Make a Contribution to Remove NSFW Ads

American Skin 1.15.2021 (Nate Parker) police are in trouble

Looks great! Why is is dragging the killing out? I would have said a few words, then kill the cop.
 
Should be interesting to see how Blue-Check black feminist Twitter reconciles with enjoying a movie with a pro-BLM message from a Director they cancelled for daring to cross white zaddy. It will probably be similar to how they all dick rode Kobe & Nipsey posthumously when in life they criticized them for rape culture and homophobia, respectively.
 
playahaitian said:
‘American Skin’ Review: Nate Parker’s Terrible Comeback Is Like a Cross Between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau

Nate Parker's new film — a clumsy found-footage political drama — is so bad that he deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.
David Ehrlich
Sep 1, 2019 3:15 pm
@davidehrlich
“American Skin”
VIEW GALLERY
10PHOTOS
The debate over Nate Parker’s value as a person may never be conclusively decided (though it may seem otherwise in the court of public opinion), but the debate over Nate Parker’s value as a filmmaker has just been settled once and for all: He doesn’t have any. An unsolicited coda to a career that most of us assumed was already over, “American Skin” is an asinine and self-serving call to action that tries to hide its basic incompetence behind a veil of righteous fury.
That seems to be Parker’s only move. “The Birth of a Nation,” which became the most expensive Sundance acquisition of all time before the internet got wind of Parker’s involvement in a 1999 rape case, retold the story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion as a full-throated rallying cry, effectively combining the political sophistication of “Braveheart” with the budget of an indie and the cinematic prowess of a student film. “American Skin” takes that formula a step further.



Here is another blistering film that channels the lucid and unimpeachable frustration of black Americans into a provocative story that openly challenges prevailing notions about the merits of violent resistance. Only this time, Parker’s messaging is even shallower, his budget is even smaller, and his movie — an absurd take on the found-footage genre that assumes the guise of a college thesis documentary — is literally presented as a student film. It’s the kind of head-smacking misfire that a more talented storyteller wouldn’t even know how to make. Regardless of his previous improprieties, Parker deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.


The only thing that “American Skin” has going for it are good intentions. However labored and deafeningly loud Parker is about the pervasive harm of systemic racism, it’s not like no one out there needs to hear it. Quite the opposite. And yet, an unfathomably ham-fisted crash course on the problems of racial profiling — one told with all the subtlety of a “Sesame Street” segment, and none of the same grace; the violence of a direct-to-VOD Nicolas Cage thriller, and also none of the same grace — doesn’t feel like it’s going to move the needle. In fact, the inanity of the film’s premise only serves to diminish the pain and the urgency that Parker is trying to dramatize. If “American Skin” asks us to separate the art from the artist, then it must also invite us to separate the movie from its message.
Of course, separating the art from the artist is easier than it sounds in a movie where said artist appears in almost every frame. As with “The Birth of a Nation,” Nate Parker didn’t only write and direct “American Skin,” he stars in it too, playing an Iraq War vet named — wait for it — Lincoln Jefferson. Linc (as his friends call him) is a good man. He’s smart, he’s decent, and he proudly served a country that has never served him back. He’s also helpless and at the end of his rope after a grand jury declines to convict the police officer who shot and killed his 14-year-old son Kajani during a traffic stop in a white part of town.


“American Skin” opens with tense dash and body-cam footage from the night in question; it’s clear that Kajani isn’t a threat, but his insistence upon (legally) recording the officers with his phone sparks a tension that soon turns violence. It’s a fitting prologue for a movie that sees the mass dissemination of digital video — especially those directed by Nate Parker — as an invaluable tool in the fight against oppression.
That point is hammered home (again and again and again) when the action jumps forward to a year later, and a college student named Jordin (Shane Paul McGhie) shows up at Linc’s house with a film crew in tow. He’s making his college thesis about Linc’s ordeal, and everything we see in “American Skin” — from the film leader before the first shot to the slates that pop up throughout — is presented as a rough assembly cut of Jordin’s documentary. Why does Jordin have so much footage of himself sitting in the editing room and watching his own movie? It’s unclear. Even by the found footage genre’s low standards of logic, “American Skin” makes some very special choices.
Judging by Henry Jackman’s mournful and melodramatic horn score, it seems like this is shaping up to be an intimate rendering of a tragically familiar tale. The writing is streaked with the same kind of holy clumsiness that once made “7th Heaven” such a hit, but Parker radiates enough raw earnestness to make it work. Whatever his failings as a person, he’s always been an innately charismatic screen presence (go watch “Beyond the Lights”). That warmth, however, has its limits.
One flashback, captured by the camera on his son’s computer, finds Linc lecturing Kajani and his friend about the sad reality of what can happen when cops interact with black citizens. Kajani, who’s been raised with pride and integrity, doesn’t understand why he should act visibly submissive even when the police violate his rights. It’s a potentially affecting moment — a horrible conversation that millions of black Americans have to have with their kids — but Parker dilutes its power by turning the scene into a sermon.
There’s a reason why teenagers don’t respond to long-winded speeches, but Parker always lacks the patience for actual drama; he’d rather shout from a pulpit than incept an actual thought into anyone’s head. Kajani, meanwhile, becomes the first of many characters to get flattened into a two-dimensional construct; in a film where everyone is reduced to the most basic of archetypes (e.g. the crying mother, the dough-brained white cop, a motley crew of criminals whose hard exteriors hide great wisdom), Kajani is nothing more than the idea of a kid. Not in a million years could Parker name a single thing the character keeps in the “Hot Memes” folder he keeps on his desktop.



But “American Skin” doesn’t really go off the rails until a few minutes later, when Parker shifts into maximum overdrive and things go absolutely, unbelievably, is-this-really-happening? nuts. Jordin wants to make a movie? Okay, Linc will give him a movie. Without any warning to the 21-year-old documentarian, Linc and his war buddies strap themselves into kevlar vests, unpack a massive arsenal of machine guns, and storm the police station where Kajani’s killer has just been reinstated. The plan: Take everyone hostage, and force them — at gunpoint — to give Officer Mike Randall (Beau Knapp) the fair trial the American justice system wouldn’t. The inmates present will serve as jurors. If they vote not guilty, Linc will let Officer Randall go. If they vote to convict, well… Linc will get to even the score. “Whatever you do,” he says to Jordin and his crew, “don’t stop filming.”
From there, the rest of “American Skin” feels equal parts Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau. The police officers in the precinct defend themselves with all the nuance of Fox News pundits (Parker plays all the hits, including crowd favorites like “I don’t see color!,” “rap is the real problem!” and “how can we possibly be racist if our chief is black!?”), while Parker dismantles their arguments at the top of his lungs. The cops can’t be thought of as straw men, because too many people actually believe these things, but the back-and-forth is so chintzy and didactic that you almost start to question if that’s really possible.
The whole movie is like a bad allegory that Parker forgot to make allegorical, as everyone is so handcuffed to their types that not even a hint of actual drama can take root. Parker and Knapp cry their eyes out, but “American Skin” exists in such a ridiculous vacuum that even its most salient points about political violence — especially as it exists at the intersection between individual humanity and institutional hatred — aren’t given the oxygen they need to reach whatever viewers need to hear them.
And while it’s convenient that much of the sloppy, overwrought filmmaking in “American Skin” can be excused by the found footage conceit (Jordin, by default, cannot be a better director than Parker), that isn’t much consolation while you’re watching it. It certainly doesn’t excuse the movie’s well-lit, low-angle obsession with Linc, who’s positioned as a symbol for centuries of pain and suffering, and shares Parker’s melodramatic flair for galaxy brain provocations. Even without his checkered past, Parker’s insistent self-focus would seem vain. It would still lead you to wonder why he didn’t just make an actual documentary about anti-black police brutality; it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of tragic stories to choose from. There just isn’t necessarily any room for Nate Parker in them.



The only justification comes at the end, when Parker reaffirms the idea that the world needs to hear Linc’s story. Looking directly into the camera lens, he insists that sometimes the message is so important that the messenger doesn’t matter; that people need to see this movie, regardless of who made it. Wouldn’t that be convenient. It’s true that a lot of people need to hear what “American Skin” has to say. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if Nate Parker is a bad person or just a bad filmmaker — the way he says things, nobody is ever going to listen
Click to expand...
The critic:

ehrlich.12.33_AM.png
 
playahaitian said:
‘American Skin’ Review: Nate Parker’s Terrible Comeback Is Like a Cross Between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau

Nate Parker's new film — a clumsy found-footage political drama — is so bad that he deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.
David Ehrlich
Sep 1, 2019 3:15 pm
@davidehrlich
“American Skin”
VIEW GALLERY
10PHOTOS
The debate over Nate Parker’s value as a person may never be conclusively decided (though it may seem otherwise in the court of public opinion), but the debate over Nate Parker’s value as a filmmaker has just been settled once and for all: He doesn’t have any. An unsolicited coda to a career that most of us assumed was already over, “American Skin” is an asinine and self-serving call to action that tries to hide its basic incompetence behind a veil of righteous fury.
That seems to be Parker’s only move. “The Birth of a Nation,” which became the most expensive Sundance acquisition of all time before the internet got wind of Parker’s involvement in a 1999 rape case, retold the story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion as a full-throated rallying cry, effectively combining the political sophistication of “Braveheart” with the budget of an indie and the cinematic prowess of a student film. “American Skin” takes that formula a step further.



Here is another blistering film that channels the lucid and unimpeachable frustration of black Americans into a provocative story that openly challenges prevailing notions about the merits of violent resistance. Only this time, Parker’s messaging is even shallower, his budget is even smaller, and his movie — an absurd take on the found-footage genre that assumes the guise of a college thesis documentary — is literally presented as a student film. It’s the kind of head-smacking misfire that a more talented storyteller wouldn’t even know how to make. Regardless of his previous improprieties, Parker deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.


The only thing that “American Skin” has going for it are good intentions. However labored and deafeningly loud Parker is about the pervasive harm of systemic racism, it’s not like no one out there needs to hear it. Quite the opposite. And yet, an unfathomably ham-fisted crash course on the problems of racial profiling — one told with all the subtlety of a “Sesame Street” segment, and none of the same grace; the violence of a direct-to-VOD Nicolas Cage thriller, and also none of the same grace — doesn’t feel like it’s going to move the needle. In fact, the inanity of the film’s premise only serves to diminish the pain and the urgency that Parker is trying to dramatize. If “American Skin” asks us to separate the art from the artist, then it must also invite us to separate the movie from its message.
Of course, separating the art from the artist is easier than it sounds in a movie where said artist appears in almost every frame. As with “The Birth of a Nation,” Nate Parker didn’t only write and direct “American Skin,” he stars in it too, playing an Iraq War vet named — wait for it — Lincoln Jefferson. Linc (as his friends call him) is a good man. He’s smart, he’s decent, and he proudly served a country that has never served him back. He’s also helpless and at the end of his rope after a grand jury declines to convict the police officer who shot and killed his 14-year-old son Kajani during a traffic stop in a white part of town.


“American Skin” opens with tense dash and body-cam footage from the night in question; it’s clear that Kajani isn’t a threat, but his insistence upon (legally) recording the officers with his phone sparks a tension that soon turns violence. It’s a fitting prologue for a movie that sees the mass dissemination of digital video — especially those directed by Nate Parker — as an invaluable tool in the fight against oppression.
That point is hammered home (again and again and again) when the action jumps forward to a year later, and a college student named Jordin (Shane Paul McGhie) shows up at Linc’s house with a film crew in tow. He’s making his college thesis about Linc’s ordeal, and everything we see in “American Skin” — from the film leader before the first shot to the slates that pop up throughout — is presented as a rough assembly cut of Jordin’s documentary. Why does Jordin have so much footage of himself sitting in the editing room and watching his own movie? It’s unclear. Even by the found footage genre’s low standards of logic, “American Skin” makes some very special choices.
Judging by Henry Jackman’s mournful and melodramatic horn score, it seems like this is shaping up to be an intimate rendering of a tragically familiar tale. The writing is streaked with the same kind of holy clumsiness that once made “7th Heaven” such a hit, but Parker radiates enough raw earnestness to make it work. Whatever his failings as a person, he’s always been an innately charismatic screen presence (go watch “Beyond the Lights”). That warmth, however, has its limits.
One flashback, captured by the camera on his son’s computer, finds Linc lecturing Kajani and his friend about the sad reality of what can happen when cops interact with black citizens. Kajani, who’s been raised with pride and integrity, doesn’t understand why he should act visibly submissive even when the police violate his rights. It’s a potentially affecting moment — a horrible conversation that millions of black Americans have to have with their kids — but Parker dilutes its power by turning the scene into a sermon.
There’s a reason why teenagers don’t respond to long-winded speeches, but Parker always lacks the patience for actual drama; he’d rather shout from a pulpit than incept an actual thought into anyone’s head. Kajani, meanwhile, becomes the first of many characters to get flattened into a two-dimensional construct; in a film where everyone is reduced to the most basic of archetypes (e.g. the crying mother, the dough-brained white cop, a motley crew of criminals whose hard exteriors hide great wisdom), Kajani is nothing more than the idea of a kid. Not in a million years could Parker name a single thing the character keeps in the “Hot Memes” folder he keeps on his desktop.



But “American Skin” doesn’t really go off the rails until a few minutes later, when Parker shifts into maximum overdrive and things go absolutely, unbelievably, is-this-really-happening? nuts. Jordin wants to make a movie? Okay, Linc will give him a movie. Without any warning to the 21-year-old documentarian, Linc and his war buddies strap themselves into kevlar vests, unpack a massive arsenal of machine guns, and storm the police station where Kajani’s killer has just been reinstated. The plan: Take everyone hostage, and force them — at gunpoint — to give Officer Mike Randall (Beau Knapp) the fair trial the American justice system wouldn’t. The inmates present will serve as jurors. If they vote not guilty, Linc will let Officer Randall go. If they vote to convict, well… Linc will get to even the score. “Whatever you do,” he says to Jordin and his crew, “don’t stop filming.”
From there, the rest of “American Skin” feels equal parts Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau. The police officers in the precinct defend themselves with all the nuance of Fox News pundits (Parker plays all the hits, including crowd favorites like “I don’t see color!,” “rap is the real problem!” and “how can we possibly be racist if our chief is black!?”), while Parker dismantles their arguments at the top of his lungs. The cops can’t be thought of as straw men, because too many people actually believe these things, but the back-and-forth is so chintzy and didactic that you almost start to question if that’s really possible.
The whole movie is like a bad allegory that Parker forgot to make allegorical, as everyone is so handcuffed to their types that not even a hint of actual drama can take root. Parker and Knapp cry their eyes out, but “American Skin” exists in such a ridiculous vacuum that even its most salient points about political violence — especially as it exists at the intersection between individual humanity and institutional hatred — aren’t given the oxygen they need to reach whatever viewers need to hear them.
And while it’s convenient that much of the sloppy, overwrought filmmaking in “American Skin” can be excused by the found footage conceit (Jordin, by default, cannot be a better director than Parker), that isn’t much consolation while you’re watching it. It certainly doesn’t excuse the movie’s well-lit, low-angle obsession with Linc, who’s positioned as a symbol for centuries of pain and suffering, and shares Parker’s melodramatic flair for galaxy brain provocations. Even without his checkered past, Parker’s insistent self-focus would seem vain. It would still lead you to wonder why he didn’t just make an actual documentary about anti-black police brutality; it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of tragic stories to choose from. There just isn’t necessarily any room for Nate Parker in them.



The only justification comes at the end, when Parker reaffirms the idea that the world needs to hear Linc’s story. Looking directly into the camera lens, he insists that sometimes the message is so important that the messenger doesn’t matter; that people need to see this movie, regardless of who made it. Wouldn’t that be convenient. It’s true that a lot of people need to hear what “American Skin” has to say. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if Nate Parker is a bad person or just a bad filmmaker — the way he says things, nobody is ever going to listen
Click to expand...
Already the hit piece is out.
 
playahaitian said:
so this has been out since 2019

and the reviews so far have been AWFUL

en.wikipedia.org

American Skin (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

www.imdb.com

American Skin (2019) ⭐ 7.0 | Drama, Thriller

1h 30m | R
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

www.rottentomatoes.com

American Skin | Rotten Tomatoes

Discover reviews, ratings, and trailers for American Skin on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay updated with critic and audience scores today!
www.rottentomatoes.com www.rottentomatoes.com

bu sorry I can't trust no critic with this one here.
Click to expand...

Aww man, a new Black movie! Let me see what white people think :hmm:
 
playahaitian said:
‘American Skin’ Review: Nate Parker’s Terrible Comeback Is Like a Cross Between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau

Nate Parker's new film — a clumsy found-footage political drama — is so bad that he deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.
David Ehrlich
Sep 1, 2019 3:15 pm
@davidehrlich
“American Skin”
VIEW GALLERY
10PHOTOS
The debate over Nate Parker’s value as a person may never be conclusively decided (though it may seem otherwise in the court of public opinion), but the debate over Nate Parker’s value as a filmmaker has just been settled once and for all: He doesn’t have any. An unsolicited coda to a career that most of us assumed was already over, “American Skin” is an asinine and self-serving call to action that tries to hide its basic incompetence behind a veil of righteous fury.
That seems to be Parker’s only move. “The Birth of a Nation,” which became the most expensive Sundance acquisition of all time before the internet got wind of Parker’s involvement in a 1999 rape case, retold the story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion as a full-throated rallying cry, effectively combining the political sophistication of “Braveheart” with the budget of an indie and the cinematic prowess of a student film. “American Skin” takes that formula a step further.



Here is another blistering film that channels the lucid and unimpeachable frustration of black Americans into a provocative story that openly challenges prevailing notions about the merits of violent resistance. Only this time, Parker’s messaging is even shallower, his budget is even smaller, and his movie — an absurd take on the found-footage genre that assumes the guise of a college thesis documentary — is literally presented as a student film. It’s the kind of head-smacking misfire that a more talented storyteller wouldn’t even know how to make. Regardless of his previous improprieties, Parker deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone.


The only thing that “American Skin” has going for it are good intentions. However labored and deafeningly loud Parker is about the pervasive harm of systemic racism, it’s not like no one out there needs to hear it. Quite the opposite. And yet, an unfathomably ham-fisted crash course on the problems of racial profiling — one told with all the subtlety of a “Sesame Street” segment, and none of the same grace; the violence of a direct-to-VOD Nicolas Cage thriller, and also none of the same grace — doesn’t feel like it’s going to move the needle. In fact, the inanity of the film’s premise only serves to diminish the pain and the urgency that Parker is trying to dramatize. If “American Skin” asks us to separate the art from the artist, then it must also invite us to separate the movie from its message.
Of course, separating the art from the artist is easier than it sounds in a movie where said artist appears in almost every frame. As with “The Birth of a Nation,” Nate Parker didn’t only write and direct “American Skin,” he stars in it too, playing an Iraq War vet named — wait for it — Lincoln Jefferson. Linc (as his friends call him) is a good man. He’s smart, he’s decent, and he proudly served a country that has never served him back. He’s also helpless and at the end of his rope after a grand jury declines to convict the police officer who shot and killed his 14-year-old son Kajani during a traffic stop in a white part of town.


“American Skin” opens with tense dash and body-cam footage from the night in question; it’s clear that Kajani isn’t a threat, but his insistence upon (legally) recording the officers with his phone sparks a tension that soon turns violence. It’s a fitting prologue for a movie that sees the mass dissemination of digital video — especially those directed by Nate Parker — as an invaluable tool in the fight against oppression.
That point is hammered home (again and again and again) when the action jumps forward to a year later, and a college student named Jordin (Shane Paul McGhie) shows up at Linc’s house with a film crew in tow. He’s making his college thesis about Linc’s ordeal, and everything we see in “American Skin” — from the film leader before the first shot to the slates that pop up throughout — is presented as a rough assembly cut of Jordin’s documentary. Why does Jordin have so much footage of himself sitting in the editing room and watching his own movie? It’s unclear. Even by the found footage genre’s low standards of logic, “American Skin” makes some very special choices.
Judging by Henry Jackman’s mournful and melodramatic horn score, it seems like this is shaping up to be an intimate rendering of a tragically familiar tale. The writing is streaked with the same kind of holy clumsiness that once made “7th Heaven” such a hit, but Parker radiates enough raw earnestness to make it work. Whatever his failings as a person, he’s always been an innately charismatic screen presence (go watch “Beyond the Lights”). That warmth, however, has its limits.
One flashback, captured by the camera on his son’s computer, finds Linc lecturing Kajani and his friend about the sad reality of what can happen when cops interact with black citizens. Kajani, who’s been raised with pride and integrity, doesn’t understand why he should act visibly submissive even when the police violate his rights. It’s a potentially affecting moment — a horrible conversation that millions of black Americans have to have with their kids — but Parker dilutes its power by turning the scene into a sermon.
There’s a reason why teenagers don’t respond to long-winded speeches, but Parker always lacks the patience for actual drama; he’d rather shout from a pulpit than incept an actual thought into anyone’s head. Kajani, meanwhile, becomes the first of many characters to get flattened into a two-dimensional construct; in a film where everyone is reduced to the most basic of archetypes (e.g. the crying mother, the dough-brained white cop, a motley crew of criminals whose hard exteriors hide great wisdom), Kajani is nothing more than the idea of a kid. Not in a million years could Parker name a single thing the character keeps in the “Hot Memes” folder he keeps on his desktop.



But “American Skin” doesn’t really go off the rails until a few minutes later, when Parker shifts into maximum overdrive and things go absolutely, unbelievably, is-this-really-happening? nuts. Jordin wants to make a movie? Okay, Linc will give him a movie. Without any warning to the 21-year-old documentarian, Linc and his war buddies strap themselves into kevlar vests, unpack a massive arsenal of machine guns, and storm the police station where Kajani’s killer has just been reinstated. The plan: Take everyone hostage, and force them — at gunpoint — to give Officer Mike Randall (Beau Knapp) the fair trial the American justice system wouldn’t. The inmates present will serve as jurors. If they vote not guilty, Linc will let Officer Randall go. If they vote to convict, well… Linc will get to even the score. “Whatever you do,” he says to Jordin and his crew, “don’t stop filming.”
From there, the rest of “American Skin” feels equal parts Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau. The police officers in the precinct defend themselves with all the nuance of Fox News pundits (Parker plays all the hits, including crowd favorites like “I don’t see color!,” “rap is the real problem!” and “how can we possibly be racist if our chief is black!?”), while Parker dismantles their arguments at the top of his lungs. The cops can’t be thought of as straw men, because too many people actually believe these things, but the back-and-forth is so chintzy and didactic that you almost start to question if that’s really possible.
The whole movie is like a bad allegory that Parker forgot to make allegorical, as everyone is so handcuffed to their types that not even a hint of actual drama can take root. Parker and Knapp cry their eyes out, but “American Skin” exists in such a ridiculous vacuum that even its most salient points about political violence — especially as it exists at the intersection between individual humanity and institutional hatred — aren’t given the oxygen they need to reach whatever viewers need to hear them.
And while it’s convenient that much of the sloppy, overwrought filmmaking in “American Skin” can be excused by the found footage conceit (Jordin, by default, cannot be a better director than Parker), that isn’t much consolation while you’re watching it. It certainly doesn’t excuse the movie’s well-lit, low-angle obsession with Linc, who’s positioned as a symbol for centuries of pain and suffering, and shares Parker’s melodramatic flair for galaxy brain provocations. Even without his checkered past, Parker’s insistent self-focus would seem vain. It would still lead you to wonder why he didn’t just make an actual documentary about anti-black police brutality; it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of tragic stories to choose from. There just isn’t necessarily any room for Nate Parker in them.



The only justification comes at the end, when Parker reaffirms the idea that the world needs to hear Linc’s story. Looking directly into the camera lens, he insists that sometimes the message is so important that the messenger doesn’t matter; that people need to see this movie, regardless of who made it. Wouldn’t that be convenient. It’s true that a lot of people need to hear what “American Skin” has to say. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if Nate Parker is a bad person or just a bad filmmaker — the way he says things, nobody is ever going to listen
Click to expand...
The brotha writer at Indiewire wrote a response critique of the film shortly after his CAC colleague's:

American Skin’: Nate Parker’s Police Violence Drama Isn’t Subtle, But Maybe That’s the Point

The film may as well be titled "For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Vigilantism When Kneeling for the Anthem Isn’t Enough."


PMCHEadshots_2.15.1945926Final-1.jpg

Tambay Obenson
Sep 12, 2019

10376706a.jpg


Nate Parker’s “American Skin” is a requiem on police violence and black trauma that clearly has no intention of having a nuanced conversation on the issues at its core. It’s a film that is plainly fed up with attempting to have a discussion at all — if only because, in real life, dialogue hasn’t led to substantive change: Black men and boys continue to be killed by police officers at a much higher rate than any other group, and huge racial disparities in how police use force continue to exist.

Parker clearly knows who his audience is, and who it isn’t — white people. But maybe that’s the point. It’s not so much that the movie aims to serve as a conduit for discourse, as much as it hopes to give its viewers — a restive black populace, frustrated with a country that refuses to reconcile with its historical and continuous violation of black bodies – a new hero to cheer. In the wake of its Venice International Film Festival premiere, “American Skin” has yet to find a U.S. distributor, but it has unmistakable appeal to an underserved market.

Parker’s approach to these issues is an unapologetically militant, albeit heavy-handed and even topsy-turvy response. But it will strongly resonate with many in its core viewership, regardless of the film’s artistic merits. For them, it’s “Network” newsman Howard Beale screaming, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore,” because, “my life has value!”

In “American Skin,” black father and veteran Linc Johnson (Parker) has experienced the worst of war overseas, only to return to fight a war at home because of the color of his skin. Linc’s first hurdle comes when he sees his son, Kajani (Tony Espinosa), unceremoniously shot to death by a white police officer (Beau Knapp). A year later, after a trial, the guilty cop is cleared of all charges (which, of course happens in real life all the time). As a result, a devastated father, further emotionally impaired by the murders of other young black boys and men, takes matters into his own hands in the most unexpected of ways. And all of it is captured by a student filmmaker (Shane Paul McGhie), who initially sought to make his graduate thesis film about Kajani’s death, and finds himself — with his two-man crew in tow — becoming an involuntary witness to an increasingly volatile scenario.

That scenario unfolds with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It’s a manipulative premise that suggests the solution to one kind of violence is a retaliatory violence. And while vigilantism might be generally frowned upon, it’s a response that black Americans have occasionally had to consider since the days of slavery (themes that were central to Parker’s “Birth of a Nation”), in order to reclaim their humanity, or, at the very least, make an urgent statement. Racial uprisings from the Civil Rights era through today have sometimes lead to violent responses. And any depiction of this reality onscreen is one that will probably resonate with black people. After all, audiences cheered movie anti-heroes like Charles Bronson in the vigilante action movie franchise “Death Wish” (1974), among others.

There’s a good reason why a bold racial provocation like “Get Out” was so embraced by black audiences, for whom the film was pure catharsis. Images of a black man gruesomely slaughtering an entire white family — no matter how justified — are still considered radical. But for a new generation of black viewers, it was like their own “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” Parker’s “American Skin” certainly isn’t “Get Out,” but it could have a similar resonance.

To be sure, “American Skin” is flawed. It’s an angry movie driven by the urgency of its message, and at times juggles its themes with a clunky approach: Many of the debates that are often too on-the-nose, and the script feel more like an early draft based on a provocative idea that’s equal parts “John Q,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “12 Angry Men.” But for its target audience, who are fed up with incremental solutions for a catastrophic problem, it might work as a kind of populist fantasy. Unlike other recent films that have tackled police violence in African American communities, including “The Hate U Give” and “Monsters and Men,” which gently prod, “American Skin” goes for the jugular.

But Parker doesn’t go far enough. The film takes the jarring tonal shift after its first act, and it’s an unrealistic — if not entirely implausible — director. He thrusts the audience into a fantastical scenario, only to eventually succumb to a more realistic sentimentality. “American Skin” is good enough at showing its potential: It’s almost a forceful study of a man becoming unglued after the murder of his son, carrying out an act of public and deadly revenge that leads to martyrdom and revolution. And even if it doesn’t quite get there, the message resonates all the same.

Americans are socialized to believe that they live in a society that upholds respect for the law; that the Constitution protects individual freedom, and the branches of government are there to enforce the laws fairly, through democratic processes. But for these ideals haven’t historically been applied to black people. White racist violence, which the country has increasingly seen under the current administration, continues to terrorize black Americans (and other marginalized groups), with little hindrance.

“American Skin,” however heavy-handedly, recognizes the irony in America’s association with violence as a behavior almost exclusive to black people, while overlooking the depths of violence generated by white racism. It blames the country’s political leadership, educational institutions, and mass media for a population that isn’t educated about the oppressive social conditions that can result in the kind of desperate, seemingly absurd and fanciful action taken by the film’s protagonist. But it’s not any more outlandish than the very real, high-profile deadly attacks around the world that have been committed by primarily white men motivated by white nationalist conspiracy theories.

“American Skin” priorities the internal frustrations and even fantasies of black Americans, and it should resonate with its core audience. They’re likely to overlook its flaws and appreciate its rebellious sentiments — much like its namesake. Parker’s title nods to Bruce Springsteen’s 2001 protest song “American Skin (41 Shots),” which is about Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant who was killed in his New York City doorway when police shot him 41 times, after mistaking his wallet for a gun. The performances of the song resulted in protests by the New York City Police Department, who saw it as an attack on them. Springsteen has stressed that the song is not anti-police, but an attempt to present every point of view, including that of the policemen. Parker’s film is made in a similar spirit, although his sympathies are clearly with the powerless.

It’s also maybe a shot across the bow. And while it should reach a wide enough segment of its target audience, it would be unwise to ignore its potential influence in a world gone mad. When even peaceful protests of police violence face condemnation, and the victims feel unheard, that suppression can become hostile. The film, which won the Sconfini Section Prize for Best Film at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, may as well be titled “For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Vigilantism When Kneeling for the Anthem Isn’t Enough.”
 

Make a Contribution to Remove NSFW Ads
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Al Smith
RIP Dave Parker
Replies
27
Views
825
furlough
furlough
MASTERBAKER
Brazilian doctors are now using tilapia fish skin to treat severe burns,
Replies
7
Views
205
Cannibal
Cannibal
geechiedan
The Fuckboi Bunch got their wish.....New Army Shaving Policy Will Allow Soldiers with Skin Condition that Affects Mostly Black Men to Be Kicked Out!
Replies
19
Views
718
^SpiderMan^
^SpiderMan^
8
The ONE place you don't deal drugs...
Replies
10
Views
324
Ceenote
C
MASTERBAKER
American Black History · · Black food history:
Replies
10
Views
189
MASTERBAKER
MASTERBAKER
Back
Top