12 Years a Slave Page #18

Yah want that? Yah want them

black animals to leave us gut like

pigs in our own sleep?

Epps isn't sure how to respond to the inchoate berating.

It's an invitation for the Mistress to continue.

MISTRESS EPPS (CONT'D)

You are manless. A damned eunuch

if ever there was. And if yah

won't stand for me, I'd pray you'd

at least be a credit to yer own

kind and beat every foul thought

from 'em.

Epps does nothing. The Mistress lets her anger loose.

She moves quickly to Patsey, DRIVES HER NAILS INTO THEPATSEY'S FACE AND DRAWS THEM DOWN ACROSS HER FEATURES.

FIVE DEEP AND BLOODY GASHES ARE LEFT IN PATSEY'S SKIN,

the moment marked with appropriate screams. Patseycollapses on the floor, covering her bleeding face.

MISTRESS EPPS (CONT'D)

Beat it from 'em!

Thoroughly cuckolded by the Mistress's actions, Eppstakes his whip and pulls Patsey out of the house. His

intentions are plain.

All the slaves remain silent. The Mistress, however,

displaying high satisfaction, entreats the others:

MISTRESS EPPS (CONT'D)

Eat. Fill yourselves. ...And

then we dance.

The slaves eat, but without a hint of levity.

114 INT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/SLAVE SHACK - NIGHT 114

We come up on the slaves who lay sleeping. All exceptfor Patsey. She rises from her bedding, goes to a cornerof the cabin and removes something from a secretivelocation. She then moves over to Platt.

PATSEY:

Platt... Platt, you awake?

SOLOMON:

I am.

PATSEY:

I have a request; an act of

kindness.

(CONTINUED)

1/24/13 FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT 78.

114 CONTINUED:
114 114 CONTINUED: 114

Patsey displays what she took from hiding. It is a

LADY'S FINGER RING.

PATSEY (CONT'D)

I secreted it from the Mistress.

SOLOMON:

Return it!

PATSEY:

It yours, Platt.

SOLOMON:

For what cause?

PATSEY:

All I ask:
end my life. Take mybody to the margin of the swamp-

Solomon looks at Patsey as though she were insane.

SOLOMON:

No.

PATSEY:

Take me by the throat. Hold me

low in the water until I's still

'n without life. Bury me in alonely place of dyin'.

SOLOMON:

No! I will do no such thing.

The...the gory detail with whichyou speak-

PATSEY:

I thought on it long and hard.

SOLOMON:

It is melancholia, nothing more.

How does such despair even come toyou?

PATSEY:

How can you not know? I got nocomfort in this life. If I cain't

buy mercy from yah, I'll beg it.

SOLOMON:

There are others. Beg them.

PATSEY:

I'm begging you!

SOLOMON:

Why? Why would you consign me todamnation with such an un-Godlyrequest?

(CONTINUED)

1/24/13 FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT 79.

114 CONTINUED:
(2) 114 114 CONTINUED: (2) 114

PATSEY:

There is God here! God is

merciful, and He forgive merciful

acts. Won't be no hell for you.

Do it. Do what I ain't got the

strength ta do myself.

Solomon says nothing. Clearly he's not about to do thedeed. With nothing else to do, knowing she is damnedwith every breath she draws, Patsey crawls back to herspot on the floor and lays herself down.

BLACK:

115 EXT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/FIELD - DAY 115

-JULY, 1846

Hard times on the planation. Where previously the fieldin bloom was a carpet of white, it is now patchy andunder grown.

The slaves move through the field picking not cotton, butrather COTTON WORMS from the plants. The cotton worms

have dined on the cotton and nearly destroyed the crop.

We see the cotton worms in extreme close-up, moving amongand destroying the cotton crop.

Epps is beside himself as he looks out over his ruinedfield.

EPPS:

It is a plague.

TREACH (O.S.)

Cotton worm.

EPPS:

A plague! It's damn Biblical.

Two season God done sent a plague

to smite me. I am near ruination.

Why, Treach? What I done that God

hate me so? Do I not preach His

word?

TREACH (O.S.)

The whole Bayou sufferin'.

EPPS:

I don't care nothin' fer the damn

Bayou. I'm sufferin'.

Epps looks among his slaves at work, his enmity growing.

EPPS (CONT'D)

It's that Godless lot. They

brought this on me. I bring 'em

(MORE)

(CONTINUED)

116

117 117

118

1/24/13 FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT 80.

CONTINUED:
115

EPPS (CONT'D)

God's word, and heathens they are,

they brung me God's scorn.

Crazed, Epps runs into the field, taking himself fromslave to slave delivering a whipping to all he can layhis hands on.

EPPS (CONT'D)

Damn you! Damn you all! Damn

you!

RE-OMIT 116

EXT. JUDGE TURNER'S PLANTATION - EVENING 117

-OCTOBER, 1846

Henry, Bob, Uncle Abram and Solomon sit in the back of acart. SOLOMON HAS HIS FIDDLE WITH HIM. Epps hasdelivered the men to JUDGE TURNER, a distinguished manand extensive planter whose large estate is situated onBayou Salle within a few miles of the gulf. Epps andTurner stand off to one side engaged in bargaining asHenry, Bob, Uncle Abram and Solomon wait and watch.

One of the slaves whisper under their breath.

EPPS' SLAVE

I hear cutting cane is twice ashard as picking cotton.

BOB:

But at least we'll be away fromMaster Epps.

UNCLE ABRAM:

Boy, you two have no sense.

Epps returns to his slaves and gives a partingsalutation.

EPPS:

Yer Judge Turner's for the season.

More if need be, until my cropreturn. Yah'll bring nodisrespect to me, and yah'll bringno biblical plagues to him. Be

decent, ere mark my words, I willdeliver an ungodly whippin'.

INT. SLAVE SHACK - NIGHT 118

(CONTINUED)

119

120

121

1/24/13 FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT 81.

CONTINUED:
118

Slaves are crammed into the shack - LITERALLY ON TOP OF

EACH OTHER - as they try to sleep. Some lay, some sit

up. Packed in like cattle, there is barely room to movelet alone draw a deep, clean breath. There is a real

risk of suffocating in the mass. Some cough and wheeze.

A CHILD CRIES...

Among them is Solomon who must believe at this point thathis life has reached its very lowest point. The odds of

survival are slight, let alone the chance of actuallyever returning to his family. This clearly weighs on himas he struggles to find anything like comfortable spacein the pen.

EXT. CANE FIELDS - DAY 119

An OVERSEER is explaining to the new slaves - SOLOMONAMONG THEM - how to cultivate cane. WITH A KNIFE IN HAND

he demonstrates the process:

OVERSEER:

Draw the cane from the rick, cutthe top and flags from the stalk,

understand? Leave only that partwhich is sound and healthy. Cast

off the rest...

EXT. CANE FIELDS - DAY 120

-NOVEMBER, 1846

ABOUT THIRTY SLAVES are working the field. They aredivided into THREE GANGS. The first which draw the cane,

the next lay the cane in the drill, the last then hoe therows after.

Solomon is among a gang that draws and cuts, and he moveswith speed and skill. Certainly more so than hedisplayed picking cotton.

Standing with his overseer, Judge Turner watches.

INT. SLAVE SHACK - NIGHT 121

Again, the slaves have been herded into the shack andpressed together.

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