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

At a sparsely attended roadside show, Solomon plays violin while Brown performs a series of comic pantomimes.

Scene 20 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 11 min into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 20

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.

Scene 1
A butcher carries a sheep from its pen into the slaughter shed; the killing follows in scene 2, while scene 1 establishes the image of captivity.
Scene 9
Jasper asks how he might escape, and Solomon says to “watch your opportunities and strike for freedom”; this is a reading of the line as the story’s theme of waiting for a chance to act.
Just before
Scene 17
Solomon packs clothes and his violin for the trip.
Scene 18
Solomon begins a letter to his family, then tears it up, unaware that the lost chance to communicate will matter later.
Scene 19
Solomon joins Brown and Hamilton’s waiting carriage; when they ask about a letter, he says his return should coincide with his family’s.
Scene 20
This scene

20INT. PUB - EVENING

We find ourselves in a roadside pub. It serves the purpose of drinking and diversion, and little more. This is the locale at which Brown and Hamilton are currently engaged in putting on one of their "entertainments."

We see Hamilton at the door, collecting receipts. WHAT LITTLE AUDIENCE THERE IS, IS ALREADY IN PLACE. There is nothing more for Hamilton to collect. Brown is at the head of the space entertaining a PARSE AUDIENCE AND NOT

OF "SELECT CHARACTER." Solomon provides the music on his violin.

As Solomon plays, Brown goes through and act of pantomiming the throwing of balls, dancing on a rope, frying pancakes in a hat, causing invisible pigs to squeal. Basically it's some pretty lame stuff. Not nearly the calibre one would expect to find as part of a great "carnival."