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

As a wagon carries enslaved women away, Solomon moves toward Anna but cannot stop her departure; she looks back at him as the wagon disappears.

Scene 158 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:42 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 158

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 155
An overseer demonstrates how to trim cane stalks for cultivation to Solomon and the newly arrived workers.
Scene 156
Solomon works quickly cutting cane in Turner’s three-stage field operation as the judge watches.
Scene 157
In the crowded shack, frightened Anna seeks physical comfort from Solomon; the encounter offers each a brief sense of human closeness before they turn away in shame.
Scene 158
This scene

158EXT. TURNER PLANTATION - MORNING

Slaves are making their way out to the cane field. As Solomon trudges off to labor, he notices a wagon being LOADED UP WITH FEMALE SLAVES. Among them is ANNA, fear quite thick on her face as she is about to be delivered to some as of yet unknown fate. As little as he knows of her, as awkward as it was, the pair shared a moment and it is a moment not easily discarded. Solomon is almost unconsciously propelled toward Anna.

Before Solomon can close the distance, the DRIVER chides the horse team and the wagon departs.

Anna again looks back to Solomon, her eyes quietly pleading for him to do...something. But there is nothing for him to do. Nothing he can do. The wagon rolls on...and then it and Anna are gone.