Solomon Northrup’s Odyssey (1984)
(On Cable TV, July 2022) As much as I hailed 12 Years a Slave, it’s a useful footnote to know that Solomon Northrup’s Odyssey adapted, nearly thirty years earlier, the very same book describing how a skilled black man from New York State was lured, captured and sent in slavery for twelve years. This made-for-PBS telefilm was directed by none other than Gordon Parks, shot in the American South and was informed by several historians. It goes without saying that the material here isn’t quite as hard-hitting as Steve McQueen’s 2012 film—but for a TV audience, it’s eloquent enough and sometimes a bit more interesting in how it portrays slavery under three different masters, yet maintains the point of slavery’s inherent brutality. Park’s background as a photographer shows in the film’s better-than-average cinematography, and Avery Brooks does quite well as Northrup. It strikes me that this 1984 version could be used more widely in classrooms than the often-brutal 2012 film—but it’s well worth visiting for anyone. (One of the modern tragedies of slavery is that when it’s taught in schools, it often becomes a received subject without immersion in the real horrors of what it means to belong to someone else—emotional dives such as this movie make it all real far more real.) It’s unfortunate that the film’s lower audiovisual quality persists today (even on TCM, which presumably has access to the highest-quality-available version), and that it’s practically forgotten by anyone without an interest in black cinema. I found it engrossing, especially when compared to the better-known version of the same story.
