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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2016)
Page 4 October 5, 2016 Photo Courtesy F ox s earCh l ight P iCtures Armie Hammer (from left) portrays Samuel Turner, Nate Parker portrays Nat Turner and Jayson War- ner Smith portrays Earl Fowler in a scene from “The Birth of a Nation,” opening Friday, Oct. 7. Review: ‘Birth of a Nation’ bluntly tells tale of Nat Turner Film opens Thursday in local theaters by l indsey b ahr aP F ilM W riter “The Birth of a Nation “ has had more expectations placed on it than any movie could reason- ably bear. When the film about Nat Turn- er and his 1831 slave rebellion premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, it was held up, unfairly or not, as everyone’s great hope to save us from another year of #OscarsSoWhite. Some handful of months later, it became repre- sentative of something else when the focus shifted to the then lit- tle-known fact that its creator and star, Nate Parker, had a past that involved not only a rape allega- tion, but the eventual suicide of the accuser. Neither is a fair lens through which to judge “The Birth of a Na- tion.” Complicated people have and will continue to make films. We’ll all have to reconcile with that in our own way. #Oscars- SoWhite, meanwhile, will never be solved with just one film — and certainly not by the first to screen after another year of homogenous nominees. The fact is, “The Birth of a Na- tion” is a fine and promising debut from Parker, who also co-wrote and produced. It also feels very much like a first film, too, unable to reach the lofty artistry that it’s striving for in juxtaposing un- imaginable human injustices with both lyrical spirituality and shock- ing violence. Parker follows Nat Turner from childhood to his death at age 31. Turner was hanged for the Vir- ginia rebellion. Under the cloak of night, he and his fellow slaves went house to house slaughtering every man, woman and child who had a white complexion. It lasted 48 hours and over 50 people were killed. The incident was an early catalyst to the Civil War. Out of necessity, “The Birth of a Nation” takes a lot of liberties with truths and unknowns about Nat Turner, fleshing out the skel- eton of what the history books tell us. Instead of having Nat being sold a number of times throughout his life, Parker keeps him with the same owner — the Turner family — throughout. Matriarch Eliza- beth Turner (Penelope Ann Mill- er) takes a shine to Nat and helps to teach him how to read. While that part is true, keeping him with the same family allows Parker to show a young Nat (Tony Espino- sa) being friends with his eventual master Samuel (Armie Hammer) from youth. He also gives Nat a lifelong nemesis in a slave track- er (Jackie Earle Haley), who, by the end of Nat’s life, will have run down his father and hurt his wife Cherry (Aja Naomi King). Ultimately, it makes “The Birth of a Nation” less a good faith at- tempt at reconstructing Nat Turn- er’s life leading up to the rebellion and more a stylized fable, loose- ly rooted in an extraordinary true story. Parker does, through a skillful- ly internalized performance, show the evolution of a radical through unthinkable dehumanization. Nat, who has taught himself to preach, travels from plantation to planta- tion with Samuel reading scrip- ture to other slaves. It’s there he sees that not all are as relatively benevolent as the Turners. The images haunt him — from the a little black girl being led around on a leash to a man having his teeth hammered out. The horrors build inside the once docile Nat until erupting in a passionate ser- mon, and, eventually the uprising. It’s all juxtaposed with imagery of C ontinued on P age 8