Yet the Nat Turner story has never failed to inspire a passionate response. The film’s reception at Sundance - “instant rapture,” by one account - has been explained in part as a reaction to the allegations of exclusion and discrimination that have fueled the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
No one can really know who Nat Turner was, but these divergent portraits are reminders of the role slavery continues to play in shaping race relations in this country, leaving black and white Americans struggling to find a common language for this largely unspoken tragedy. He describes the rebel slave as “a measured, self-determined man of faith, whose courage and sacrifice left him a martyr.” He calls his movie “the black ‘Braveheart.’” I doubt Styron's version could get published today.Parker’s vision of Turner is distinctly different.
In today's political atmosphere if a writer were to tackle the Nat Turner story he most certainly would have to be portrayed differently than it was in the mid-60's. The modern film The Birth of a Nation used the Nat Turner template as the basis of the film and gave a more principled take of Nat Turner. Styron's book did use the stereotypes that subsequently offended some people a few years after the book was released in 1967. To me when someone tackles the subject of Nat Turner I look at it as a Rorschach test. Was he a mad man? Was he a principled man? The documented "confessions" are not corroborated, so no one knows the truth about Turner's life and motivation. Basically the known facts are that Nat Turner and a band of slaves escaped and killed 55 white men, women and children in Southampton VA before being caught and hanged to death on November 11, 1831. Needless to say there are many gaps to fill and Styron created an imaginary story of a young slave who engaged in slave revolt in 1831. The written record of the real life Nat Turner is very scant because all there is is the "Confessions" recorded by his defense lawyer. Styron said that this book is not historical fiction, but rather a meditation on history. While I did not feel that Nat Turner was as good as Sophie's Choice I still highly recommend the novel. A few month's ago I read Sophie's Choice by the same author and was blown away, so I felt I had to read Nat turner as well.
0 kommentar(er)
