I don’t care much for slave films. So when I saw the trailer to the movie “12 Years a Slave” I was unmoved. But a friend persuaded me to see it earlier this month, and I left the theater feeling transported. I loved, loved, loved the movie — the characters, the acting and most of all the storytelling.
Last week, I talked to John Ridley, the movie’s screenwriter.
“12 Years a Slave” is based on the 1853 autobiography of the same title, written by Solomon Northup, who is played by actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. Northup was a family man and violinist living in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., when he was abducted into slavery.
In addition to being a screenwriter, a director and movie producer, Ridley, 48, is a novelist who’s also written for television. He grew up in an upper-middle-class suburb on Milwaukee’s North Shore. Here’s an edited version of our conversation:
Q: You’ve said that it was the movie’s director, Steve McQueen, who introduced you to the book.
A: Yes. We had breakfast about four years ago, and the subject of slavery and that era of American history came up. I think Steve’s wife is a historian and she found the book, read it and gave it to Steve, and he gave it to me. Steve was effusive and driven in his desire to tackle it. I thought it was worth the attempt. For me, it was a spec script situation — I wasn’t getting paid for it. It hadn’t been pitched to a studio, so I gave it a try.
Q: The story of slavery is difficult to tell for myriad reasons. When you read the book, did you think it was something that could be translated into a Hollywood feature film?
A: There were many things that could have prevented this film from being made, but what drove it forward was everyone’s real desire to see it happen. In the beginning, there were no true obstacles. No studio. No producer. I had emotional and financial ownership of the project until the day the cameras began to roll. With this type of project, if you did take it into a studio and people said, ‘No,’ then it’s dead. But if you come to them with the complete package, people can be enthusiastic, and they were.
Q: You used Northup’s autobiography, which at the time sold a whopping 30,000 copies, as your guide for the screenplay. Did you research other material such as slave narratives?
A: Yes, the research was extensive, but once you read Solomon’s memoir, you realize it’s such a singular document, and I didn’t want it to be shaped or molded by extraneous objects that would make his story false.
Q: What did you learn during your research?
A: I had to learn about picking cotton and pulling cane and traveling southward in those days on the Mississippi River. There were many other things, including those I knew would never play in the film. But I needed to know them in order to create a script that was alive and vivid.
Q: We know that language is currency. Solomon goes from speaking like an educated man to speaking like a slave. Was it tricky to have him make that transition but not sound like a different person?
A: Yes. What made it difficult was that, in the memoir, Solomon wrote with such nuance and elevated language and such beauty, and there was some dialogue that I could take out and put in the screenplay. But it’s one thing to have the source material as a guide, but another to create and re-create that language in other scenes and make each scene feel like it flows from one to the other throughout the script.
Q: Writing is rewriting. How grueling was the actual writing process?
A: Because this was a spec script, I knew it was going to be a situation where people either loved it and wanted to proceed, or were unhappy with it and that would be that. There was one draft that I turned in. But it was a yearslong process of writing and rewriting. I can’t tell you how many drafts there were. I knew that I had one chance to present it to folks and absolutely floor them with the way the story moved, the depth of emotion, the language and the fact that the story was going to be revelatory.
Q: Were people floored?
A: There was no sales job. And I can’t take credit for it. So much of the creativity came from Solomon himself.
Q: One of the most enduring moments — and there are many — is that botched lynching scene where Northup is dangling from a tree with a noose around his neck and one foot barely touching the ground. It’s like a death dance.
A: I wish I could take more credit, but that’s how the scene was rendered in the memoir. In the book, it’s all the more frightening in that he’s hanging there all day, and there’s a sense of linger as the other slaves look on but they can’t do anything. Can you imagine not knowing from moment to moment or second to second if you’re going to die?
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Q: What did you learn about slavery while growing up in the Midwest?
A: Wisconsin is more progressive, and it’s not like people ran away from the subject. But you realize you’re learning something in a vacuum. You never have a real discussion about slavery or civil rights. When the topic did come up, it was like, ‘Oh, John, they’re talking about you, now.’
Q: Because you were often the only black kid in class?
A: Yes. But slavery is something that affects all of us. It’s all of our history. And I hope this film helps us have a deeper understanding of that.
Q: Hollywood has given us some not-so-good depictions of slavery. “Gone with the Wind” has been the go-to favorite of this. But one reason the 1970s television miniseries “Roots” was so groundbreaking was because of its authenticity. Did “Roots” factor into your research or sensibilities at all in the telling of this story?
A: I remember “Roots” growing up and the cultural impact it had on the country. Watching “Roots” was not the cool remove of reading about slavery in a book or hearing about it in class. It became something that swept people along. There was no particular thing we took from “Roots,” but I wanted the sense of emotion I got from “Roots” and from Solomon’s memoir, which in the end was as beautiful as it was horrific and as humanizing as it was dehumanizing.