The Birth of a Nation

Rating:
Summary: Biased Perspective
Review: What can one say about this perplexing film? Technically significant and even a landmark achievement on one hand; hopelessly biased and unredeeming on the other. After weighing the pros and cons, I settled on the cons. The film will and can never change its unconstructive perspective, which to my mind cancels out its technical achievements. One of the most unfortunate films to be placed on any best-films list.

Rating:
Summary: Lillian Gish, the Civil War, and more....
Review: I finally got around to watching D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

I do enjoy the silent film genre. Costumes, setting, acting, subtitles...all enjoyable, even over the length of this long movie.

Lillian Gish...like her in this movie too. Beautiful with backlit hair, and emotes well in silent films with expressive eyes.

The music I enjoyed too, and it supports the plot pretty well. Since watching Ken Burns' Civil War, which had good music too, I've been working on some Civil War era pieces on the piano and harmonica, and it was interesting to hear old and lively renditions of the same period songs. Even heard in one battle sequence 'Flight of the Valkyre' which is used to this day in movies (one of the Star Wars movies?)

I also liked Griffith's on-screen footnoting of scenes, like where he says such and such a scene is based on so and so's book. One of these book's, 'Campaigning With Grant', was already on my civil war reading list.

Griffith tells the long story well. It's a long plot. Lots of actors. Battle sequences pretty exciting, even by today's standards. The first half of the movie which covered the Civil War was all I expected from this 4th D.W. Griffith silent film on the civil war. And I remained engaged throughout.

The 2nd half of the movie covering reconstruction certainly suprised me and I began to raise an eyebrow or two. In the intro he asks the viewer for some latitude and freedom to show the dark side of evil in order to show the bright side of virtue, and I was willing to give him this latitude. And I was willing to grant him additional lattitude for outdated sensibilities. Still, the 2nd half of this movie tests the limits of this latitude and is a little disturbing. I'm not sure if I intrepreted this all as he intended, and am unsure if his apparent glorification of the klan represents for him the bright or the dark. I tend to think for Griffith, or at least the book on which the movie is based, the tumultous reconstruction is the dark and the klan was the bright savior of the post-civil war reconstruction south, at least that's what seems to be portrayed. Thus the controversey and discussion that surrounds this movie.

I think I liked his drama-based controversey-less films better. This seems to be a case of good movie-making, but bad message. But I can see I will have to now watch 'Intolerance' and read some critical analysis of Griffith and these movies to understand more of what is going on.

Rating:
Summary: Essential historical viewing
Review: In all fairness to this highly controversial film, there are representations that are typically not mentioned that show both sides of the coin. I think the reason this film gets such violent reactions from American viewers is that it depicts an uglier side of American history that most of us are not comfortable with, especially not to see it reinacted onscreen in such a dramatic way.

Whether the actions depicted on the screen are historically accurate or not is not the point. The fact that there is probably some historical grain of truth is enough to validate this film as a period film of great importance to American history. By comparison, I sincerely doubt that other civil war era epics such as "Gettysburg", "Glory", and "Gone with the Wind" are entirely accurate in every detail either, yet we use them as educational tools and not just pure entertainment.

Americans typically prefer their history to be romanticized to a large degree and I feel that this will always be the case. Would the average American movie-goer feel comfortable with films that depict Spanish conquerors chopping-off the hands of native tribes, or a film that accurately depicts the Trail of Tears, or a film about greedy robber-barons gate crashing desperate strikers? I doubt it. Such is the case here. If you believe our educational system is an institution of brain-washing, and you enjoy controversy for it's own sake, and despise the very thought of censorship, then this film is for you!

Rating:
Summary: Wasted opportunity
Review: May 1, 2002

This DVD is a wasted opportunity. The transfer is okay,
but the uninteresting documentary included included here
is compiled and narrated by an unknown historian with the
most droning, lifeless intonation since "Mr. Ed." There is
little else in the way of extras.

The most seminal and controversial Amwerican film ever
made has been snuck out the back door.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Historical Document!
Review: "Birth of a Nation" is the classic movie from D.W. Griffith which shows two families (north and south) during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. The first half is the best, as it shows the Civil War, with beauty and drama, climaxing with a sweeping Confederate charge towards the end of the war and then Lincoln's assassination. I especially love the portrayal of Lincoln as the sad martyr dealing with all of the issues of his administration, and the portrayal of his assassination is excellent. The second half, Reconstruction and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, however, is disgusting and a little frightening, but.....it serves very well as a historical artifact showing the feeling and mentality at the turn of the century. Remember the sickingly racist day these people were living in when they made this movie.....it is a product of the time, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to witness the ignorance of the turn of the century. But all in all, "Birth of a Nation" gets a thumbs up in my mind. Get out there and see it, if you want to see a great historical document!

Rating:
Summary: Scary.
Review: It's hard to believe people ever thought this way. This was truly a new way to make movies. Before this, cameras were stationary and the actors moved in front of them. After this, cameras moved and the actors behaved in a more natural manner. Still, the plot is disturbing. Don't watch this if you are easily offended.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and infuriating
Review: I show this movie, or at least the last 40 minutes of it, to students in my classes as part of our debate on artistic freedom and censorship -- because I know I can count on it to offend them. In fact, the reason I have bought a copy of the DVD is that the department's old video copy is worn out by now from the number of times it's been used in class. By every possible moral measure, this movie is incredibly offensive, with its crude racial stereotypes, its rewriting of American history to portray white Southerners as the "victims" of Blacks who claimed their political rights as voting citizens after the Civil War, and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan. And it can't be dismissed as "just a movie," because its release had real consequences, leading to race riots, lynchings, and worst of all, the re-formation of the Klan, which had almost entirely died out before the movie was released.

And yet, as any historian of cinema can tell you, it was technically and artistically a landmark, the first movie epic, the first really ambitious effort at complex story-telling and spectacle in the new medium. Every movie epic that has been made since then owes something to this film. All of this makes for some very lively classroom discussions: should this movie still be shown to public audiences? If someone wanted to show it on this campus as part of a program on the history of cinema, would you support their right to show it, or would you protest the use of your tuition and fees for a purpose like that? Do we want to be accused of "political correctness?" Do we want to be accused of inciting to riot?

So, do I admire this movie or hate it? Well, both. That's why I split the difference between 5 stars for artistic merit and 0 stars for political irresponsibility, and averaged them out at three.

Rating:
Summary: Only for historians...
Review: If you are an average cinema-goer and you mistakenly walked into a room that was playing the Birth of a Nation on DVD, I guarantee you will be bored to tears. It doesn't hold up today, at all. It's melodramatic. It's actors pantomine. It's 3 hours of silence! The only reason the average cinema-goer may remain interested is to see another example of Griffith's extreme intolerance towards Blacks. I contend that the film's racism is a major part of its appeal today.

However, for the film buff, The Birth of a Nation is essential viewing, for this is where it all started. It's still not an easy watch, but patience is rewarded. It has, like Griffith's other success, a thrilling conclusion, where the KKK (for the one and only time playing the good guys) save a white family from a negro attack.

If though, the young film buff has chosen this as his first silent, he would be wise to choose again. Choose a Buster or a Charlie to get acquainted with this strange medium first. They are shorter and have a sense of humour. The Birth of a Nation is overlong and hasn't got one joke in it.

It's an historical artefact and because of this, it retains an element of fascination but watched as a movie, it doesn't hold up.

Rating:
Summary: Auggghhh!
Review: I had to watch this film in a graduate cinema course and I hated it. Mae Marsh is somewhat affecting, given how badly written her role is, and Henry B. Walthall is rather dynamic and expressive, but the first half of the film is a slow-moving, silly melodrama, with a few good battle scenes. The second half of the film is... tripe, with Griffith blatantly covering his tracks (note the caption about the state house scene based on a photo is of a different time than the scene takes place--which cuts to an empty courthouse before dissolving to racist shenanigans).
This was used as a Klan recruitment film in the seventies, a testament to its vehement racism. I'm surprised audiences didn't walk out in the tedious first part (Griffith made far better films, before and after, by the way--his short films hold up quite well as period pieces).
The problem is that this was the first epic feature film in the U.S., although feature films date back several years prior, even in the U.S., and epic features had been popular in Europe. After the premiere there was a huge lynching of black people, a fact many film historians want to supress or simply don't know. To top it off, only the minor black characters in the film actually are black, the major ones in ridiculous-looking blackface, the contrast making the film all the more disturbing, especially when the film retains Thoms Dixon's severe fear of miscegenation, or specifically, of black men raping white women, when that was exceedingly rare. Many critics at the time thought Griffith tempered out the racism of the Dixon novel and play (_The Clansman_) he based it on (recognized even then as bigoted propoganda)...
I can neither like nor recommend this film, though there are many silent melodramas I do like, this is most definitely not one of them, a cruel joke on everybody, and really an uncharacteristic work from Griffith, who, for the most part was a truly great filmmaker, and 490 of his 495 films (mostly shorts) survive to prove it. It's a shame he is best remembered for one of his worst films, which really deserves a two for the few good qualities I have mentioned (it loses points for overshadowing Griffith's best work), but it really is a terrible film, both in terms of entertaining qualities (or lack thereof), offensive qualities, and a technical polish far below that of Griffith's shorts.

Rating:
Summary: History Written with Lightning (Woodrow Wilson)
Review: The Birth of a Nation is uniquely important to the history of cinema. The Birth of a Nation was the Birth of film as an independent medium, no longer just an off-shoot of theatre. Before The Birth of a Nation, films were shot from the proscenium perspective. Even the much touted Great Train Robbery was a flat film, the galloping horse scene being no more really than a running proscenium, and the rest of the film a stage set of a single car, with two actors, and all the train's riches in that one car.

In making The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith scrapped the proscenium entirely. Most of the film was shot from one of the character's point of view. The rest of the film was shot from a bird's eye view. Griffith, an original thinker, put the camera on a cherry picker.

Scenes in The Birth of a Nation follow actors through a house, shows reaction shots, close ups of hands, of props. Characters read letters, then the camera shows the letter, the actor's face in reaction, the intertitle, then the letter again. Nothing like this had been done before.

This is the historical importance of The Birth of a Nation. It won't be obvious to people in the 21st century who are not students of film, and some people may not find witnessing a slice of film history enough to spend four hours in front of the TV.

However, this is a very effective film. The trick is getting a good print of it. If you have choice among different editions, choose the longest. You have the best chance of getting enough footage included to have a complete story, and a film that will be shown at the correct speed. Silent films of this vintage were shot at a different speed than sound films, which is why they so often look jerky and too fast when they are shown on an ordinary sound projector.

Amazon offers eight or nine different prints of this film on video. They are of varying prices, and varying run times: I found run times of 124min., 125min., 158min., 159min., 190min., and 207min. although the prices don't increase incrementally with run time, the 207min. version is the most expensive. It's also listed as Black & White and Color, which makes me suspect some of the original tinting may have been restored. Spend the money for the 207min. version. (I'll confess: I own an 8mm print.)

Is the film racist? Yes; in fact, if you go to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. when there is a film memorabilia display, you can see a contemporaneous letter to Griffith from another film director asking Griffith to explain the racist overtones in the film. Griffith never answered the letter.

Personally, I think Griffith explains himself well enough in his title at the opening of the film, when he writes of accepting responsibility and placing blame where it belongs.

But the racism in the film is not in the triumphal ride of the KKK at the end of the film. This scene may look magnificent, and is a great piece of filmmaking: the reports that it inspired young men to join the KKK are doubtless true. However, the clan did occasionally have, for lack of a better word, "celebrations" like this, and Griffith is allowed to show it on film if he wants to. The fact is that the ride is integral to the plot, but some people in attempt to tone down the racism have, when showing the film, cut a scene that makes clear what terrible thing the clansmen have done just before the ride.

The Cameron family, a Southern family with fathers and sons on the rebel side, also have two daughters. One of the daughters, Flora, the cherished baby of the family, is stalked and attacked by a recently freed black man (the typical accusation of the clan). This is this crime that causes the clan to first take the law into its own hands in the Cameron's town. Representative clansmen let the Camerons know this, and of the coming triumphal parade through the town. The Camerons, less than pleased with vigilante justice, refuse to endorse the march. This isn't going to look so good, since Flora Cameron is their raison d'être, and all. So the clansmen forcibly subdue and kidnap the Cameron's other daughter, Margaret, and sit her on the horse along with the clansman at the head of the March.

The camera films the triumphal march from the front, with pathetic Margaret Cameron, looking half dead, half off the saddle, held tightly by the actor on the lead horse.

So both the "uppity" blacks and the clansmen are not so different; each has appropriated a Cameron woman to its own purpose.

Griffith's ultimate point, now that I'm finally getting to it, is to show the South in total disarray after the war. Newly freed black people are not getting their forty acres and a mule; they're not receiving education.

Whether blacks ran amok in Restoration South or not is a question for historians; in the world of this film, they are running amok, because the North has broken all its promises to see to it that they are given the means to function as free people. The North has further broken its promises to help the South to rebuild.

Griffith is saying that the after-war problems of the South, answered by vigilante justice, are not the result of Southerners being of weaker character than Northerners, but trace their pedigree to the bad faith of the North.

That choosing to make this point using racist stereotypes, and playing people's fears is a good approach to making his point is certainly debatable; if for no other reason, it is certainly the reason that the film has trouble finding viewers today. But really... is it worse than Gone with the Wind?