{"id":1161,"date":"2016-10-02T12:15:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T12:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2017-04-10T03:53:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T03:53:53","slug":"theatrical-preview-october-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2016\/10\/theatrical-preview-october-7.html","title":{"rendered":"Birth of a Nation: Theatrical preview October 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birth of a Nation<\/em> is here. <\/span><\/p>\n

African Americans in the film industry have been making movies or a career out of movies that deal with racism and racial justice.<\/p>\n

Their purpose goes beyond making a career, to make an impact in society.<\/p>\n

October 7<\/h4>\n

This day is an eventful day at the cinema this year. The outstanding race-related film Birth of a Nation<\/em> is released to movie theaters. I haven\u2019t seen the film, but it is very interesting. It is also topical. And potentially powerful just looking at the surface of it.\u00a0It comes on the heels of 2013\u2019s race films 12 Years a Slave and The Butler and 2014\u2019s Selma.<\/p>\n

Nate Parker directs, writes and acts in the film. The actor has worked alongside Denzel Washington in 2007\u2019s The Great Debaters. He\u2019s also featured in The Secret Life of Bees and Red Tails.<\/p>\n

Birth of a Nation<\/em> is Parker\u2019s feature film directorial debut.<\/p>\n

He stars in Birth of a Nation<\/em> as a slave and literate preacher who inspires a rebellion in the South over 100 years ago.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s title is a reinvention of the 1915 film of the same name.<\/p>\n

The censor has given the film an R-rating for disturbing violence.<\/p>\n

Race as an issue in movies and the film industry has become more and more visible. From the deliberate \u2018black musicals\u2019 To black exploitation action films. To the impact of star Sydney Poitier. To prolific director Spike Lee. To the influence of popular and charismatic actor Denzel Washington. And to issues that impact the various groups in society because of their color and ethnicity. These issues get covered in independent films and sometimes in major films.<\/p>\n

Most of the attention today is on racial justice. Any racial justice issue is a life issue because it\u2019s presented as penetrating everything or something about someone who happens to be of a \u2018different\u2019 color. Birth of a Nation<\/em>\u00a0appears to up the ante in terms of dramatically presenting that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Birth of a Nation is here. African Americans in the film industry have been making movies or a career out of movies that deal with racism and racial justice. Their purpose goes beyond making a career, to make an impact in society. October 7 This day is an eventful day at the cinema this year.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":602,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[391],"tags":[269,26,33,8,10,54,40,16,7,24,268],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews","tag-birth-of-a-nation","tag-change","tag-drama","tag-film","tag-film-commentaries","tag-freedom","tag-justice","tag-life","tag-movies","tag-problems","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nBirth of a Nation: Theatrical preview October 7 - Life at the Movies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 7 is an eventful day at the cinema this year because the outstanding race-related film Birth of a Nation is released to movie theaters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2016\/10\/theatrical-preview-october-7.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Birth of a Nation: Theatrical preview October 7 - 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A 3 star rating out of 5 stars is above average from me.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.peteswriting.wordpress.com","https:\/\/x.com\/peteswriting"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/author\/pveugelaers"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}