.
Much has been written about it but what impressed me is how the movie touched on all aspects of slavery, not just the the slave market (and the breakup of families), the degradation of human beings, and the master taking sexual advantage of female slaves but many other aspects as well.
We see the fury of the master's wife (almost her impotence) at her husband brazenly sleeping with Patsy and we see (albeit briefly) the economic aspect of slavery when the slaves are lent out to other slaveholders because the cotton crop was poor. Slaves were the greatest source of wealth in the United States, not to mention a status symbol, and masters bought slaves not just to grow cotton or other cash crops but so they could buy more slaves. Slaves were used as credit and assets to be used as the source of loans from lenders and this is briefly touched upon. We also see (again, briefly) how some masters would let slaves keep the fruit of their labor when they had done the plantation work, e.g. Solomon gets to keep the money he earns from playing violin. This was not an uncommon practice.
We also see a brief encounter between slaves and "Maroon" Indians (Black seminoles) who lived in forests. There were also escaped slave communities who lived in the forest although this was not shown.
An altogether remarkable movie.
Much has been written about it but what impressed me is how the movie touched on all aspects of slavery, not just the the slave market (and the breakup of families), the degradation of human beings, and the master taking sexual advantage of female slaves but many other aspects as well.
We see the fury of the master's wife (almost her impotence) at her husband brazenly sleeping with Patsy and we see (albeit briefly) the economic aspect of slavery when the slaves are lent out to other slaveholders because the cotton crop was poor. Slaves were the greatest source of wealth in the United States, not to mention a status symbol, and masters bought slaves not just to grow cotton or other cash crops but so they could buy more slaves. Slaves were used as credit and assets to be used as the source of loans from lenders and this is briefly touched upon. We also see (again, briefly) how some masters would let slaves keep the fruit of their labor when they had done the plantation work, e.g. Solomon gets to keep the money he earns from playing violin. This was not an uncommon practice.
We also see a brief encounter between slaves and "Maroon" Indians (Black seminoles) who lived in forests. There were also escaped slave communities who lived in the forest although this was not shown.
An altogether remarkable movie.
