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

Solomon, Bob, and Wiley are whipped for their low totals; Epps insults Solomon, orders him to clean up, and commands a dance that night.

Scene 187 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Epps

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:59 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 187

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 184
Abram collapses from the heat in the cotton field; Edward pours water on him, but he does not get up.
Scene 185
Solomon, Bob, and Wiley bury Abram in a rough grave beside the field.
Scene 186
Epps announces the cotton weights and questions the low total; Solomon explains that he and the others buried Abram.
Scene 187
This scene

187EXT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/GIN HOUSE - LATER

WE MAKE A QUICK CUT TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE GIN HOUSE. The reason for their low totals obviously doesn't matter as Solomon, Bob and Wiley receive a lashing for their lack of productivity.

As the last lash falls on his back, Epps moves directly to Solomon.

EPPS

You are a disgrace. Unfit ta

associate with a decent cotton-

pickin' nigger. The Lord don't

ignore even the lowest of his

animals. But the Almighty hold

you in such low regard He give you

no skills. None. How miserable

your shabbiness must be.

(beat)

Get yerself clean. We dance

tonight.