The Birth of a Nation(wide Release)
January 26, 2016 11:25 AM Subscribe
Actor, director, producer, financier, and all-around dynamo of talent Nate Parker spent years working to bring Nat Turner's story to the big screen -- and just shattered Sundance records by selling his well-reviewed and rapturously received debut film The Birth of a Nation for $17.5 million, the largest sum in the festival's history.
Some news outlets are hinting or outright claiming that the blowout bidding war for the film was motivated by the #oscarssowhite campaign. And yet, according to Vulture, The Birth of a Nation is Fox Searchlight's only film starring an actor of color slated for release this year. Some may ask, as Roxane Gay did at the release of 12 Years a Slave, "Where Are the Serious Movies about Non-Suffering Black People?" Variety predicts "Historians will have a field day debating the accuracy of the man’s dramatic trajectory . . . and the urge to contradict a black filmmaker’s interpretation of history will of course be a hard one for many commentators to resist."
When asked his motivations in making and titling the film, Parker explained:
Some news outlets are hinting or outright claiming that the blowout bidding war for the film was motivated by the #oscarssowhite campaign. And yet, according to Vulture, The Birth of a Nation is Fox Searchlight's only film starring an actor of color slated for release this year. Some may ask, as Roxane Gay did at the release of 12 Years a Slave, "Where Are the Serious Movies about Non-Suffering Black People?" Variety predicts "Historians will have a field day debating the accuracy of the man’s dramatic trajectory . . . and the urge to contradict a black filmmaker’s interpretation of history will of course be a hard one for many commentators to resist."
When asked his motivations in making and titling the film, Parker explained:
This disease of denial has served as a massive stumbling block on our way to healing from those wounds. Addressing Griffith’s Birth of a Nation is one of the many steps necessary in treating this disease. Griffith’s film relied heavily on racist propaganda to evoke fear and desperation as a tool to solidify white supremacy as the lifeblood of American sustenance. Not only did this film motivate the massive resurgence of the terror group the Ku Klux Klan and the carnage exacted against people of African descent, it served as the foundation of the film industry we know today.Some background on Nat Turner, the subject of Nate Parker's film and no stranger to controversy.
I’ve reclaimed this title and re-purposed it as a tool to challenge racism and white supremacy in America, to inspire a riotous disposition toward any and all injustice in this country (and abroad) and to promote the kind of honest confrontation that will galvanize our society toward healing and sustained systemic change.
I am really excited about this. Assuming it's even sort of as good as reported, I find myself thinking about people watching this film in years to come and having it as resource - cultural, emotional, intellectual.
posted by Frowner at 11:38 AM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 11:38 AM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I found this quote from Mr. French rather odd, especially seeing as he is an actual historian:
Later in the Civil War violence was employed as a means of social change which resulted in nearly a quarter of a million deaths.
But somehow acknowledging that Nat Turner fought for a valid cause and was a revolutionary warrior is bad? If nothing else, Mr. French has demonstrated that white Southerners apparently are still upset that someone dared to use *violence*, how uncouth, in the cause of liberating the slaves their ancestors had been raping, torturing, and murdering for centuries.
Unlike the German people, no one has ever forced the white American Southerners to actually come to grips with the evil their ancestors inflicted, and as a result a frightening number of them are both willing and able to pretend that their ancestors were victims, and that they are still victimized by black people who dare to mention that maybe, just maybe, the South wasn't and still isn't a perfect Utopia of all that is right in the world.
posted by sotonohito at 12:02 PM on January 26, 2016 [50 favorites]
To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change."American revolutionary heroes" fought a war which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people, and violence was absolutely the tool they used to produce social change.
Later in the Civil War violence was employed as a means of social change which resulted in nearly a quarter of a million deaths.
But somehow acknowledging that Nat Turner fought for a valid cause and was a revolutionary warrior is bad? If nothing else, Mr. French has demonstrated that white Southerners apparently are still upset that someone dared to use *violence*, how uncouth, in the cause of liberating the slaves their ancestors had been raping, torturing, and murdering for centuries.
Unlike the German people, no one has ever forced the white American Southerners to actually come to grips with the evil their ancestors inflicted, and as a result a frightening number of them are both willing and able to pretend that their ancestors were victims, and that they are still victimized by black people who dare to mention that maybe, just maybe, the South wasn't and still isn't a perfect Utopia of all that is right in the world.
posted by sotonohito at 12:02 PM on January 26, 2016 [50 favorites]
I wonder if Nate Parker is going to do Triumph des Willens next?
posted by eriko at 12:04 PM on January 26, 2016
posted by eriko at 12:04 PM on January 26, 2016
A few days after actor Nate Parker finished shooting the R&B romance Beyond the Lights in late 2013, he met with his agents and told them he would not be acting again — not until he could play American revolutionary Nat Turner.
And then he went out and made it happen. Magnificent.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2016 [16 favorites]
And then he went out and made it happen. Magnificent.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2016 [16 favorites]
To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change.
Alexander Hamilton sanctioned his own teenage son fighting a duel, and he's pretty much the hero of everyone.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
Alexander Hamilton sanctioned his own teenage son fighting a duel, and he's pretty much the hero of everyone.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
Dude, if you can't sanction violence as a means of socially changing the fact that people are being treated as property and bought and sold and beaten and killed....I just can't even.
posted by Frowner at 12:24 PM on January 26, 2016 [31 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 12:24 PM on January 26, 2016 [31 favorites]
> But somehow acknowledging that Nat Turner fought for a valid cause and was a revolutionary warrior is bad?
Huh? That's not what he said; he said "To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change." Which is indisputably true; whatever condemnation you're reading into it was put there by you. Revolution is not a dinner party, as a once-lionized revolutionary once said.
posted by languagehat at 12:24 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
Huh? That's not what he said; he said "To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change." Which is indisputably true; whatever condemnation you're reading into it was put there by you. Revolution is not a dinner party, as a once-lionized revolutionary once said.
posted by languagehat at 12:24 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I love the reclaiming of the title. Over the last few years, I've been trying to watch all of the significant motion pictures made and finally got around to watching the 1917 Birth of a Nation last year. I knew all about how controversial it was and was prepared to watch it as a document of how attitudes have changed but it was still blown away by how amazingly offensive it is. It really is a truly nasty piece of racist propaganda and historical revisionism.
posted by octothorpe at 12:31 PM on January 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:31 PM on January 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
Huh? That's not what he said; he said "To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change." Which is indisputably true; whatever condemnation you're reading into it was put there by you. Revolution is not a dinner party, as a once-lionized revolutionary once said.
What confused me about Mr. French's statement is -- if placing Turner in that pantheon ("the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes") sanctions violence as a means of social change, that implies the figures already in that pantheon don't send that message. But what American revolutionary heroes do not stand for violence as a means of social change, if we understand war as the use of violence to effect social change? What do the other people in the pantheon stand for instead? Who are they? And, for all the different things Nat Turner's story captures about America, why is "violence as a means of social change" the message that stands out to Mr. French?
posted by sallybrown at 12:32 PM on January 26, 2016 [10 favorites]
What confused me about Mr. French's statement is -- if placing Turner in that pantheon ("the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes") sanctions violence as a means of social change, that implies the figures already in that pantheon don't send that message. But what American revolutionary heroes do not stand for violence as a means of social change, if we understand war as the use of violence to effect social change? What do the other people in the pantheon stand for instead? Who are they? And, for all the different things Nat Turner's story captures about America, why is "violence as a means of social change" the message that stands out to Mr. French?
posted by sallybrown at 12:32 PM on January 26, 2016 [10 favorites]
> What confused me about Mr. French's statement is -- if placing Turner in that pantheon ("the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes") sanctions violence as a means of social change, that implies the figures already in that pantheon don't send that message.
No it doesn't; where are you getting that? Revolution implies violence; to place someone in a pantheon of revolutionary heroes is ipso facto to sanction violence as a means of social change. If many Americans try to avoid thinking about the fact that their revolutionary heroes used violence as a means of social change, that's not French's fault.
posted by languagehat at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2016
No it doesn't; where are you getting that? Revolution implies violence; to place someone in a pantheon of revolutionary heroes is ipso facto to sanction violence as a means of social change. If many Americans try to avoid thinking about the fact that their revolutionary heroes used violence as a means of social change, that's not French's fault.
posted by languagehat at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2016
The language implies that French doesn't get it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:39 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:39 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
In other words, my perception of Nat Turner's current cultural image is one of special viciousness compared to a lot of American revolutionary icons. Which I can't quite understand, considering that of the many American revolutionary icons who perpetrated violence on others, Turner was acting in self-defense more than most, considering the myriad ways slavery endangered the lives of the people enslaved. But the name "Nat Turner" seems to still conjure up the boogeyman he was made into in the tales of white Southerners, rather than a man in full. (And while I don't recall much about Styron's book, I remember the extremely emotionally fraught discussions we had about it in my lit class in college, which was almost uniformly made up of white students from the South.)
posted by sallybrown at 12:41 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 12:41 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
JauntyFedora: Is there a listing of top Sundance sales?
When Deadline wrote about the previous recordholder "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" ($12.5) they listed a few other films at around $10M (The Spitfire Grill, Hamlet 2, Little Miss Sunshine and The Way Way Back). In a current article they note that The deal rivals the biggest ever made at a film festival: the $20 million Focus Features paid for world rights to the Tom Ford-directed Nocturnal Animals at the last Cannes, which matched the $20 million Paramount paid for the Denis Villenueve-directed Story Of Your Life at Cannes 2014.
One interesting bit from the report is that Netflix bid $20 million...
posted by Petersondub at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2016
When Deadline wrote about the previous recordholder "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" ($12.5) they listed a few other films at around $10M (The Spitfire Grill, Hamlet 2, Little Miss Sunshine and The Way Way Back). In a current article they note that The deal rivals the biggest ever made at a film festival: the $20 million Focus Features paid for world rights to the Tom Ford-directed Nocturnal Animals at the last Cannes, which matched the $20 million Paramount paid for the Denis Villenueve-directed Story Of Your Life at Cannes 2014.
One interesting bit from the report is that Netflix bid $20 million...
posted by Petersondub at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2016
I'd like to read the full quote by this Mr. French person, but there are 10 links in this post. Could someone point me to the proper link?
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:39 PM on January 26, 2016
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:39 PM on January 26, 2016
To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change.
This is a very strange review of Spartacus.
posted by sukeban at 1:51 PM on January 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is a very strange review of Spartacus.
posted by sukeban at 1:51 PM on January 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
Atom Eyes, from 2004: ''A lot of it is about who has cultural authority at any given moment,'' Mr. French said. ''To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change. He has a kind of racial consciousness that to this day troubles advocates of a racially reconciled society. The story lives because it's relevant today to questions of how to organize for change.''
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I really look forward to seeing this film. But I hope it gives Turner the complexity both he and history deserves.
posted by innocentsabored at 2:00 PM on January 26, 2016
posted by innocentsabored at 2:00 PM on January 26, 2016
Now that I know what this is about, I'm 10,000% in favour of the title being what it is. This is how to properly reuse the title of an inflammatory, white supremacist work. Looking at you, Knausgaard and Carter.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:22 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 2:22 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
Wow. Had not heard someone waddling this, 100% behind preemptivly giving it the Oscar for Best Use of a Title.
posted by Artw at 2:39 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:39 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
The only downside that I can see to this is that my girlfriend and I had discussed naming our hypothetical future baby Nat Turner [Lastname], and now we'd end up looking like a couple of bandwagon-jumpers.
Back to Shaka [Lastname] it is, then.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:26 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
Back to Shaka [Lastname] it is, then.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:26 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change.
I think the past, oh, fifteen thousand years of history or so would confirm that violence is definitely a means of social change. It doesn't need your sanction or disapproval. It just is.
posted by theorique at 5:22 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the past, oh, fifteen thousand years of history or so would confirm that violence is definitely a means of social change. It doesn't need your sanction or disapproval. It just is.
posted by theorique at 5:22 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have just been reading a gripping excerpt of Fire on the Mountain, the 1988 novel by US author Terry Bisson, an alternate history where abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 went rather better for him and his cause. (The excerpt is in the new collection Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.) I look forward to seeing how it, and the new Birth of a Nation, address violent revolution.
posted by brainwane at 7:42 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 7:42 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
Fire On The Mountain is really good. Bisson himself (who is white)has long been seriously involved with prison abolition and radical racial justice projects. The book is from the eighties, so while it is amazing it would be written differently were it written today - but everyone should read it who is at all interestef in that kind of thing.
posted by Frowner at 8:02 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 8:02 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
As a black man, I'm really interested in Birth of Nation. Yet I haven't seen 12 Years A Slave yet, because I feel as though I get it. Slavery was terribly bad, I've seen enough dramatizations of it over my 40+ years. Similar to rape, I don't need to see an actual depiction in a movie to understand and know it's a brutally horrific act that no human should have to endure.
But Birth of Nation, a film that depicts an actual slave rebellion? OH HELL YEAH, I'll be at that motherfucker on opening day.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]
But Birth of Nation, a film that depicts an actual slave rebellion? OH HELL YEAH, I'll be at that motherfucker on opening day.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]
12 Years a Slave is worth watching as an amazing price of filmmaking, if that helps.
posted by Artw at 7:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 7:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
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Is there a listing of top Sundance sales? I know Hamlet 2 got $10M back in '06 or '07, of all things (I love you Hamlet 2, but you weren't worth that in box office sales). I guess more recently Me and Earl and the Dying Girl got $12M last year, making it the previous record holder. $17.5M shatters that.
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:36 AM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]