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

Solomon tells Bass he has been enslaved for nearly eleven years and asks him to contact his northern friends; Bass agrees to help but warns of the danger and need for secrecy.

Scene 203 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act three

Save the Cat: Break into Three
Bass
Solomon

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 2:13 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 203

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 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
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 203
This scene

203INT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/GREAT HOUSE/ADDITION -

NIGHT

The dark has fallen. Hours have passed. Bass reflects on the story that Epps has told in the intervening.

BASS

How many years all told?

SOLOMON

Just nearly...just passed eleven.

BASS

Your story is...it is amazing, and

in no good way.

SOLOMON

Do you believe, sir, in justice as

you have said?

BASS

I do.

SOLOMON

That slavery is an evil that

should befall none?

BASS

I believe so.

SOLOMON

If you truly do, I would ask...I

would beg that you write my

friends in the north, acquainting

them with my situation and

beseeching them to forward free

papers, or take such steps as they

might consider proper to secure my

release.

Bass is somewhat overwhelmed by what Solomon has just told him. It takes him a moment to reconcile its magnitude.

BASS

You understand the danger of such

an act in case of detection. Your

story, true or not; what we

attempt is punishable in the

strictest way.

SOLOMON

I understand.

BASS

And you understand as well the

necessity of strict silence and

secrecy.

SOLOMON

Yes.

BASS

I need to take note; names and

addresses of those you think can

aide you. Not here, not now. Can

you sneak away in the night?