One detail that has been somewhat overlooked in Armie Hammer’s comments about the double standard in treatment between Casey Affleck and Nate Parker during last year’s awards season (for which he subsequent apologized to Affleck) is his revelation that the details about “The Birth Of A Nation” director’s 1999 rape trial (in which he was acquitted) was leaked to the trades by a rival producer. Hammer essentially suggested it was a smear campaign by someone who was looking to knock out what was, until the details about Parker’s case surfaced, considered a lock for an Oscar. It turns out, this might be a bit of an open secret.
Speaking with The Daily Beast, Spike Lee sides with Hammer, saying that he also believes Parker was set up, adding that he too knows who turned those wheels.
“One day, someone’s going to write a book about that whole thing, because I’ve never seen someone fall so quick. I just find it strange that on the same day, Variety and Hollywood Reporter reported [on Parker]. There were some shenanigans there,” he said.
“I know who it is. I’m not going to say who it is,” Lee continued. “But they do that type of stuff. [‘The Birth of a Nation’] was a film that they knew was a lock, so they had to come up with some dirt to knock it out. And they were very successful. It was a dirty, low-down shame. A dope-fiend double-cross. It’s still a great film, too. I’ll go on record and say that’s a great film, and I said it the first time I saw it at Sundance.”
Maybe Hammer and Lee should name names. Certainly, there’s a question about whether the reasons to release those details were altruistic (in this climate, we should know about the backgrounds of artists whose work is lauded and praised) or self-serving (it seems it was probably the latter).
Over a year after Parker’s awards season chances and career came to an end, it seems there’s still much more to this whole story.