The Birth of a Nation

A historical film set in Virginia. Nat Turner was born a slave. He learned to read as a child and is the only such case around him. His owner sees an opportunity. Nat begins to preach. Then a business is set up. Neighbouring farms pay and Nat goes and preaches to their slaves. The purpose is obedience. The verses chosen are always from the same place. From there the film is a story of travelling. Nat goes from farm to farm and sees worse at each. What he sees changes him. There are other verses in the same book. The violence rises on his own farm too. His wife is attacked and his owner does nothing. The rising begins in 1831. The narrative keeps the revolt short. A few nights, a few houses, and an uprising put down fast. The reprisal is far larger. Hundreds of Black people are killed in the district, most of them unconnected to it. What the narrative is interested in is not revolt but a text: its idea is that the same book is used to teach both submission and uprising, and that it depends on who is reading. The title is a deliberate choice. It carries the same name as the 1915 film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, and means to take that name back. The production was bought at Sundance for a record sum and treated as the favourite of the awards season. Then the campaign collapsed. A rape case Nate Parker had been tried in during his university years came into the news and the film fell both commercially and critically. Nate Parker directed, wrote, produced and played the lead. Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Colman Domingo and Penelope Ann Miller are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes films that look at American history and period drama. Who it is not for: anyone looking for complexity; the narrative sorts its characters into good and bad and takes serious liberties with historical detail.