So I finally paid to watch BOAN. I can now offer my commentary without being a hypocrite. Full disclosure... After watching the movie, I reread the ACTUAL "Confessions of Nat Turner" (not the Styron novel) to make sure I wasn't trippin'. Before you comment on anything I have to say, please confirm that you have done the same.
This movie was over-hyped. It was a ambitious effort at telling an overlooked story. It did have some compelling moments. However, the idea that this is an important film because it tells the ACCURATE story of Turner's revolt is diminished by the innumerable instances of artistic license and outright misrepresentation of facts. A "Based on a true story" title card doesn't mean you get to play Law & Order SVU with the historical record to the extent that you actually twist Turner into something he wasn't.
To be clear, there is precious little in the historical record of Turner's life. Consequently, one might argue that it is especially important to hew as closely as possible to what facts we have. Not for nothing, the actual story is badass without embellishment. And Parker excludes one particular episode that offered an excellent chance to expand our understanding of his protagonist.
To wit, near the film's open, we see Nat's father SUCCESSFULLY escape after stealing food for his son. This jibes with Turner's narrative. However, Parker neglects to mention that Turner himself escaped as an adult for THIRTY DAYS and returned, uncaptured, of his own volition! During this time, Turner claims he fasted, prayed, and experienced many visions. A different writer/director might have shown us these visions, perhaps even imagining meetings with his long-missing father, to explore the emergence of Turner's messianic attitudes. We don't get to see very many of his visions, and when we do, they don't advance the story in a meaningful way.
"Confessions" also mentions that Nat began to develop his abilities for strategic planning during a number of flights of "roguery" with other youths. It heightened his sense of his "divine" abilities. This could have more clearly explained why he was able to convert so many, so quickly to his cause. Nat had developed a reputation, a reputation we don't see developed on screen.
Instead, we get get filler vis a vis a fairly standard love story, where Turner LITERALLY saves his future wife from the slave block by inducing his owner, Sam Turner, to purchase her for $275. In the movie, they maintain a relationship on neighboring plantations throughout the revolt. In actuality, Sam Turner DIED eight YEARS before the revolt and the family was sold to two different buyers. This might not seem to be a big point, but Parker presents Sam as a degenerate alcoholic who facilitated the rape of one of his slaves. Meanwhile, Nat was owned by Joseph Travis at the time of the rebellion. A person Nat describes as "...a kind master, and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complain of his treatment to me." THIS is the family man that Turner commanded to be killed at the start of the revolt. Not a drunken bachelor and his pathetic overseer. Which is more savage?
Further, Parker shows Cherry getting off pretty lightly, considering she was the beloved wife of a mass murdering slave insurrectionist. REALLY? According to reports at the time, Cherry was tortured under the whip until she gave up Nat's papers and written plans. Truth wins this argument too.
Much has been made of the two historically unsupported rapes. Some have argued that the assaults were not really trigger points for the revolt. However, it is very clear that the invented assault on Nat's wife, compounded with the rape, WITHIN 48 hours, of the wife of Nat's lieutenant, Hark, AND the horrible lashing Turner received for baptizing a degenerate white man AND the death of his grandmother the day after that lashing pushed Turner over the edge. In fact, he calls for the first meeting while sitting at his grandmother's grave. That's a pretty awful week!
Any guesses as to how many of those incidents is actually supported in Turner's own words?
ONE, the baptism.
That baptism occurred MORE THAN TWO YEARS prior to the revolt. As an aside, Turner doesn't mention any severe punishment for that transgression, though he does imply that it wasn't exactly popular.
In the third act, we FINALLY get to the heart of the matter, the revolt itself. Turner's "Confessions" provides some good details here and goes into every single murder that he witnessed with a fair amount of detail. One would think we might spend more time on those attacks in the film. Nope. We get about 2.5 raids before white slave owners are alerted and things go South. Another character gets a very bad rap, especially since he didn't exist.. the young slave, Jasper. Parker portrays him as a craven Judas that alerts the slave owners of the rebellion, thereby ending the fight almost before it had begun. A closing shot would have the audience believe that this young man has a change of heart and transforms into a Union solider during the Civil War... some 30+ years later. Le Sigh.
Movie Nat shares a moment with the stalwart slaves before basically heading them into a massacre at the Jerusalem armory. This scene is almost ridiculous in the numbers of Turner's warriors left standing after confronting forces with better weapons, including rifles and bayonets.
In "Confessions" though, it is much less clear that the revolt is hopelessly lost when Turner decides to press on to Jerusalem. It was certainly diverted, but Turner apparently believed he might yet succeed. This is a critical difference in interpretation of Turner's character as a leader.
Nearing the film's end, Parker explains in dialog that Nat has been in hiding for two whole months following the attacks. Cherry explains that Black people are being killed until Nat is captured. He turns himself in the next day, ostensibly as a sacrifice to stop the deaths. In reality, he was found by a single owner, very near the farm where his revolt started. He did accept being captured, but the extra scoop of nobility wasn't real.
As an aside, in "Confessions", Turner's interviewer explains that an unrelated revolt in North Carolina erupted in the same time frame as his attack. Nat claims not to know anything about the other plans, commenting, "I see sir, you doubt my word; but can you not think the same ideas, and strange appearances about this time in the heaven's might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking...." This might have been an interesting coda to add to the other end cards, but we are left to wonder if we may yet see a similar offering that chronicles the exploits of Denmark Vesey, whose revolt plan preceded Turner's by more than a decade.
"12 Years a Slave" is a much better film. BOAN offered very little in the way of new examples of the cruel degradations of slavery. That fact, combined with the most distracting fake teeth since Zoe Saldana in "Nina" mark this film as an over-hyped and ultimately unsatisfying treatment of an important subject.
Comments