“You can’t teach history through Django, though,” Gates concedes. This aside, Gates is a big fan of Tarantino’s Oscar-winning film, which he calls the “best post-modern Spaghetti Western film about slavery” ever mounted. He later discussed the film flub with the director himself during a three-part conversation taped for The Root, the black news and opinion website he cofounded. “Quentin Tarantino should know that the Civil War broke out in 1861!” Gates says.
After he saw Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained last year, he called producer and studio exec Harvey Weinstein to tell him that Tarantino had fudged the date of the start of the Civil War. “It was much like studying…And I didn’t have to make any corrections.” Gates also hosted a special screening of 12 Years a Slave last August on Martha’s Vineyard, where lawyer and political commentator Alan Dershowitz dubbed it “the African-American Schindler’s List.”Īfter he saw Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained last year, Gates called Harvey Weinstein to tell him that Tarantino had fudged the date of the start of the Civil War.įact-checking major films on black history is one of Gates’ favorite pastimes. But the professor’s main contribution was to read the script and offer notes on historical accuracy. According to Gates, McQueen and producers crafted the film’s postscript with his direct involvement. “I didn’t even meet Steve McQueen until the Toronto screening,” he says. Gates’ consultation was conducted via emails and a lengthy phone conversation. “And followed the text with great fidelity…There’s no question about the historical accuracy. “I know Northup’s narrative like the back of my hand,” Gates says. (For his tips, Gates was thanked by Amistad‘s producers in the end credits.) Gates visited Spielberg and his crew while they filmed in New England, and he made suggestions, including having a slave read from a book, a detail that was included in the film’s final cut.
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Along with several documentary producing credits under his belt, Gates was also a consultant on Amistad, Steven Spielberg’s 1997 drama about the trial following the bloody 1839 rebellion aboard a Spanish slave ship. And 12 Years a Slave is hardly his first encounter with Hollywood or filmmaking. Following his arrest in front of his Cambridge home in 2009 (a neighbor had called the police after mistaking him for an intruder), he was at the center of a widely covered and racially charged controversy that culminated in that famous White House “ beer summit” with President Obama, Vice President Biden, Gates, and his arresting officer.
Gates is something of a “ scholar-celebrity,” an Ivy League professor whose pop-culture name recognition goes significantly beyond his literary criticism and research. “But I’m not the kind of scholar who confuses a feature film with a documentary.” “It was refreshing how closely they followed the exact events,” Gates tells Mother Jones. The filmmakers, fortunately, had just the right historical consultant in their corner: Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor who edited a recent edition of Northup’s memoir. On top of this, literary scholars have long examined and debated the “ literal truth” of the film’s source material. As is standard with any Oscar bait that’s based on an amazing-but-true story, critics and scholars are lining up to determine how well the drama stacks up to recorded history. The movie, written by John Ridley and co produced by Brad Pitt, is based on Northup’s 1853 autobiography Twelve Years a Slave.Īll the film’s elements-the sublime acting, the music, the unflinching depiction of slavery-conspire to create a classic in the making. Northup, a violinist and family man based in Saratoga Springs, New York, was forced to work on Louisiana plantations for 12 years.
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It tells the true story of Solomon Northup (played by the stellar Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man who was drugged and kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841 and sold into slavery. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter.īuy the hype: Director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is a powerful, stunning film-perhaps the finest ever made on the moral travesty of American slavery. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter.