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

Doctor Carr dismisses Clemens’s symptoms as a fever until Solomon identifies smallpox from the disease aboard the ship.

Scene 75 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Clemens
Doctor Carr
Solomon

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 47 min into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 75

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.
Just before
Scene 72
Solomon takes Bob’s fiddle and plays a reel; the captives clap and dance, and Freeman praises him while Bob resents being displaced.
Scene 73
Buyers inspect the captives; when a man wants Randall alone, Eliza begs to keep her family together, but Freeman separates the crying boy from his mother.
Scene 74
The captives moan through the night after Randall’s sale; Freeman and Bob try to silence them, while Solomon insists they need a doctor.
Scene 75
This scene

75EXT. FREEMAN'S SLAVE PEN - DAY

Freeman clearly having no choice but to give in and hire a doctor; DOCTOR CARR looks over Clemens Ray.

CLEMENS

The pain in my neck and back is

violent. I'm hot and I cannot

stop with my shaking.

DOCTOR CARR

(to Freeman:)

Could be any number of things.

They seem otherwise in good

health. I wouldn't expect it to

be anything stronger than a

passing fever.

Solomon, hearing this, speaks plainly:

SOLOMON

Small pox. On the ship that

brought us down one of our number

died of the disease.

The doctor stares at Solomon for a moment. Clearly this development isn't a good thing.