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Before this year's Sundance Film Festival was over, the premiere screening of "The Birth of a Nation" had already become the stuff of legend.

Recent reports about the first screening, on Jan. 25 in Park City's Eccles Theatre, said there was a standing ovation for the movie's director-writer-star, Nate Parker, before the movie even started.

That's true, to a degree. The people in the theater's front section were on their feet — but they were mostly Parker's friends, castmates, crew members and investors. The rest of us remained sitting, holding judgment until we saw the movie.

After the movie — a bruising, rousing account of the life of Nat Turner, the preacher-turned-warrior who led one of the biggest slave rebellions in the antebellum South — everybody, acquaintances and strangers, stood for two loud and heartfelt ovations, one of them for when Parker reclaimed the Eccles stage.

"The Birth of a Nation" went on to win the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Sundance, as well as a lucrative distribution deal (reportedly for $17.5 million, a festival record) with Fox Searchlight Pictures. Even in January, it was talked up for Academy Award glory, in part as an antidote to the #OscarsSoWhite lack of diversity among acting nominees in the past two years.

On the festival's last day, at the wrap-up panel known as Film Church, Parker was smiling, humble and grateful for the rapturous reception. It was easily the biggest week in his career.

It was a far cry from an incident in his earlier life, as a student at Penn State in 1999, when he and a friend, Jean Celestin, were accused of rape. A jury acquitted Parker; Celestin was convicted of sexual assault, but the conviction was later overturned and prosecutors opted not to retry him.

The 17-year-old case resurfaced in the media this month after an interview Parker gave to the Hollywood trade website Deadline.com, in which he called the case "one of the most painful moments in my life."

After that interview, the trade paper Daily Variety interviewed the alleged victim's brother — who confirmed that she was shattered by the incident and had taken her life in 2012 at age 30.

Parker, in a Facebook post after that story was published, said he was "devastated" by the news and "filled with profound sorrow."

The retelling of Parker's Penn State story at this particular time, when "The Birth of a Nation" is about to receive national attention (it opens nationwide Oct. 7), has prompted all sorts of commentary about the intersection of public figures and private failings.

It opens a discussion regarding sexual violence and the difficulty of prosecuting rape cases. It touches on the role of race, because Parker is black and because his movie uncovers the harshest aspects of America's history of slavery. And it reignites old arguments about whether an artist's character flaws should be weighed when judging his or her art.

These thorny, complicated issues are often oversimplified into "hot takes," and there are several from which to choose:

Take #1 • Should we side with the alleged victim and hold Parker accountable now for what happened in 1999 — which, as her family tells it, she was never able to overcome? After all, as my court-reporter friends will tell you, an acquittal doesn't necessarily mean he didn't do it, just as an accusation doesn't necessarily mean he did. All an acquittal means is that a prosecutor couldn't make a case that could convince a jury.

Take #2 • The case was 17 years ago. Can we — or should we — separate what Parker may or may not have done then, as a 19-year-old student, from who he is now and what he has done since as a man and an artist?

Take #3 • Should we consider Parker's life, then and now, in comparison with the lives of other artists? Filmmaker Roman Polanski — who fled America in 1977 when threatened with prison over an infamous sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, but was awarded an Oscar for his 2002 Holocaust drama "The Pianist" — is often cited for this argument.

Take #4 • Is there a double standard at work because Parker is black? Woody Allen, who was accused (but never found guilty) of abusing his stepdaughter Dylan Farrow when she was 7, continues to make movies year after year. If Allen gets a pass, why shouldn't Parker?

Take #5 • Why do we expect our artists to be saints? Many artists — Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Michael Jackson are three who come to mind — were reported to be awful human beings while at their creative peaks. Can great art be separated from the people who make it?

Take #6 • As many Sundance attendees already know, and the rest of the world will find out in the coming months, Parker's "The Birth of a Nation" is extraordinary. It is a compelling drama that unearths a piece of history many Americans don't know about, in a way that's confrontational, challenging and uplifting. Does that even matter now?

Take #7 • Does it matter that Celestin, Parker's college friend and co-defendant back in 1999, shares a story credit on "The Birth of a Nation"? Does Parker's association with Celestin in college tarnish the work they've done on this movie?

Take #8 • Is it odd, perhaps obscene, that these questions are being raised in the context of an Oscar campaign? Awards season brings out behavior from movie distributors and publicists that would make the most ruthless political consultants blush. Is that an appropriate venue for thoughtful consideration of bigger issues of crime, punishment, suffering and redemption?

There are no right answers to these questions, unfortunately. Any answer only prompts a response of, "But what about …?", and the whole conversation spirals downward from there.

What happens next is unclear. Many people will be heard from — including Parker, his movie's champions, advocates of the alleged victim, and the Hollywood publicity machine. When those forces have their say, they must be as honest and as open as Parker's movie is in speaking truth to power.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.