Directed by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams
Factual error: In the final scene where Solomon was reunited with his family, the doors he entered the room through had Edwardian style leadlight glass. The movie was set about 50 years before this style.
Factual error: In the close-up of the violin being strung, it is obvious the strings are of contemporary origin. You can see they are translucent plastic; not exactly historically accurate.
Factual error: In the close-up of the violin being strung, it is obvious the strings are of contemporary origin. You can see they are translucent plastic; not exactly historically accurate.
Solomon Northup: I don't want to survive. I want to live.
Trivia: Michael Fassbender passed out after filming the whipping scene.
Question: I'm hoping this was addressed in the book. Solomon was allowed to work as a violinist and allowed to keep the money he earned, which he attempted to use as a bribe to get another character to send a letter on his behalf. Solomon was also sent into town on several occasions to purchase supplies. Why didn't he just buy and envelope with his own money and send it at the post office? Couldn't he have said it was a letter from his master once it was sealed? Couldn't he write it in code if he couldn't send it sealed? All he had to say was that Solomon Northup was a guest at the plantation and his wife could have alerted the authorities.
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Answer: Here's why, according to Northup in Twelve Years a Slave: "My great object always was to invent means of getting a letter secretly into the post-office, directed to some of my friends or family at the North. The difficulty of such an achievement cannot be comprehended by one unacquainted with the severe restrictions imposed upon me. In the first place, I was deprived of pen, ink, and paper. In the second place, a slave cannot leave his plantation without a pass, nor will a post-master mail a letter for one without written instructions from his owner."