The Birth of a Nation

This is a movie that wants its mes­sage to be heard as far and wide as is human­ly pos­si­ble. Much like its sub­ject, the rev­o­lu­tion­ary slave-preach­er Nat Turn­er, it dash­es forth, bel­low­ing, arms flail­ing, will­ing to do any­thing in its pow­er to make a con­nec­tion. More often than not this means suc­cumb­ing to a film­mak­ing mode that relies on hokey short­hands such as sen­ti­men­tal musi­cal cues, pained reac­tion shots or over­ly-art­ful fram­ing, often involv­ing out-of-focus can­dles. Yet there’s a piss and vine­gar men­tal­i­ty to get­ting the job done, even if it means sim­pli­fy­ing emo­tions down to a frigid ele­men­tal state.

The film is direct­ed by and stars Nate Park­er, the type of lantern-jawed, occa­sion­al­ly elec­tri­fy­ing and uniron­ic ​‘movie star’ that now seems like a rel­ic from a bygone era. He par­lays Turner’s tale into a clas­sic cracked hero nar­ra­tive, mon­i­tor­ing his hero’s con­sid­er­able change in dis­po­si­tion as he observes the rit­u­al hor­rors and humil­i­a­tions met­ed out on upon slaves in the region of Southamp­ton coun­ty, Vir­ginia dur­ing the first three decades of the 19^th cen­tu­ry. Abus­es range from fop­pish white gen­try threat­en­ing vio­lence for even the most minor social infrac­tion (Turn­er alerts a women that her child has dropped his toy and pays the price) to wit­ness­ing the grue­some process used by over­seers to pre­vent slaves from going on hunger strike.

It’s Amer­i­can his­to­ry as glossy, page-turn­ing action thriller – where it bursts at the seams for bom­bas­tic melo­dra­ma, there’s not a frame that looks or feels real. Parker’s high­ly impres­sion­is­tic stance means that actions only count if you can see their moti­va­tion clear­ly. There’s no ambi­gu­i­ty with regard to how he sees the fire­brand he plays, no sense that his actions were at all ques­tion­able or that they might be wor­thy of mul­ti­ple read­ings. Because A hap­pened, B is the result. C, D and E are not options. It’s sto­ry­telling pow­ered by sec­ond-guess­ing how real peo­ple felt, then sell­ing it as fact.

Most inter­est­ing is the man­ner in which the film deals with Chris­tian­i­ty – Turn­er him­self becomes a preach­er because, ear­marked as a gift­ed child by his white own­er, he is taught to read. The fol­ly of using the Bible as a way to account for earth­ly actions is flagged up to the point of being ham­mered home. Faith is used as a way to ral­ly and sup­press troops. It is used to con­done vio­lence and non-vio­lence. Although Turn­er appears as sin­cere in his reli­gious con­vic­tions, it’s nev­er real­ly cer­tain what he tru­ly believes and why. For him, Chris­tian­i­ty seems like a means to an end. He uses it as a tool, just as his mas­ters use it to jus­ti­fy his bondage.

The sto­ry of the film’s pre­mière at Sun­dance is now inex­tri­ca­bly linked to its even­tu­al release which, if the box office gurus are to be believed, did not deliv­er on the hype. It’s easy to imag­ine a large, packed audi­to­ri­um hav­ing the wind smacked out of them by a film that ends on the close-up of a tear. Yet, in the harsh light of day, its right­eous fury seems dulled, and its true nature can be seen with more clar­i­ty: a Hol­ly­wood enter­tain­ment whose lev­el of sophis­ti­ca­tion is summed up by its con­stant recourse to ear­ly Peter Jack­son-lev­el gore effects.

The best thing in the film is when when Nina Simone’s haunt­ing ren­di­tion of the song ​‘Strange Fruit’ drops on to the sound­track. It works even bet­ter if you close your eyes so you don’t have to see Parker’s lurid, obvi­ous accom­pa­ny­ing imagery.