On Friday, the limited release of 12 Years a Slave, the new movie directed by the British filmmaker Steve McQueen, marked the third major film in the last two years that deals with the subject of slavery.
Slavery is America's largest wound. And with the exception of the television mini-series Roots in 1977 and several films, including Jonathan Demme's Beloved - the adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel in 1987 - never before has the issue been so thoroughly and repeatedly addressed through cinema.
But now, it is a dominant theme in Hollywood - and 12 Years a Slave is galvanizing audiences and critics alike.
David Denby of The New Yorker has called it "easily the greatest feature film ever made about American slavery." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called it "a captivating study of humanity at its most troubled and most implacable [time]."
And it is a time that needs to be depicted accurately and comprehensively for audiences; people need to be educated on the period of our nation's greatest shame - for we will need to confront it seriously if we hope to ever really reconcile it.
Many remember the controversy surrounding Django Unchained last year. Even with all its outrageousness and humorous dialogue inappropriate to its subject, it ignited a much-needed conversation.
Steven Spielberg's Lincoln detailed the arduous and convoluted legislative process that propelled passage of the Thirteenth Amendment - which affected putting an end to slavery in America.
But Quentin Tarantino's film is what got people talking. The master craftsmanship that went into it cannot be overlooked, but the way it presented its themes took heavy material and reduced it to an adolescent's sensibility.
And if what the critics are saying is true, 12 Years a Slave offers something that Django lacked: a solemnity, a desire to depict an intense and unflinching look at slavery without stylistic absorption - a desire to try to present it how it was.
Slavery is such an important part of our history that we need movies like this. We, as a culture, rely on the cinema to provide us a mechanism to look at human experience. And it says something about human experience - in all its horror and potential for moral abandon - that slavery existed for as long as it did.
What is problematic with many people is that they do not fully understand slavery. The use of the medium of film can be incredibly powerful for addressing this shortcoming. The power of images can be highly revealing - both physically and emotionally.
For many, the experience of Django Unchained did provide an important insight - seeing was believing; the imagery made it real.
Even for those who truly grasp what slavery is, seeing it on the screen changes and deepens the awareness to a higher level of understanding.
We need movies like 12 Years a Slave. It is important that we have movies like this to educate the younger generations - and the older generations, too.
All films deal with time and all films serve as time capsules. What films these last two years reflect is that filmmakers and audiences are now at a place where they are interested in dealing with the past - a past that is a dark chapter in American history.
The more we delve deeper into this chapter, the more we will understand it, and perhaps the more we will understand the world we are living in now, too.
email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
