Birth of a Nation (Nat Turner biopic)

Apparently the film was the hit of Sundance and was just sold for a record 17.5 million, the biggest sale in the history of the festival.

It sounds really great.

This isn't "Birth of a Nation" as in the black and white "Klan are the good guys" "Birth of a Nation", is it?

I thought that too, but it isn't. I remember someone talking about this months ago and I thought "wait, the DW Griffith picture about the Klan?".

When I first saw this today I thought it was either a parody (as per the Oscars So White meme) or else a remake of Griffith's film and I wondered who would be insane enough to do that.

Talk about Intentionally Awkward Title though.

edited 26th Jan '16 7:15:18 PM by Hodor2

Yeah.

So they named a film about a slave rebellion, presumably sympathetic to said slave rebellion, after one of the most racist movies that ever racist-ed?

Weird. Wonder why.

Not weird at all. Quite a clever title, actually.

I can't wait for the harrowing movie about surviving the Holocaust Triumph of the Will.

Though a Google search tells me this is actually the fourth film to be titled "Birth of a Nation". Huh.

None of this is meant as a jab at this film. It sounds like it's pretty good.

Pure, unadulterated irony. Very clever.

The cinematography looks excellent for this one. Some very powerful shots, like the little slave girl being led by a rope from a little white girl...

Its meant to be ironic. Also one could take it as reclaiming the name for a better purpose.

I saw the film at Sundance, got to be there at the Grand Jury award screening and see the Q & A. It was quite an excellent film. It's one of those stories that would likely never have been made by a major studio. A discussion with friends afterward we noted that Nat Turner crafted a film that was deliberately a "call to arms" so to speak. It does not sugarcoat what happened in the slave rebellion, and it is unabashedly on the side of the violence from the slaves. Turner himself the film was heavily inspired by such racially charged events as Ferguson, Missouri. Both the film and its creator aims to bring this topic forward.

I only bring this up because I was unclear from your post if you knew this, but the film is written and directed by Nate Parker, and Nat Turner is who it's about. Nat Turner was in fact a real guy who led a real rebellion (The Southhampton Insurrection in 1831). He also had the advantage of surviving the rebellion himself and, when captured, of being able to relate his story to a sympathetic lawyer who later had it published.

It's a harrowing story, especially since Turner and his followers did kill children (by his own admission). Do they maintain Turner's religious convictions, and that he claimed to have visions?

Nat Turner's is an important story, and one well worth telling, but I question the value of warnings of violent insurrection as a call to better racial understanding. Far too many people's response to "if things continue like this, people are going to come and get you" is always going to be "bring it on."

edited 16th Apr '16 9:11:55 AM by Robbery

I knew that, it was just an oversight, plus it was late and I was tired.

But it is the way it depicts the slave rebellion that makes it an unexpected story. Not to give anything away but it's very much trying to say that nothing good came of slavery, and the final moments made it clear the rebellion also caused unnecessary deaths of slaves across the country in the fear that they would have a general uprising on their hands.

I certainly hope so . I really can't support a film that would try to gloss over or justify killing children, even from the oppressed side.

I'm still a little pissed about how they did just that when they taught us about the revolt of 1872.

I'm happy it isn't glossed over but it's not really a huge sticking point for me.

edited 16th Apr '16 10:19:21 AM by comicwriter