Also checked out The Birth of a Nation, the new film about Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in 1831. Many people may recognize the title of the movie as that of the rightfully infamous DW Griffith film from 1919… one of the most banned movies of all time that is undeniably a racist piece of garbage. It also happens to have almost invented much of what we consider modern film making and is actually a remarkably exciting movie. Disgusting but well made. I love the title of this film since it’s a great big middle finger to the original film and, hey, look what happens when you google it now.
And this movie is very good. Nat Turner was a literate slave / preacher / cotton-picker in the deep south. He preached to his congregation of fellow slaves that they should be subservient to their masters for their patience will be rewarded in Heaven. Nat is soon rented out to more horrific masters to try to keep their slaves properly under the boot. And slowly Nat begins to see the light – and the passages in the Bible that directly oppose slavery – and leads a (spoiler alert) very brief rebellion.
What I liked most about this movie is that it tells us slavery is bad but it doesn’t grind it into our bones like 12 Years a slave did. There was an increasing level of incivility and then cruelty and I won’t lie and say there weren’t some really stomach-churning acts of violence. But where I felt 12 Years reveled in its cruelty to a point that it felt more interest in being artistic torture porn, this one knows when to cut away and leave things to our imagination. It also shows us the more day-to-day level of degradation that being owned by someone would be like.
The movie is also very sparing in its melodrama… it doesn’t pause to wallow in sentimentality OR aggrandizement. It shares some weird DNA with Braveheart in that they are both about people rebelling against a class system and then (spoiler alert?) when they lose, facing the consequences. But while Braveheart assured us that William Wallace died for about 5 hours straight, screaming “FREEEEEDOM!” every second of the way, this film is more matter-of-fact about it. While it does give us angelic mental visions, in the end (spoiler alert?!?) a man is hanged quickly without making any moving speeches (though Strange Fruit does play on the soundtrack).
The one place the film kind of doesn’t live up to its promise is, oddly, the actual slave revolt. It feels very short-lived, even moreso than it was in real life. Reading the real history on Wikipedia drives home how abrupt the film version was. That said, it was a very bloody affair and I’m not sure if the movie wanted us to cheer while people were hacked to death with axes in their beds. It’s certainly violent and bloody enough… and compared to a real audience-pleasing slave revenge film Django Unchained, I can’t imagine this was meant to be thrilling. I rather liked that as well – these slave masters had it coming, but that doesn’t mean the slaughter has to be championed. War is war.
I think this is an important and very good film and recommend it to everyone. Even though, fair warning, it’s still violent, bloody, and dehumanizing. But that’s the point. That and telling an important bit of American history that I don’t think has ever been filmed before.
Score: 89