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

Working alone with Bass after several days, Solomon tests his trust by asking where he is from and begins recounting how he was enslaved.

Scene 202 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act three

Solomon
Bass

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 2:12 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 202

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.
Scenes 124–199
Under Epps, Solomon works and watches for a route home; Armsby betrays his letter attempt, and Patsey’s punishment leaves him without a safe path out.
Just before
Scene 199
A delivery crew unloads lumber outside Epps’s Great House.
Scene 200
The slaves begin building an extension to Epps’s house under Avery and the new carpenter Bass.
Scene 201
Bass argues that slavery is unjust and that ignorance is imposed on enslaved people; Epps rejects him with racist comparisons.
Scene 202
This scene

202INT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/GREAT HOUSE/ADDITION -

EVENING

Solomon and Bass are working together alone on the extension. From the amount of work that's been done on it, it should be obvious that days have now passed.

Solomon makes a cautious approach to Bass. As casually as he can he inquires:

SOLOMON

Master Bass, I want to ask you

what part of the country you came

from?

BASS

What put that into your head?

SOLOMON

You would know if I should tell

you.

BASS

I was born in Canada. Now guess

where that is.

SOLOMON

Oh, I know where Canada is. I

have been there myself.

BASS

Have you?

SOLOMON

Montreal and Kingston and

Queenston and a great many places.

And I have been in York state,

too. Buffalo and Rochester and

Albany, and can tell you the names

of the villages on the Erie canal

and the Champlain canal.

Bass gives Solomon a long and curious stare.

BASS

Well traveled for a slave. How

came you here?

SOLOMON

Master Bass, if justice had been

done I never would have been here.

BASS

How's this? Tell me all about it.

SOLOMON

I am afraid to tell you, though I

don't believe you would tell

Master Epps if I should.

BASS

Every word you speak is a profound

secret.

Solomon holds a moment. Hasn't he heard the same promise before? Prior to Solomon stating his case, WE FADE TO: