The troubling history behind The Birth of a Nation and its director

Sundance hit The Birth of a Nation looked like the perfect movie to address the #OscarsSoWhite outcry — until a controversy about its director derailed its progress, reports Susannah Butter
Facing a storm: Nate Parker, above at Nat Turner, has had to face questions about his past as The Birth of a Nation hits screens

The Birth of a Nation had all the makings of an awards season shoo-in.

At the Sundance Film Festival in January the movie was lauded for its bold chronicling of an uncomfortable period in American history — the Virginia slave revolts of 1831 — from the perspective of the black men and women who lived through it and have been silenced by history. Its title was reappropriated from DW Griffith’s racist 1915 film and it had a black director and a mostly black cast, which made it stand out in the wake of last year’s #OscarsSoWhite outcry.

But now that it’s out in the US reviews have been lukewarm, and it took only a third as much as The Girl on the Train in its opening week. The Birth of a Nation is released here in January but is screened as part of the London Film Festival tonight. So what went wrong?

It is not an easy film. The Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote: “No film worthy of this particular historical subject could hope or expect to avoid controversy.” Still, at Sundance there was a standing ovation and a bidding war for the rights. Fox Searchlight Pictures snapped it up for $17.5 million — not bad for an underdog film that was made on a tight budget of $10 million. Its director and star, Nate Parker, was the darling of the festival, saying: “If you’ve got injustice, this is your film. And I’m coming.”

In August, though, everything changed. This spotlight on Parker led to the uncovering of an incident 17 years ago, when he and his co-star Jean McGianni Celestin were accused of raping a fellow student at Penn State University. She was 19 and documents say she was drunk. Parker was found not guilty; Celestin was convicted but later had the verdict overturned. The woman committed suicide in 2012. The incident was written about on Parker’s Wikipedia page but before the success of The Birth of a Nation it went largely unnoticed, until Variety magazine reported it.

Now The Birth of a Nation was controversial for different reasons, triggering debate about whether a film can be seen in isolation from what we know about the people who made it.

When it was shown in Hollywood this month there was a candlelit vigil outside the cinema, not judging but reflecting on the issues it raises about both rape and race both on and off the screen.

Searchlight, which paid such big money for the film, released a statement saying it was aware of the incident: “We also know that [Parker] was found innocent and cleared of all charges. We stand behind him and are proud to help bring this important and powerful story to the screen.” Over here, the British Film Institute stuck to its decision to screen a premiere of The Birth of a Nation as part of the London Film Festival.

A spokesperson from the BFI says the film was chosen for the LFF after its success at Sundance: “We are proud to bring this powerful film to UK audiences for the first time. The festival’s role is to present outstanding cinema from around the world and this is one of the year’s most significant films, which brings an important story to the big screen.”

Parker addressed the allegations with a long post on his public Facebook page in August, where he said: “I have never run from this period in my life and I never, ever will.” More than a thousand people have commented on the post. He said he was “devastated”, adding: “These issues of a woman’s right to be safe and of men and women engaging in healthy relationships are extremely important to talk about, however difficult. And more personally, as a father, a husband, a brother and man of deep faith, I understand how much confusion and pain this incident has had on so many, most importantly the young woman who was involved.”

‘I have never run from this period in my life and I never, ever will’

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He continued, saying he didn’t want to ignore the pain that the woman endured: “While I maintain my innocence that the encounter was unambiguously consensual, there are things more important than the law. There is morality; no one who calls himself a man of faith should even be in that situation. As a 36-year-old father of daughters, I look back on that time as a teenager and can say without hesitation that I should have used more wisdom.”

He has “changed so much since 19” but acknowledged that “there are wounds that neither time nor words can heal”.

Parker is aware of the relevance of the charges in the context of his film’s claims to face history. In an interview with Deadline magazine he said The Birth of a Nation is about catharsis as a cure: “Psychologists will tell you, until there is honest confrontation there can be no healing.”

He also said he was “sure it would come up”. “I stand here, a 36-year-old man, 17 years removed from one of the most painful moments in my life. And I can imagine it was painful, for everyone. I was cleared of everything, of all charges. I’ve done a lot of living and raised a lot of children. I’ve got five daughters and a lovely wife.”

Controversial: Nate Parker's past has caused a stir

But in the LA Times, Chang says the film’s subject matter and the fact that Parker stars in it creates problems. “If it’s especially hard to separate the art from the artist while watching The Birth of a Nation it’s because the artist in this case is almost always in front of the camera.

“It’s hard to look at the actor’s face now without being reminded of his off-screen blunders, his vain and defensive attempts to reclaim ownership of his moment.”

The New York Times considers it in the context of what we know about other film-makers with murky pasts. Chang does too, observing that the premiere of Woody Allen’s Café Society earlier this year reminded audiences of the allegations, repeatedly denied, that the director had sexually abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, while Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, out next month, is difficult to separate from memories of Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirades.

So far, most reviews in the UK of The Birth of a Nation have been positive, especially as an example of a more equal film industry. The London Film Festival’s focus this year is on diversity. Actor David Oyelowo launched the festival with a rousing speech, saying he is “hell-bent” on having more black-orientated historical films to help Britain understand “how it became what it is”. The British Film Institute released new research last week revealing that in the past 10 years only 13 per cent of British films have a black actor in a leading role and 59 per cent have no black actors in any role.

True story

But there are still questions over whether The Birth of a Nation can win an Oscar. The Standard’s film critic, David Sexton, says: “Luckily there is a new Oscar contender, Moonlight, which has an entirely black cast, is a remarkable piece of work and offers the Academy a powerful alternative.”

On Saturday, film-maker Steve McQueen will receive the BFI Fellowship at the festival’s closing gala and all eyes will be on him to see if he comments on Parker’s film, considering that he brought the world 12 Years a Slave.

Remy Holwick, founder of Fvck Rape Culture, which organised the vigil in Hollywood, explains her feelings about the film: “The goal of the vigil was to show that there is space in Hollywood to both celebrate a film that has incredible promise for people of colour advancing in Hollywood while simultaneously creating space for those that wish to honour victims of rape and sexual assault.”

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