The Birth of Nation (2016)
The Birth Of Nation was released on October 7, 2016 (United States). This Movie is based on true story from Nat Turner, who written, produced, and directed by Nate Parker, who played as Nat Turner in this movie. The Birth of Nation also stars Armie Hammer as Samuel Turner, Colman Domingo as Hark, Aja Naomi King as Cherry, Jackie Earle Haley as Raymond Cobb, Penelope Ann Mille as Elizabeth Turnerand Gabrielle Union as Esther. The Birth of Nation is retelling of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner, an enslaved Baptist preacher who lives on a Virginia plantation owned by Samuel Turner.
This film won the Audience Awards and Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. category. Dramatic Competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.. It also received several nomination including Outstanding Actor in Motion Picture, Outstanding DIrector in Motion Picture and Outstanding Screenplay in Motion Picture for Nate Parker in Black Reel Awards 2017.[1]
Contents
Plot
In 1809, Nat Turner was a male slave to a farm in Southampton County, Virginia. There's not enough food for all Nat's children, and Nat's father, Isaac, sees that Nat is hungry, so one night he sneaks out to steal some food. Isaac was caught on the road by Raymond Cobb. When Cobb attempts to execute him, Isaac turns the tables, kills one of his own people, and flees. He went home, told his family what had happened, and said that he had to leave his family immediately. But without speaking to Nat, she insisted that Nat was a "child of God" and had a mission. When Cobb arrived, asking Isaac's family about where he was, no one said anything.
Meanwhile the owner of the property, Benjamin Turner, purposely intervenes in the affair before Cobb becomes aggressive. When Elizabeth Turner, Benjamin's wife, saw that Nat had basic reading skills, she started to teach him to read, hoping that she could help with household affairs with her experience. Her Bible-centered lecture, Elizabeth also went so far as to make Nat read the scriptures at a church meeting. Later on, Benjamin Turner passes away, so Nat is taken to the Turner family to work on the farm.
Years later, despite having grown up picking cotton alongside his family in the field, Nat was a soulful preacher with enough of a friendship with his master Samuel to convince him to buy a young slave, Cherry, saving her from a fate far worse than she had already endured. Eventually they are married and have a daughter named Joanna.
On Nat's journeys in his preaching, he becomes aware of the brutality of the plantation owners against their slaves. Nat and Samuel watch a man smash all the slave's teeth and push him into a funnel. In another case, he sees that one of Samuel's friends asks a married slave, Esther (Gabrielle Union), to his quarters. Later, she leaves the house in tears as her husband goes to comfort her and asks Nat where God is now.
Cobb and his men find Cherry in the woods doing a chore. They violently assault and rape her, and Nat goes home to find her battered face as she lies in bed.Nat's preaching becomes more passionate, but he no longer has any regard for his masters, then gathers a number of slaves in the group and rounds them up at night. They're going to Samuel's house, where Nat hits him with a hatchet in the face. Samuel is creeping out of his room before succumbing to the wound. The slaves are going to a number of houses to kill white men. A slave is beheading a man in front of his own home. A group of white men discover slaves in the woods and start shooting at them after a young slave boy tells the men about Nat's actions.
In the morning, they are suddenly ambushed by soldiers who kill every slave except Nat, who is fleeing. The black people are quiet as they watch Nat be taken to his grave. When asked if he has any last words, he simply replies, "I'm ready." Nat is hanged to death, and the last thing he sees is Cherry in the form of an angel. Then we see the boy who warned the men earlier during the revolt, watching with tears in his eyes. The final shot jumps to his adulthood when he battles alongside other black soldiers in the civil war.
Controversy
Rebecca Carroll on The Guardian think that Nate Parker failed to remake history, and she has a argument that we dont have to kill white people instead we need to kill slavery and the systemic's racism. "Slavery has evolved in modern America, but we black Americans have evolved, too. We don’t need to kill white people to get free. We need to kill slavery and the systemic racism that preserves its legacy by continuing to hold up our humanity in a country with a history of not seeing us as human."[2]
Michael Phillips on Chicago Tribun also has several "not so good" response,
- "Even the rape victims of the screenplay have a hard time getting their fair share of the screen time; everything in the story, by design, keeps the focus and the anguished close-ups strictly on Parker. He's a good actor, but not much of a director"
- "The Birth of a Nation" tries a little of everything, and often too much of everything" [3]
Pros
Still in terms of intelligence, perspective, historical analysis and theological nuance, Todd McCarthy on Hollywood Reporter think that the film provides more than enough to be deemed a lost opportunity at all. Much more of the basics make it into a film than not; the effort and commitment of its writers are continually felt, and the subject matter is still rare enough onscreen to be welcome and desired, as it will be the next time and the next time afterwards.[4]
Also this movie can be a topic for debate about empathy, justice and equality for black people, “The Birth of a Nation” exists to provoke a serious debate about the necessity and limitations of empathy, the morality of retaliatory violence, and the ongoing black struggle for justice and equality in this country. It earns that debate and then some." - Justin Chang on Variety.[5]
Peter Bradshaw on The Guardian think that even this movie is a "weirdly inhibited" it also a bold drama who connecting the slavery to the contemporary African-American experience, "The Birth of a Nation is naturally trying for something very different from Tarantino’s Django Unchained: its one flourish of satirical audacity is in the title. It is closer in spirit to movies such as Amistad or Glory or even the first TV episode of Roots in the 70s, that bold drama that broke the silence on the subject and attempted a grand narrative, linking slavery to the contemporary African-American experience. Parker’s film feels weirdly inhibited, possibly by a sense of its own seriousness and mainstream credentials. This is a film that moves with a careful, self-conscious tread."[6]
Reference
- ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4196450/awards
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/oct/10/the-birth-of-a-nation-problems-nate-parker
- ↑ https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-birth-of-nation-mov-rev-1003-20161006-column.html
- ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/birth-a-nation-sundance-review-859260
- ↑ https://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/the-birth-of-a-nation-review-sundance-nate-parker-1201688498/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/08/the-birth-of-a-nation-review-nat-turner-nate-parker