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

Turner questions Solomon about his background and skills, then promotes him to driver in the sugar house and offers him paid fiddle work.

Scene 160 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

House Nigger
Solomon
Judge Turner

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:43 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 160

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 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
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 159
Alone by the fire, Solomon burns a flower-shaped pattern into his forearm, marking the memory of the stained-glass gift from his daughter.
Scene 160
This scene

160EXT. JUDGE TURNER'S PLANTATION/GREAT HOUSE - EVENING

Solomon waits outside the house on the porch. As he waits he slides his finger tips over his still freshly- burned tattoo. A HOUSE NIGGER approaches and admonishes Solomon.

HOUSE NIGGER

Off the porch. Get off.

Like a dog shooed away, Solomon steps down.

Eventually Judge Turner exits the house and crosses to Solomon.

SOLOMON

...Sir...

JUDGE TURNER

Platt is it? Have you cultivated

cane previously?

SOLOMON

No, sir, I have not.

JUDGE TURNER

You take to it quite naturally.

SOLOMON

I surprise myself. I was poor for

cotton picking, and suffered the

lash on a schedule. For whatever

reason the Lord has chosen to give

me skills in the cane he has

withheld otherwise.

JUDGE TURNER

From where do you hail?

SOLOMON

Washington, sir.

JUDGE TURNER

And upon bill of sale, here you

came directly?

SOLOMON

Sir.

JUDGE TURNER

You play the fiddle?

SOLOMON

I do.

JUDGE TURNER

Where did you learn?

SOLOMON

Over time. Here and there.

JUDGE TURNER

Are you educated?

SOLOMON

Niggers are hired to work, not to

read and write.

JUDGE TURNER

Epps warned that I should mind you

above all. However, I cannot help

but take note of you. You don't