Filmology Rating: 2.66 out of 4

The Birth of a Nation, directed and co-written by Nate Parker, was released at this year’s Sundance Film Festival after the “oscars so white” controversy, which I believe is important to know when looking at the hype that surrounded this film.  2015 gave us Creed and Straight Outta Compton which were both mostly absent from the awards season and then only a few weeks after the nominations were announced this film premiered.  A film talking about a social uprising from those who had been oppressed for years, which stars a mostly black cast and is also written and directed by a black man.  In complete honesty, any film that featured a mostly black cast and/or was directed by a black director would have been highly praised at the Sundance Film Festival.  The Academy became deathly afraid that they would no longer have relevance unless they quickly changed the subject, hence the high praise for The Birth of a Nation.

I went into the film trying to set aside my baggage with the director Nate Parker, who was accused of rape during his college years at Penn State.  The line between artist and art is becoming more blurry over recent years with people like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Bill Cosby, but this film particularly is difficult because The Birth of a Nation contains two scenes that rape and abuse are front and center during the film.  

Nat Turner, played by Nate Parker, is a slave on the plantation owned by Samuel Turney, played by Armie Hammer, in Southampton County, Virginia, who is treated rather well considering his situation.  Nat doesn’t get punished for speaking out or trying to do simple deeds in a culture that treats African Americans worse than dirt, however he is still a slave and he will dutifully do whatever his master wishes.  Nat also has a gift that hardly any other African American has at the time, he has the ability to read and he preaches the Word to his fellow slaves, keeping them in line with Samuel’s law.  Things aren’t going well for Samuel at the plantation however, he is slowly losing the money that his father passed down and he is looking for anyway to make some extra money.  Samuel sends Nat to preach at plantations where slaves are causing uproars to hopefully calm them down and then Samuel will collect his golden reward.  After years of preaching, Nat comes to the realization that the Word doesn’t speak about the cruelty to the masters but to the cruelty of those who are oppressed by those with wicked intentions.  

The film that The Birth of a Nation will be compared to the most is Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which is a reasonable comparison.  However, the directing skills of McQueen are much greater than Parker.  While Parker is a first time director he is trying to tell a story so grand that it should deliver a sense of horror in every frame of the film.  With the understanding that Parker had been working on this film for the better part of eight years, you cannot help but wish he would have directed another film to practice his skills as a director.  You want to feel a cold terror running through your body every time Nat Turner is whipped for speaking the truth but you are left with a scene that plays off others rather than playing off the act itself.  Show us the horror, let the audience feel the impact of America’s sin; instead you see the faces of fellow slaves who were empathetic as their leader is whipped at the post.  Nate Parker shows the acts of slavery at an arm's length while Steve McQueen shows the horror for what it was and forces the view to watch it.  

The film works and is worth watching for the final act of the film when Nat Turner leads his insurrection.  The amount of violence and mercilessness that the group with Turner unfold is truly a wonder to behold; the fact that they would kill women and children to get freedom is incredibly moving, leaving the viewer with a sense of conflict.  While you clearly don’t want Nat and his fellow slaves to face the horrors they do, you cannot help but feel some sympathy to the women and children killed because of a circumstance they were born into.  It’s an interesting thought, and one that is even more interesting but is only briefly touched as the film rushes to the ending, that many more slaves and free men were killed because of his attempted insurrection, leading many to question “was it worth it?” 

The Birth of a Nation is coming to us at an interesting time in our history, we have an election coming up in a few weeks that has only brought out the worst in our country, we have an Academy that is looking for any film to help change the topic over why no people of color are nominated for awards, and we have a director who raped a young woman who later committed suicide because she couldn’t live with the events that occurred.  The Birth of a Nation reminds us while you might always have the most noble intentions, your end results might be bloody for all sides.    

Rating: Rent It

-Jonny G