12 Years a Slave · written by John Ridley and Steve McQueen · 2013

Epps weighs the cotton and mocks Solomon’s low quota while praising Patsey’s record yield; Phebe and Abram are also pulled from line for falling short.

Scene 127 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Treach
Epps

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:21 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 127

After being kidnapped from New York and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup uses his skills and carefully placed trust to survive and seek a way back to his family.

Scenes 1–29
Solomon lives freely in Saratoga as a husband, father, worker, and musician.
Scenes 30–65
Kidnapped and held under the imposed name Platt, Solomon must preserve his life and identity.
Scenes 66–123
He enters plantation life under Ford, passes through Tibeats’s violence and the near-lynching, and is transferred to Epps.
Just before
Scene 124
At Epps’s barn, Solomon meets the plantation’s enslaved workers as Epps reads Scripture about a servant being beaten, turning the passage into a threat.
Scene 125
Before sunrise, the horn wakes the exhausted slaves from their forced night of dancing.
Scene 126
In the August cotton fields, Solomon struggles to pick while Patsey works with exceptional speed; Treach and Edward drive the workers without water or rest.
Scene 127
This scene

127EXT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/GIN HOUSE - EVENING

The day's work is done. The slaves are now assembled in the gin house with their baskets of cotton which are being weighed by Treach. There is anxiety among the slave, the reason for which soon becomes apparent.

TREACH

Two hundred forty pounds for Bob.

EPPS

What yah got for James?

TREACH

Two hundred ninety five pounds.

EPPS

Tha's real good, boy. Tha's real

good.

TREACH

One hundred eighty two pounds for

Platt.

Epps does not look happy. Treach says again:

TREACH (CONT'D)

One hundred eighty two.

EPPS

How much can even an average

nigger pick a day?

TREACH

Two hundred pounds.

EPPS

This nigger ain't even average.

Epps pulls Solomon aside.

TREACH

Five hundred twelve pounds for

Patsey.

EPPS

Five hundred twelve. Yah men folk

got no shame lettin' Patsey out

pick yah? The day ain't yet come

she swung lower than five hundred

pounds. Queen of the fields, she

is.

TREACH

Two hundred six pou--

EPPS

I ain't done, Treach. Ain't I

owed a minute to luxuriate on the

work Patsey done?

TREACH

...Sir...

EPPS

Damned Queen. Born and bred to

the field. A nigger among

niggers, and God give 'er to me.

A lesson in the rewards of

righteous livin'. All be