Posted in: Movies, Review | Tagged: birth of a nation, film, History, movie, period, Review

The Birth of a Nation Review: A Decent History Lesson Albeit Selectively Assembled

The irony of the use of the title The Birth of a Nation is not lost on viewers today: the 1915 film (so just over a century ago) with the same title had been a tale of the founding of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force to help save the perceived oppressed whites of the South.  Now the title is used to take on a new and counter-meaning – with writer, director, producer, and lead star of the film Nate Parker playing the role of Nat Turner. This version follows Turner's life growing up as a slave, and how he came to eventually lead the largest slave uprising in American history (which has come to itself be called alternately Nat Turner's slave rebellion or the Southampton Insurrection). It's a passionate film, and Parker clearly has come to the fore with it due to his belief in the urgency of getting more of the history of the birth of the African-American experience into the public consciousness.

The whites are generally portrayed ranging from downright villains to an Elizabeth (played by Penelope Ann Miller) teaching Nate to read from the Bible (and only the bible) to Nat's eventual owner, Samuel Turner (played by Armie Hammer). Samuel comes across as friendly and civil to his slaves, until there comes a moment where Nat presumes to counter Samuel's instructions. In an instant it becomes clear to the audience (Nat was likely already far too aware of the reality) that Samuel's civility was by no means an indication that he actually had any thoughts or presumptions of parity with his slaves. He just had his own way of managing them to keep them more subdued and obedient.

In the end it's clear that no white would get away in Parker's eyes by being able to claim it having been the custom or practice of the era. It's clear from the tone and the presentation of all of the white characters in the film who the devils are.

An area minister, Reverend Walthall (played by Mark Boone Jr.) discovers that Nat is somewhat learned and can recite the Bible by rote so he asks to borrow Nat to take him around the country to preach to the various plantation's slaves. He figures that being preached to by one of their own would help them take to the sermons better and making them more docile. As he ventures further and further from home, it echoes elements of Hearts of Darkness, as they go upriver things become progressively more savage and barbaric; so to with each more remote plantation, the treatment is ever more horrific. He uses his access to the slaves in his preachings to slowly begin to build the seeds of his rebellion. When it finally strikes it's violent and deadly. But just as quickly the whites mobilize and come in to crush the rebellion utterly.

We know how the story will likely end. There's no question that Parker wrote the film to come from Turner's own point of view, so there are a number of elements to the story which are altered or more clearly, omitted to skew a more objective view. In the film the rebellion is implied to have only killed white slaveowning men, where in history Nat's rebells killed almost everyone they could get their hands on, accounting for roughly 60 men, women, and children being killed. The historic Nat was said to have related to a newspaper of the time, "indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they attained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm."

There's myriad elements around the end of the film which relate to Nat's conduct (and of his final fate) which are either downplayed or omitted, likely in large part to maintain Nat as a purely sympathetic martyr image. Even with the historic inaccuracies and omissions, the story is still a powerful one, and a good lesson of the injustices which were put upon the slaves (not to mention the evil which was the slave trade of it's own accord). There may well be a time and a place for a more balanced approach, but perhaps now this is the right first steps.

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