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

Solomon works quickly cutting cane in Turner’s three-stage field operation as the judge watches.

Scene 156 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:40 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 156

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.
Scene 124
Solomon is transferred to Epps’s plantation and placed among Patsey and the enslaved workers, opening the harsher final plantation phase.
Just before
Scene 153
Epps leases his workers to Judge Turner as another enslaved woman is separated from a male relative; Solomon sees Anna comfort her before Epps warns his slaves not to disgrace him.
Scene 154
Solomon and the other captives spend the night packed into an airless shack, coughing and struggling for space.
Scene 155
An overseer demonstrates how to trim cane stalks for cultivation to Solomon and the newly arrived workers.
Scene 156
This scene

156EXT. CANE FIELDS - DAY

ABOUT THIRTY SLAVES are working the field. They are divided into THREE GANGS. The first which draw the cane, the next lay the cane in the drill, the last then hoe the rows after.

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

Standing with his overseer, Judge Turner watches.