The need was understood by those who grasp the demands of good fiction but not by those for whom the paramount function of a story is propaganda. In his determination to portray a believable figure with historical veracity but without the condescension long prevalent in the fictional characterization of black people, Styron adopted controversial techniques. Viewers who emerge from the theaters today with enhanced curiosity - who might like a dollop of fact along with the heroics - need to know an important but dimly remembered back story. Styron’s novel, which he called “a meditation on history,” deserved, and won, major awards, and - significantly - the praise of such contemporaries as Ralph Ellison, author of the formative novel “Invisible Man.” Then, in 1972, William Styron, a fine storyteller educated at Duke University under a legendary writing teacher, Bill Blackburn, published a novel called “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” and at the same time a historical essay based on his own legwork entitled “This Quiet Dust.” Styron had grown up in south-side Virginia, as had Turner, and was fascinated by the titular leader of one of the first slave rebellions. The only documents were those material to Turner’s trial and hanging for the murder of his only victim. Until the early 1970s, few knew anything solid about Nat Turner. The new film is also in the updated heroic mode now popular in characterizations of slavery. Griffith’s early-20th century cinematic glorification of the Ku Klux Klan: a great hit of the Jim Crow era. The title plays ironically upon the title of D.W. Some reviewers, especially those of tender years, are struggling to be kind to “Birth of a Nation,” a new movie about an 1831 Virginia slave revolt, conceived and led by the famous rebel Nat Turner. Nate Parker as Nat Turner in "The Birth of a Nation,” the story of a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |