Sadly, The Birth of a Nation is a garbage movie that is barely worth its running time let alone the pretzel I had to turn my crazy liberal mind into in order to justify spending money on it. I am not happy to report that the movie is an artistic failure, despite the air of prestige Oscar movie it has carried with it for the last nine months. The film stars Parker as slave rebellion leader Nat Turner, along with Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, and Penelope Ann Miller.
To understand why The Birth of a Nation comes with both prestige and infamy we have to take short trip down memory lane. On January 14th, the nominations for the Academy Awards were announced. And just like the year before, all of the acting nominations were for white people. In fact the only major nomination with a perso of color was for The Revenant director Alejandro Gonzelez Inarritu. What was an exasperated sigh in 2015 became an angry roar in 2016.
Eleven days later, The Birth of a Nation premiered at Sundance. The film was a much-needed relief from the Oscar nominations. The movie was written, directed, and produced by a black man Nate Parker, and it featured black actors in most of the awards-friendly roles. Just by virtue of existing, the movie felt like it could solve Hollywood's diversity problems. It even got a standing ovation before the movie even started! Sure, there were murmurs that movie wasn't really good but no one wanted to trash the one black movie to get legitimate Oscar attention in 2 years. So Fox Searchlight paid $17.5 milion for the film, and hoped it would get the Oscar gold (much like 12 Years a Slave, also distributed by Fox Searchlight). Since then many people, myself included, were eagerly awaiting the film's wide release.
While I was excited for this movie, I did have a nagging thought in my mind: why do we need another slavery movie? It perpetrates the idea that the only black-oriented movies that deserve to be recognized are ones with black people in pain or in servitude. Meanwhile white characters can be anything and still get recognition. I had hoped that Parker, like Steven McQueen in the far, far, far superior 12 Years a Slave, would make his slavery epic matter and resonant. And unfortunately the movie looks terrible. Parker makes the confounding decision to show violence with editing so quick it becomes incomprehensible. This is in direct contrast to 12 Years a Slave and Django Unchained, where slaves were subjected to an unflinching onslaught of indignities chipping away at their humanity. The cruelty in The Birth of a Nation feels over the top, and sadly just a narrative convenience. 12 Years a Slave and Django Unchained were gut-wrenching experiences. Parker is trying desperately for that, but his incompetent direction completely fails.
Parker is also a failure at directing his actors, including himself. He cast actors who are generally good, but their performances feel amateurish and unrehearsed. Nate Parker himself tries to channel Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained--all steel eyes and inner fury--but ends up yelling or staring off into the distance. The actor who acquits herself the best is Aja Naomi King as Nat Turner's suffering but suppotive wife. Her sensitive, fierce performance gives the film its vivacity and urgency. The rest of the cast--most of whom I generally like and have been great before--feel like they reading lines and wearing costumes. This film isn't lived in or organic. The camerawork is just really shoddy, where it doesn't really focus on what it should be focusing.
I hate when movies have rape plots. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Not because I want to deny this happens or anything like that. But I don't like when rape is used as a cheap plot device. In The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker decides to utilize rape as a motivating factor for his slave rebellion. Of course, rape was one of the horrific aspects to the institution of slavery. But it's also one of the most overused plot devices, especially when it comes to bringing to a man to action. Nate Parker robs his actresses of the chance to own the screen like Nat Turner and the other male slaves do. They're objects, props, motivational tools. Their suffering, the abuse they experience, that's all for the men to live through. The women in this film have no agency, no power, no hand in their own liberation. The kicker: most of the rape in this movie is fictional!! And I'm sorry, I find it absolutely disgusting and deplorable that a movie written, produced, directed, and starring a seemingly unapologetic rapist (anc co-written by his co-conspirator) features a man taking action as the Champion of Rape Victims. The irony is mind-numbing to the point of being laughable. You can't separate the art from the artist in this case, because the artist not only cluelessly brought his own life into this movie, but the artist's personal vision is all over this movie. This is his brainchild. Did I walk into this movie wanting to hate it because I despise Nate Parker? Possibly, but I maintain a good movie is a good movie. The Birth of a Nation is not a good movie.
This unsettling narrative choice makes sense once you realize that Parker wants to lionize Nat Turner into this superhero figure. He wants to make sure that we come out of the film thinking that Nat Turner was The American Hero. He does so, unfortunately, at the expense of his female characters. And I take issue with the idea of Nat Turner's rebellion being so individualized. The film features a montage--shot and edited like a video shown at museums--where Turner sees all the atrocities inflicted on slaves on different plantations. And wouldn't you know it--each slave we meet is part of the rebellion and kills his own specific slave owner. This has the weird side effect: it looks like they're rebelling against particular slave owners, not the total institution of slavery. The film is not as subversive or unique as it thinks it is; it's just a standard misogynist Hollywood revenge thriller.
The Birth of a Nation has some nice shots, though!
There are some interesting shots in the film, and Nate Parker does have a keen eye. I especially liked a wedding scene that features some dancing and the beginning of the courtship between Nat and his wife. But the small moments of cinematic flourish don't save the narrative trainwrecks and sexist plot turns. I can see why it was such a Sundance smash, and why people like it now. It's inspiring, and ends on a somewhat triumphant note. But its flaws and troubling gender politics were too much for me to shrug off.
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