Born in Flames Proves To Be All Too Relevant In 2019

CW: Discussions of sexual assault 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter talking with a number of individuals about the 30th anniversary of Do the Right Thing, editor Barry Alexander Brown noted how, in the summer of 2014, he and Spike Lee had cut together a short film that cut between footage of Eric Garner being killed by police officers and footage from Do The Right Thing showing Radio Raheem also being killed by cops. Watching how reality had echoed a movie released 25 years prior, Brown noted "It's like this shit is still happening". Born in Flames, a 1983 directorial effort from Lizzie Borden, is similarly a film from the 1980s that only feels all the more relevant in the modern-day world as a tale of women of color trying to make sure their voices are heard in a society that will do anything to crush them.

Quiet Dread Informs The Gruesome Violence In Lizzie

All these years later, we still don't know what exactly happened with the murder of Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother. That was perhaps the most surprising thing I learned while doing research on this topic after watching Lizzie, a feature film take on a segment of the life of Lizzie Borden, these murders are still shrouded in so much mystery, with many suspecting that Borden is the one responsible for them. The interpretation of how these events went down in Lizzie seem to be taking an inspiration from theories posited by Ed McBain that Borden killed these two in retaliation for, among other cruelties, Borden's father discovering that she's engaging in a romantic relationship with the families female housemaid.