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The Birth of a Nation has a host of problems
Movies opening this week: The Girl on the Train, My Blind Brother, and more
Nate Parker in The Birth of a Nation
Movie
Birth of a Nation *
Director, star, and co-writer Nate Parker’s take on Nat Turner’s failed slave uprising is certainly controversial, given its sympathetic portrayal of a religious extremist on a murderous mission from God. But it’s not good: it looks bad, sounds cartoonish, skips jerkily from scene to scene, and seems weirdly illiterate about its narrative linchpin: namely, religion. If you’re going to make a film about a Christian preacher who goes from preaching submission to his fellow slaves (without ever mentioning why, or even mentioning the promised deliverance by Jesus) to leading a holy war, it helps to know something about Christianity as preached and as practiced. We’re told that “even the meanest nigger is afraid of the Gospel,” but only heaven knows why that might be. A possible explanation, made more possible by the anachronistic sensibilities expressed by sympathetic characters: passionate amateur Parker is more interested in making Turner into a modern-day cultural icon than an actual historical character. A powerful story, sloppily told.
As I was leaving the screening of The Birth of a Nation with my brother, he turned to me and said, “I’d say that was more like a TV movie than anything else, but that would be an insult to Roots.”
I couldn’t agree more. My review is mostly about the film’s botched treatment of rebel slave preacher Nat Turner’s Christianity, since it’s pretty central to the film’s plot and the character’s motivation. But there are a host of other problems having to do with structure, execution, and detail that put me in mind of Scott’s dictum, “There are no bad stories, only bad storytellers.”
Director, co-writer, and star Nate Parker has been much in the news of late, which might have reawakened the old debate about [allegedly] bad men making good art. But as FilmDrunk’s Vince Mancini puts it, the film “isn’t worth your conflicted feelings.”
Fellow San Diego critic Josh Board thinks that Emily Blunt was miscast as a drunken ex-wife who can’t move on in The Girl on the Train. I dunno. I was aware how hard she was working to keep the viewer both attracted and repelled, so he might be on to something. But I was also impressed by the pathos she lent to an otherwise hothouse thriller.
As for the nuclear-scare documentary Command and Control...well, it’s well-meaning, and the interview subjects are painfully open and human. But there isn’t enough there there for a feature film.
As usual, Scott fared better. My Blind Brother sounds like indie dramedy done right, and Denial makes the most of its Holocaust-denier’s premise. (I watched the trailer on YouTube, then made the mistake of clicking one of the related videos. That is a deep, dark rabbit hole.) Only the dancer doc Dancer disappointed.
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life didn’t screen, at least not for grown-ups, but it’s opening today as well. Also of note this week: should you harbor any fondness for the camp greatness of the ’60s Batman TV series, there’s an animated story featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, and the rest of the gang that hasn’t gone on to its eternal reward. And should you harbor any fondness for the foam-rubber greatness of the original Godzilla movies, Shin Godzilla hits theaters for a limited engagement.
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Birth of a Nation has a host of problems
Movies opening this week: The Girl on the Train, My Blind Brother, and more
The Birth of a Nation has a host of problems
Movies opening this week: The Girl on the Train, My Blind Brother, and more
Nate Parker in The Birth of a Nation
Movie
Birth of a Nation *
Director, star, and co-writer Nate Parker’s take on Nat Turner’s failed slave uprising is certainly controversial, given its sympathetic portrayal of a religious extremist on a murderous mission from God. But it’s not good: it looks bad, sounds cartoonish, skips jerkily from scene to scene, and seems weirdly illiterate about its narrative linchpin: namely, religion. If you’re going to make a film about a Christian preacher who goes from preaching submission to his fellow slaves (without ever mentioning why, or even mentioning the promised deliverance by Jesus) to leading a holy war, it helps to know something about Christianity as preached and as practiced. We’re told that “even the meanest nigger is afraid of the Gospel,” but only heaven knows why that might be. A possible explanation, made more possible by the anachronistic sensibilities expressed by sympathetic characters: passionate amateur Parker is more interested in making Turner into a modern-day cultural icon than an actual historical character. A powerful story, sloppily told.
As I was leaving the screening of The Birth of a Nation with my brother, he turned to me and said, “I’d say that was more like a TV movie than anything else, but that would be an insult to Roots.”
I couldn’t agree more. My review is mostly about the film’s botched treatment of rebel slave preacher Nat Turner’s Christianity, since it’s pretty central to the film’s plot and the character’s motivation. But there are a host of other problems having to do with structure, execution, and detail that put me in mind of Scott’s dictum, “There are no bad stories, only bad storytellers.”
Director, co-writer, and star Nate Parker has been much in the news of late, which might have reawakened the old debate about [allegedly] bad men making good art. But as FilmDrunk’s Vince Mancini puts it, the film “isn’t worth your conflicted feelings.”
Fellow San Diego critic Josh Board thinks that Emily Blunt was miscast as a drunken ex-wife who can’t move on in The Girl on the Train. I dunno. I was aware how hard she was working to keep the viewer both attracted and repelled, so he might be on to something. But I was also impressed by the pathos she lent to an otherwise hothouse thriller.
As for the nuclear-scare documentary Command and Control...well, it’s well-meaning, and the interview subjects are painfully open and human. But there isn’t enough there there for a feature film.
As usual, Scott fared better. My Blind Brother sounds like indie dramedy done right, and Denial makes the most of its Holocaust-denier’s premise. (I watched the trailer on YouTube, then made the mistake of clicking one of the related videos. That is a deep, dark rabbit hole.) Only the dancer doc Dancer disappointed.
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life didn’t screen, at least not for grown-ups, but it’s opening today as well. Also of note this week: should you harbor any fondness for the camp greatness of the ’60s Batman TV series, there’s an animated story featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, and the rest of the gang that hasn’t gone on to its eternal reward. And should you harbor any fondness for the foam-rubber greatness of the original Godzilla movies, Shin Godzilla hits theaters for a limited engagement.
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