The Birth of a Nation.

• Author: Krayewski, Ed
• Position: DVD - Video recording review - Brief article

Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation (out on DVD in January) brings the story of Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion in Southampton, Virginia, to film for the first time. In addition to directing and co-writing the movie, Parker stars as Turner, alongside a cast that includes Gabrielle Union and Armie Hammer. The rebellion itself, which lasted 48 hours, doesn't happen until late in the film, and neither, really, does Nat Turner's development into a radical Christian insurrectionist. Rather than tell the story of Turner's self-radicalization, the community formation (that is, the actual birthing of a nation) involved in his preaching, or the attempt to organize a rebel force essentially after already starting a rebellion, a good part of the film focuses on Nat and life on the Turner plantation.

The movie includes fictionalizations meant to fit Turner's story into the cliched screen-writing structure of a hero's journey, and to provide dramatic reference points that...