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208 out of 253 people found the following comment useful :-
Intersections of film and history, 13 February 2005
Author: Preston Mark Stone from New York, NY

To begin with, let me say that I in no way advocate the views of "The Birth of a Nation." As a person of color, I find the content's film to be almost entirely offensive, and more than anything, sad. As a lover of film and history, however, I understand the film's enormous value.

Modern viewers of "The Birth of a Nation" seem to attack its proponents based on a belief that to appreciate a film is to be entertained by it. This, of course, is not the case - if cinema could only be entertaining, it could never have become the remarkable art form it is. "The Birth of a Nation," while ostensibly created to entertain, is of crucial historical and social value today. Many of its themes - race fear, race war, the myth of the Old South, myths of Black and White sexuality - remain relevant and troubling ninety years after the film's release.

"The Birth of a Nation" is designed, from beginning to end, to lament the fall of the Old South and justify the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. It exploits the postbellum characterization of Black men as sex-crazed and violent, as well as preserving the antebellum stereotype of Black people as simple-minded, childlike and chaotic. White people are presented as well-mannered and well-educated sophisticates longing for a sort of Jeffersonian fairness and fighting to attain it. White folks, the film would have us believe, were fair slaveholders who cared for their childlike slaves, and who were wronged by a Northern occupation that allowed those slaves to become wicked masters.

Underlying this (unquestionably offensive) view of the South are the tangled anxieties of White Southerners. The Old South had fallen; consequently, the institution of oppression used to maintain social order and status was swept away and replaced by an awkward and poorly managed system of reconstruction that sought to provide land, welfare and rights to the newly freed slave community. White Southern men most likely felt emasculated by their failed rebellion; this sense was greatly underscored by the nullification of Confederate currency, the division of land to provide for the Black community, and the threatening presence of a Black vote. It is crucial to remember that, while slavery was unquestionably the major impetus for the Civil War, Southerners rarely saw slavery as a prime issue, and Northerners were largely in disagreement about it; to the South, the war was about sovereignty and the two hundred year-old threat of Northern hegemony, and the federal systems of protection afforded to the Black community served as a constant reminder to White Southerners that their "civilization" was crushed. The Black community became a living symbol for Northern invasion; the "negro manipulated by the North" threatened to take away all White Southern male entitlement - land, political power, and wealth. The central symbol for this was Black male sexual aggression.

The Ku Klux Klan, in the world of "The Birth of a Nation," is the policing arm of the Southern White male imperative to protect land, children, women and honor. It is, in fact, the last show of force for the archaic notion of Southern honor - a "knighthood" former Confederate soldiers attempting to cling to an outmoded sense of honor and glory through terror, intimidation and propaganda. "The Birth of a Nation" is a rare view into how that group viewed itself and its cause.

The Klan was all but dead in 1915, but race issues and racial violence were still very much alive, through such institutions and events as Jim Crow, peonage and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois. The truly disturbing thing about this film, then, isn't its racially charged content, but its reception. "The Birth of a Nation" was a runaway hit, in spite of protests. Its success reveals the disturbing mentality of America in 1915, and I suspect that White viewers unable to overcome the film's offensive content in order to understand its historical and technical value are reacting to an impulse to distance themselves from that mentality. This is probably a good thing; however, to claim that the film no longer has relevance and portrays an extinct mode of thinking is short-sighted and quite simply wrong. Jim Crow, peonage and the Reconstruction-era Klan are gone, but they have been replaced by an overwhelmingly Black and Latino prison population, project housing and a conglomerate of Neo-Nazi groups and right-wing religious organizations who continue to agitate on the grounds of race. Every time we say, "this isn't my problem," or, "those people need to learn to take care of themselves," or, "The war has been over for 150 years! Give it a rest," we become the ignorant White Southerners of "The Birth of a Nation." The film records a mentality which has been with us for hundreds of years, is still with us, and will remain with us unless we pay attention to what our films are trying to tell us, in spite of themselves.

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86 out of 114 people found the following comment useful :-
The Conventional Wisdom is Partially Right, 26 January 2005
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

The conventional wisdom about "The Birth of a Nation" is that it represents an impressive and innovative display of cinematic skill that was unfortunately wasted on a story that promotes a bizarre and disturbing point of view. While that is certainly true in a general way, it might also be something of an oversimplification.

It really is almost like two different movies. The first part, which takes place in the era before and during the Civil War, contains little objectionable material, and it deserves praise both technically and for the acting. The second part, set in the reconstruction era, contains almost all of the disturbing material, and it also is really not all that great in terms of cinematic quality.

Then also, the degree to which "The Birth of a Nation" may have influenced the development of cinema has very likely been overstated . The controversy that it generated may very well have helped it to remain better known than other films of the era that were equally innovative and/or lavish, or nearly so.

If the movie had ended shortly after the memorable and well-crafted Ford's Theater scene, the anti-war sentiment and similar themes would remain the main focus, since the effects of war on families and individuals is depicted convincingly and thoughtfully. In that case, its occasional lapses would possibly at the worst be called "dated", given the quality of the rest of this part of the movie.

The second half, though, is completely unfortunate in almost every respect. Not only does it promote a distorted viewpoint, but the story becomes labored, and the characters lose their depth and become more one-dimensional. The purely technical side, such as the photography and the use of cross-cutting, might still be good, but much of the rest of it loses its effectiveness.

Perhaps more importantly, it really seems rather difficult to justify the credit that this one film gets in the development of cinema. There had already been numerous feature-length movies, and most of the techniques that Griffith used were also in use by others. He may well have been ahead of the pack in terms of appreciating their possibilities, but that does not mean that cinema would not have developed as it did without this particular movie.

Just as one example, the Italian epic "Cabiria", from the previous year, has the same kind of lavish scale, is quite resourceful in its techniques, and is quite entertaining, without causing so much controversy.

Other early feature-length films also include some creative efforts to adapt film-making techniques to longer running times and more complex stories. Finally, many short features from the pre-Griffith era experimented with the same kinds of techniques that he later would use systematically. There's no denying Griffith's considerable technical skill, but others of the era also deserve some credit, even if they and their works were less controversial, and are now largely forgotten as a result.

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56 out of 68 people found the following comment useful :-
The Birth of an Art, 31 July 2005

Author: Cineanalyst

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Before 'The Birth of a Nation,' motion pictures were a medium with the potential to be an art. This movie, more than any afore, realized that promise. It's the most important film ever made; it's the birth of an art. Alas, it's also racist.

Apparently, director D.W. Griffith was ignorant of his own racism; the controversy surrounding the film is said to have dumfounded the naïf Griffith. The son of a Confederate soldier, his prepossession for an antebellum South wasn't, if not still, unusual. Histories of the day, including those by would-be US President Woodrow Wilson, supported his perverted depiction of the Ku Klux Klan saving a South pillaged by carpetbaggers, scalawags and encouraged Negroes. The film quotes Wilson's "History of the American People." Thomas Dixon Jr. himself solicited the White House screening where the President famously responded, "It is like writing history with lightening, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." Dixon's racist book trilogy and the subsequent play were Griffith's inspiration for 'The Birth of a Nation.'

In the film, the American Civil War and Reconstruction disrupt the once friendly relations between the Unionist Stonemans and the Confederate Camerons. The first part of the film is mostly free of controversy; it's idyllic romanticism and melodrama typical of Griffith, absent Dixon. And, the battle scenes are excellent. Explosions, smoke and hundreds of extras fill the action. Future prominent directors Raoul Walsh and Erich von Stroheim assisted the direction. The action shifts between bird's eye views and medium shots, demonstrating vast scope with attention to isolated skirmishes. Including Griffith with 'Judith of Bethulia,' filmmakers had until now failed to realize massive battles with such grandeur. To top it off, cinematographer G.W. "Billy" Bitzer's moving camera shot of the Little Colonel's charge.

The second half of the film, when Congressman Austin Stoneman (an obvious characterization of Abolitionist Senator Thaddeus Stevens) and his mulatto protégé Silas Lynch lead the freed slaves into postwar power, is when the racism becomes overt. Blacks are portrayed as childish morons or as easily excitable brutes--harmless enough if put in their place, such as with the condescending "faithful souls." According to Griffith, it's the mulattos that are especially dangerous, because they posses the cunning of a white with the animalism of a black. What they want is to "marry," which means rape, white virginal women. The film is sexist, too. This is most evident in the infamous scene of the Black buck Gus chasing the childlike Mae Marsh through the woods, to a cliff she leaps from to preserve her purity. It's especially offensive because it's so well done, except for the "Little Sister" ludicrously surviving the fall briefly for a last gasp. The photography sets it apart, and the crosscutting intensifies the classic last-minute rescue attempt, as the Little Colonel enters the action.

Yet, the Klan rescue is by far the most offensive and concurrently most exciting sequence in the film. Griffith and his editors, headed by James and Rose Smith, crosscut between multiple actions, climaxing with the rescue of Elsie Stoneman from the threat of being raped, the Aryans and faithful souls under siege and the whole of Piedmont under the heel of a black mob. To that date, it's the most advanced, amazing montage and remains impressive to this day. Before, Griffith had found how exciting well-edited suspense could be, with 'The Battle at Elderbush Gulch' and his last-minute rescue flicks, such as 'The Girl and Her Trust.' Moreover, a variation of Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries" greatly intensifies the crescendo.

The silhouette of Klansmen riding upon a hill, with the sunrise behind; the moving camera shot of the approach; the angled camera positions: Bitzer and Griffith photograph it brilliantly, too. That is, besides the indoor shooting. Theatricality is the film's major cinematic weakness. This is most evident in the missing walls. The narrative structure is also traditional. Griffith would never do otherwise, and it is certainly not unique for 1915. Moreover, filmmakers were beginning to exploit the advantages of controlled filming within studio sets by now, but the open-air sets with natural lighting, as used here, were still prevalent. And, at the least, the sets here are decorated in detail. Furthermore, Bitzer and Griffith were innovative in their beautiful outdoor photography, with camera movement and positioning, emotive tinting, nighttime photography and good use of split-screens and of masking the camera lens.

The acting is also theatrical, but Griffith did direct his actors to be subtler in comparison to contemporaneous film acting. Lillian Gish rose to the forefront of this style, largely because of this film, which made her a star. She plays Elsie Stoneman, who has the more prominent of the two romantic relationships in the film with a soldier from the other side; she's the epitome of Griffith's ideal virginal white female. I think there are some especially well-acted moments here for its time. The sequence with Marsh using ermine in attempt to garment her ragged housedress for the homecoming of her brother, and Henry Walthall's slow, moving walk towards the front door of home is especially poignant, showing the destitute of the postwar South.

'The Birth of a Nation' is a troublingly racist picture, which is said to have revived the KKK. Nevertheless, its importance in film history and its cinematic merits are immense. There are other impressive works from this time: films by Bauer, Chaplin, Christensen, DeMille, Tourneur and Starewicz. Yet, to say the least about 'The Birth of a Nation,' as far as I've seen, nothing before matches its scale with such filmic innovation.

It runs for 12 reels--having cost some $110,000 to make. Its vast popularity also had incalculable effects on movies as an industry; according to Griffith-biographer Richard Schickel, it grossed more than $60 million by 1917. Its influence, not only on cinéma, is enormous. No other film has been as important to the direction of the medium as an industry and an art.

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69 out of 101 people found the following comment useful :-
VISUALLY ENLIGHTENING AND SOCIALLY DISHEARTENING "BIRTH" STILL A 10., 9 February 2004

Author: Auburn (trashmen@earthlink.net) from Atlanta, Georgia

D.W. Griffith's Civil War shorts were only a prelude to what has become one of the world's crowning cinematic achievements and one of its most painfully embarrassing moments concurrently.

To this day it still causes not only controversy but even verbal warfare amongst friends and critics. But if films were judged solely on their subject matter many of our classics would have been tossed into the garbage hamper. As being such, I will not let that taint my opinion of it.

"Birth of a Nation" succeeds on so many levels its difficult to find a place to start. Perhaps its best to say that Griffith may have considered what he may be starting hence the freedom of speech title screen at the beginning. For not shying away from controversy alone Griffith deserves his merits. His use of tinting is outstanding. Some may say (and they may be right) that Griffith is the father of the modern screenplay. His use of setup, turning point, confrontation, turning point, resolution, and conclusion is still the formula used today and is usually the formula that has graced every best picture winner at the Oscars ever since their 1927 beginnings. The catch: there was no written screenplay. Griffith made this film in his mind as he went along. THAT is genius.

The battle spectacle scenes were unequaled in their day. This wasn't another day's work. This was a big budget, Hollywood, parade of the extras, grand scale masterpiece. One gets the sense that the real war was just getting the war scenes filmed. Father of the close-up, father of the chase scene (on two fronts: individual after individual and group after group), father of showing synchronous events on two different stages, the buildup of dramatic climax, and the list goes on. Outstanding use of camera angles (the perch overlooking the valley during Sherman's march comes to mind here), and historically accurate enactments (Lincoln's assassination) score big as well. This was "Citizen Kane" a quarter of a century before there was a "Citizen Kane."

The acting is surprisingly very well done. Henry Walthall does a fine job as the star of the film but George Siegmann, Walter Long, and Ralph Lewis are three of the most villainous characters to ever grace a silent era film. And I would be amiss to not mention Lilian Gish who absolutely sizzles here. After all these years she is still one of the most charming and beautiful women I've ever seen in my life. Griffith obviously thought so as he used her in his other three masterpieces as well.

But for all of its cinematic showcasing, the film's image will forever be scarred by its outlandish racial prejudices. And make no mistake about it, its a difficult watch. As a white, its still difficult for me. As a black, I cannot imagine. It is so easy for me to sit here and say to separate its art from its viewpoint but that simply isn't realistic. Should it be required viewing? Yes. Would I blame any black for not wanting to watch it or hating it after seeing it? Absolutely not. I understand where you are coming from. The unfortunate thing is that the film could have succeeded without this viewpoint by simply making the south's new oppressors white union soldiers. It IS historically accurate to say that president Andrew Johnson did indeed want to crush the southern elite into oblivion after the war which is one of the things that led to his impeachment. But Johnson, who is strangely not even mentioned in the film following Lincoln's assassination, certainly would not have employed northern blacks to do the crushing. I understand the film was following Thomas Dixon's novel and play but to not even address how Ralph Lewis' senatorial powers overshadowed Johnson's presidential ones and those of Congress' 1866 Civil Rights Bill is proof enough that the film goes out of its way to make northern blacks the villains. Griffith's only defense, and it is a SMALL defense, is that southern blacks are still apparently our friends. Griffith was the son of a Confederate fighter which may explain some of his views. But certainly he did not want to be a hate-monger. He tried to apologize with the making of his next film, the masterpiece "Intolerance." He certainly had black friends on the set during the making of "Birth of a Nation" but this harks of the classic case of the good man who doesn't realize that some of the things he is saying are hurtful. I don't think it really dawned on him. This however is a trivial compensation at best.

But at the end of the day, D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" is still a landmark achievement not just in film but in popular culture. After its release film became a way of life for America instead of a treat you helped yourself to once in a while. Not until Hitchcock would a director ever again be the star of his own films, wielding a control and vision so unique that their name is forever welded to our memory, for the better or the worse. So many firsts. So much controversy. And controversy,ironically enough, has been Hollywood's middle name now for the last 50 years.

The nutshell: absolute required viewing for all things considered. Watch with caution and prepare to be disturbed. Not being able to watch it is easily understood. One of the 100 greatest films of all time...10/10.

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46 out of 59 people found the following comment useful :-
Simple in appearance, but speaks volumes, 12 October 2003

Author: mozart182

This is a film which every movie buff really does need to see, for two reasons. 1) It shows how far the movie making process has come, and gives us all a way to truly appreciate some of the other early films, and how far the moviemaking technology advanced between 1915 and the 1930's. and 2) It also allows us the chance to appreciate just how conflicted our society has always been, not just today. Many of the other reviewers have labeled this film as racist garbage, but it truly does represent one group's view of society at the time, and gives us a great way to understand some of the driving factors behind the race relations problems we would have later. In particular, during the Civil Rights battles that would take place during the 1950's and 60's in the deep South.

The film is the story of two families, one Northern and one Southern, and how their lives would be intertwined during and after the Civil War. It focuses on two sons who fought in the war, and the effects their fighting would have on their families, mostly focusing on how one son would go on to be the founder of what we now know as the Klu Klux Klan. What I found most interesting is that a group we now speak of in such evil tones are represented in the movie as the defenders of all that is good and holy. When put in it's historical context and we realize that President Woodrow Wilson talked about the movie in such high praise, it gives us a real appreciation for how the world we live in has changed.

In particular, though, pay attention to the battle scene in the movie. What seems to us to be extremely simple special effects, were the highest technology available at the day, and viewed by the public as an incredible work of storytelling. When taken in context, you can only be impressed by Griffith's storytelling abilities, no matter what you thought of the story.

While the movie is no great work by today's standards, and I actually found it very hard to watch considering it's simple style as compared to today's movies, I think this is a movie you definitely must see. It gives one a real appreciation for how far movie-making technology has advanced, and makes us realize just how much different our society is now than we were just one century ago.

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46 out of 67 people found the following comment useful :-
Good start but degrades into lurid melodrama, 7 July 2004
Author: gkbazalo from Scottsdale, AZ

I have watched this film several times over the years, and I find the second half dealing with reconstruction a little harder to watch each time. Although its racist viewpoint may have mirrored much of America in 1915, it obviously was not the only viewpoint, since America had its abolitionists in the early 1800s. Griffith endorses just about every wretched stereotype put forth by the south during and after reconstruction, namely the venality of all northerners and the baseness of all blacks who did not completely bow to whites. A good example is that the disdainful depiction of the black-run state legislature is based on a cartoon, not an actual photograph or contemporary description. Griffith's portrayal of northerners and blacks is completely from the point of view of a white southern racist. Although I greatly admire much of his work, he deserved the criticism he got for this film. Aside from the political racism, much of the second half of the film is just silly melodrama, even based on 1915 standards and other Griffith work.

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47 out of 70 people found the following comment useful :-
Consider--it's 90 years old!, 3 October 2005

Author: sharkey197 from United States

As I read these comments on this most controversial film, what is coming across is a surfeit of emotion that any film rarely engenders. I wonder if any of our modern films will be able to evoke such passionate response 90 years from now and the fact is, I think not. Yes, the film is racist. Yes, the film is a watershed for cinema. And no matter what you think of it, it's still got people stirred up, ready to scream and yell and be appalled, disgusted, outraged, etc. Can there be any doubt as to its greatness if it still has such a life today? Its greatness certainly doesn't lie in its subject matter, but in the fact that this silent film can provoke such reactions in a generation weaned on computer graphic images, a generation that views the silents much as they view watching a parade of fossils drift by. I am literally stunned by the power of a piece of film to move so many so long after it came into the world. Perhaps its greatest lesson is the impact films have on us and our society and how powerful those moving images can really be. Something tells me that 90 more years will go by and this message board--if it's still here--will be still be getting impassioned opinions from those who have just seen Birth of a Nation. My word--what immortality!

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30 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Is the historical importance of this film greatly exaggerated?, 26 April 2006
Author: L. Denis Brown (ldbrown1@shaw.ca) from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

I saw this film at a small "Art House" theatre when I was a graduate student. It was supported by program notes, and reviews of the film by respected critics, these stressed Griffith was a trend setting director who had made significant contributions to modern cinema. I remember three major developments were attributed directly to him, firstly his use of a mobile camera for tracking rather than bringing events to the camera; secondly pioneering the use of close-up photography in the cinema and thirdly the incorporation of pseudo-documentary sequences (e.g. the assassination of Lincoln) into a fictional story. I therefore watched this film with great anticipation; but as something of a young idealist I was more and more sickened by what I then felt was glorification of the KKK, and afterwards I was bitterly disappointed by my evening. I decided that if I ever watched TBOAN again it would only be when I was better informed both about American history of the period and about the work of other contemporary Hollywood film-makers. It is now 60 years later and I see "The Birth of A Nation" is scheduled to be screened on TCM next month, so probably the time has come to watch it again; and perhaps comments based on my original viewing so long ago may be appropriate at this time as the impressions I now have of this film will be those that have been with me for most of my life.

Films showing conflicts must present both sides as believing utterly in the righteousness of their cause; but historical films also have at least a moral responsibility to ensure the material shown has some reasonable approximation to historical accuracy, and whenever possible the convictions of both sides should be equally fairly presented. Most of the criticisms of TBOAN on this database derive not from its sympathetic presentation of the KKK but from the fact that this is presented as the only side which is relevant. We need to remember that slavery was introduced into human society back in prehistoric times - it was usually associated with a recognised obligation on the part of the slave-owner to provide a reasonable standard of living for his slaves, and alternative mediaeval societies from which slavery had been eliminated often did not do even this for their dispossessed citizens. Members of ruling classes everywhere lived a lifestyle which required the full time labours of many slaves or underprivileged workers to maintain, and only after the invention of the steam engine did it become possible to picture a world from which slavery might eventually be eliminated. Although this then probably became inevitable, its elimination has still not been completed; and in the United States it took place in an appallingly destructive way, part of which is pictured in TBOAN. Every nation has shameful episodes in its history which have and will cause distress for many generations before they are gradually outgrown. Recognising that the American Civil War did not result only from a dispute about slavery but much more from a whole range of economic and cultural issues, I appreciate that it would be grossly improper for me as a Canadian to seize on some of the controversial aspects of TBOAN as an excuse to condemn the film. I will re-watch it as a valid and important effort to document the concerns of the group of citizens it featured (although I will still reserve the right to feel Griffith should have made more effort to also document the concerns of those with opposing viewpoints.) My concerns here are directed more to assessing the importance of TBOAN in the development of the modern cinema, and I currently find myself siding with the relatively few users who have commented that its significance seems to be greatly overrated. When I first saw this film I had seen relatively few of the important early silent films, and it was easy to accept claims that Griffith's work was of overwhelming importance. Now I have seen other contemporary works; and have also come to appreciate that all surviving copies of about 90% of these works have totally disappeared (whilst probably half of the 10% of which copies still exist are not available for home viewing even from specialist libraries as the only copies are located in inaccessible archive collections). This is not brought out clearly by most of the 200 user comments on this film listed by IMDb, and it is so important that it has led me to pen these further comments. Film-makers in the silent era were extremely productive - Griffith himself is credited by IMDb with having directed over 500 films, most of them silent, and several other directors/producers have well over 100 films credited. Since so few survive, we must recognise how far our current assessment of early directors might change if we were able to see and compare more of their works. I believe that many innovations in film technology have been exclusively attributed to Griffith primarily because of the ready availability today of copies of 'TBOAN', 'Intolerance' and 'Orphans of the Storm'. I found this feeling very strongly reinforced when I had a rare chance to see a screening of Lois Weber's 'Hypocrites'. Weber was, for a time, the highest paid director in Hollywood and received a best director award in 1916 (ahead of Griffith, just one year after he released TBOAN). All I will say at this point is that, although I am admittedly relying on rather uncertain memories, I believe 'Hypocrites' was more stimulating for its innovative cinematographic techniques than 'Intolerance'. It would be interesting to know whether other database users have had similar thoughts about this or other early works.

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22 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
What does it mean to say something is 'Politically Correct'?, 17 July 2000
Author: Dan Gatti (satya232@angelfire.com) from Greensboro, NC

I don't think there's ever been a more maligned phrase than "politically correct" out there; the words immediately evoke a kind of liberal pseudo-fascism that some would have you believe is dominating freedom of speech and thought around universities and media outlets everywhere. I'm not so sure about that, but I am concerned at the counter-trend, of things that are labeled politically incorrect now proudly sporting that label as if they were a rebel, a David fighting these psedo-fascist Goliaths. That is hardly the case. D.W. Griffith's movie, far from being a politically incorrect movie unfairly condemned by the liberal elite, was a movie that perpetuated and, to a certain extent, created a Southern Myth that was damning to black people all throughout the country. The scary bit about this movie is not that it is one voice amoung many giving a personal recount of reconstruction. The movie is not presented that way, nor was it received that way. Until the 1960s, this movie WAS the commonplace, everyday understanding of reconstruction, understood by both Northerners and Southerners (aside: notice how the movie intentionately put as much distance between Northerners and Southerners as possible? The enemy is blacks and "radicals" (who were nothing of the sort), not Lincoln or the union soldiers. The movie was trying to appeal to a Northern audience).

Anyone who ever complains about the political correctness or historical "revisionism" of today's academics, see this movie. And understand, that it is the work of historical "revisionists" that are responsible for teaching the facts about our nation's history, grasped out of the hands of fictions like Griffith's horrific Birth of a Nation. And don't be so smug about complaining of political correctness in the future.

And don't try to seperate this film as an artistic work with the historical perspective of the film. Keep in mind, this film was not only a portrayl of history, it was also a *part* of history. It served to defend racial segregation, lychings, and the Klan at a time when all three of those were very real political issues. It is not a coincidence that the greatest period of lychings and Jim Crow laws came shortly after this movie. In short, this film oppressed people. So don't treat it like it existed in an entertainment vacuum, unaffected by and unaffecting everything else around it.

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47 out of 88 people found the following comment useful :-
Bad History, 28 July 2003
Author: jdab from Champaign, IL

Anyone who thinks that this film depicts real history is seriously deluded. One commenter noted that the KKK was fighting for a good cause during Reconstruction, but not now. I guess to him good causes include killing and intimidating freed slaves who were merely attempting to exercise their rights to vote and make a living.

Griffith's portrayal of Reconstruction black politicians is not only racist, but blatantly untrue. Only in rare instances and for a short time did black representatives control any Southern legislatures, and this at a time when they were the majority of voters in many Southern states! For years teachers of Reconstruction have emphasized carpetbaggers, but have ommitted the fact that the post-Reconstruction governments were founded with the explicit purpose of disenfranchising blacks and violently enforcing their underclass status. For this reason and others, Birth of a Nation's claims to historical accuracy would be comical, if not for the horrific implications of the film.

That said, this film should be seen, mainly because it provides a document of a poisonous way of thinking that is by no means dead. It also represents the pop cultural moment when Northern and Southern whites reconciled over the memory of the Civil War, mainly to the detriment of blacks. Lastly, those who want this film burned only give ammunition to the idiots who still praise the KKK. It's better to let these jerks hang themselves with their own rhetorical ropes than to let them claim victim status.

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