Nat Turner, leader of a notorious 1831 slave revolt, was a self-styled prophet, his messianic vision revealed in the jailhouse Confessions transcribed by white attorney Thomas R. Gray. Or he was the natural man portrayed by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Or he was driven by a forbidden passion, as detailed by William Styron. He was a revolutionary hero, or a murderer and a madman. Or, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. says in this documentary, “there is no Nat Turner”-the historical man has been lost among conflicting stories. A Troublesome Property features interviews with descendants of Turner and those killed in the rebellion, as well as authors including Styron (who calls Turner a boon to “anyone looking for a metaphor”), and dramatizations of multiple versions of events with a different actor portraying Turner each time. With characteristic thoughtfulness and honesty, Burnett considers the nature of historical interpretation and the responsibility of art.