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

Abram collapses from the heat in the cotton field; Edward pours water on him, but he does not get up.

Scene 184 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Treach

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:58 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 184

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 181
Epps compares cotton totals and orders Solomon and Abram whipped for falling short, while he merely tells Armsby to work harder.
Scene 182
As Patsey tends Abram and Armsby treats Solomon’s back, Armsby recounts how he became a failed, alcoholic overseer and returned to plantation work.
Scene 183
The plantation horn sounds, summoning the slaves to another workday.
Scene 184
This scene

184EXT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/FIELD - DAY

With the sun yet again high in the sky the slaves are working the field picking cotton. As before they sing a spiritual, the only thing that distracts them from the tedium at hand.

But there is no distracting from the heat. We see Uncle Abram begin to falter and finally drop down to the ground.

Treach calls to Edward:

TREACH

Get him water.

Edward runs to fetch water which he carries to Abram and DUMPS ON HIM...BUT ABRAM DOES NOT RISE. DOES NOT MOVE.

At this point, the sounds of the singing from the others tapers off as they realize Abram isn't getting up.