The Birth of a Nation

I watched The Birth of a Nation over the weekend. I remember after it’s Sundance premier, before it was shown nationwide, that there was a lot of Oscar buzz surrounding it so I knew I wanted to eventually try to see this movie. 

This film is the true account of the life of Nat Turner. A preacher who was a slave that lead a revolt against slave owners in the Antebellum South. The imagery was so powerful that every so often it was hard to watch. Sometimes reading this history in a book isn’t as emotionally connecting as it is to see on screen. The visions of how horribly slaves were treated and how those people fought and persevered though the most difficult and terrifying of odds is something that can’t be put into words. 

The cast at times delivered gripping performances and the script was well written. Even through the movie was overall a compelling piece of American historical work, it did feel like it was missing something to really bring it home.

In the end, what I took from this film is that this piece of American History needs to continue to be shown onscreen because these stories aren’t told often enough. There are so many stories like this one that have never seen the inside of a high school history book, let alone a tv or movie theater screen. Especially in the current time, we need to look back more to see how not to treat others. Even though I don’t necessarily think that this was an Oscar worthy film, I do think that it was still well done and served a greater, deeper purpose that everyone should experience.