Posted on 03/01/2016 11:56:59 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Bold prediction: This time next year, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag will be retired and the Academy Awards show host will ease up on the vanilla Hollywood jokes.
That’s mainly because of The Birth of a Nation, the Sundance 2016 sensation about a slave rebellion in pre-Civil War Virginia, led by a black preacher played by Nate Parker, who also directs and co-writes.
This searing historical drama, winner of two top Sundance prizes, already has serious buzz as a likely contender for Oscars 2017. But more than that it points with strength and hope toward a more diverse movie industry.
This fact-based drama received a standing ovation even before its world premiere last month at Sundance. This was followed the next day by a record $17.5-million (U.S.) distribution sale to Fox Searchlight, which took 12 Years a Slave all the way to a Best Picture win at the 2014 Academy Awards.
It was the highest price ever paid for a film not just at Sundance but at any film festival, TIFF and Cannes included. That’s an indication of Fox’s confidence that the film will be a hit, not just at the box office and the Oscars but in the broader cultural conversation. It will be proof that Hollywood doesn’t need to exclusively tell white stories with white actors to do good business and win awards.
There are good indicators to back up this belief, including the announcement this week of an Oct. 7 wide release for The Birth of a Nation, timed for a likely TIFF launch just before that and also the start of Oscar campaigning.
And there are other factors in the film’s favour:
It’s an American hero story that needs telling
Nate Parker portrays Nat Turner, an American-born preacher who in 1831 led the most successful slave rebellion in U.S. history. The revolt left 250 people slain, mostly blacks killed in retaliation by whites. The uprising helped turn the tide against slavery and changed U.S. history. But until now, Turner’s song has been largely unsung.
White author William Styron controversially won a Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for fictionalizing the rebel’s story in The Confessions of Nat Turner and the slave revolt featured in one episode of Roots, the landmark 1977 TV miniseries. The Birth of a Nation will take Turner’s story into the multiplexes, and focus global attention on a little-known American hero and a still-simmering debate about racial equality.
Parker’s own story is also dramatic
Nate Parker has impressive co-stars in his film, including Aja Naomi King, Armie Hammer, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union and Penelope Ann Miller. But he’s very much the draw both on and off the screen for his feature directing debut, with a lot of charisma and a personal story that has drama of its own. A one-time all-American wrestler turned actor, best known for roles in The Great Debaters, Non-Stop and The Secret Life of Bees, Parker put his acting career largely on hold for seven years while he assembled the financing, including a lot of his own money.
He embodies the American Dream of self-made success.
It’s not just “another slave movie”
Parker has provocatively given The Birth of a Nation a title matching that of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent opus, which pioneered feature film storytelling but also championed the racist Ku Klux Klan.
Parker wants people to reflect on the significantly different stories behind those similar titles. He also wants them to know that his film isn’t just a knock-off of 12 Years a Slave, as money people told him when they dismissed his production pitch as “another slave movie.”
In fact, The Birth of a Nation is a rougher and more intense experience than 12 Years a Slave, with images of brutality that are even harder to watch.
Parker wants a revolution, not a night out
Parker told his cheering Sundance audience, including Selma director Ava DuVernay, that he made his film “with hope of creating change agents.”
By this he means not just empowering people and waking up Hollywood to make movies and the Oscars more diverse, although these are important. He’s also challenging people to address systemic racism, sexism and other “isms,” especially during this crucial U.S. presidential election year.
“Are you passive or are you corrupt?” Parker thundered at Sundance. “There’s no middle ground, right?”
Wouldn't it be something if President Trump viewed this at the White House?
Affirmative action regardless of what segment of the culture is poisonous.
So Parker made the film with the hope of creating change agents?Does he mean black assassins?
For FReep’s sake. I don’t go to movies for a diversity injection. The trouble with year’s movies? Nothing but hatred of straights and whites, and white men. Being a white man, I give a sh*t less about that, but the lecturing is sooooooo tedious.
Nothing like a vicious racial slaughter to amuse.
#OscarsSoWilde.
A boring version of Django
There is no difference between admirers of Nat Turner and admirers of Charles Manson.
Think I’ll skip it.
That's what they call a "successful slave rebellion" huh?
The uprising helped turn the tide against slavery and changed U.S. history.
No, it didn't.
It’s an American hero story that needs telling
So if Nat Turner is a hero for killing unarmed white people then why isn't the Virginia militia heroes for killing unarmed black slaves?
Will Smith will never get an Oscar. Reasons are:
A) He made the academy look foolish.
B) He made all the members look racist when they are not except for Will Smith.
C) He destroyed whatever party atmosphere there was to be and replaced it with dreary racism talk and Chris Rock jokes.
D) Spite
Will Smith wanted to be the center of attention and he was. Now he will be shunted aside. No one feels sorry for an egotistic multi multi millionaire worth approx $240 million who lives in a $42 million home on 150 acres.
Imagine having all that and still having a chip on his shoulder.
He must want reparations also.
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