Rating: 
Summary: Ideology and Art
Review: I find it hard to enjoy any movie, no matter how "important" such a movie was to the development of the film genre, that conflicts with my ideological point of view. As a student finishing his degree in philosophy, I feel that ideas are what drive art, and any piece of art must--first and foremost--be rated through the ideas it represents. Even if it is a "product of its times"; I don't consider this an excuse--even during these "times" there were progressive minded people. "Birth of a Nation" is a film that glorifies the KKK as heroes of the South. Heroes? More like a bunch of racist, inbred hicks. The black characters (who are just white actors with face paint) run amok as rapists and murderers. Shameful. Just because the film accomplished a number of original feats should not deem it a "landmark film"... if Griffith hadn't done it with "Birth of a Nation" others would have probably done it. Just as one shouldn't consider Mengales' sculptures "art", one should not do the same with Griffith's film.
Rating: 
Summary: WOULD BE A "5" IF IT HAD A SOUNDTRACK
Review: How I looked forward to seeing this film when I found out there was a "Director's Cut" finally available. Having viewed several versions over the years on TV, on 8mm and in theaters, it was really exciting to see that one of the truly important films in film history had been restored. Kevin Brownlow in his definitive book on the silent cinema wrote, "The silent film was never silent"...pity that Allied Artists didn't realize this when releasing this tape. Where's a piano or organ? Every version of this film I've seen in the past 45 years has always had some sort of musical score. "BIG DISAPPOINTMENT" -- but what a pleasure to see missing sequences for the first time.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic early American filmmaking
Review: This film is without a doubt is a masterpiece from D.W. Griffith. The film stars the beautiful and talented Lillian Gish along with Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, Wallace Reid, Eugene Pallette and many others. This is definitely not a film for everyone. It's more of an acquired taste that can be appreciated better by those who enjoy silent films and who are well versed in our country's history. The film may seem shocking and appalling to many, but try to watch this film from a historical perspective. That might soften the blow that this film gives the viewers. If you are easily offended, do not watch this film. The subject matter is of a very intense nature.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT buy this movie
Review: Okay, this movie does have much to be proud of. It was a breakthrough for the film industry, and it is the first epic film. However, it is a horrible movie. I am not saying this simply because it is silent. I take a film class in High School, and I have enjoyed many silent films. This movie is bad for so many reasons. First, it is not an accurate portrayal of history. It embraces traditionalist views of "black" reconstruction. In other words, it gives the message of evil raping blacks that are thwarted by the heroes in the Ku Klux Klan. Second, the story takes an extremely long time to progress. This makes for a boring movie. Finally, no one can sit through three hours of a bland silent movie. When I watched it in class, I had to have at least two cups of coffee in me to stay awake. Rent this movie first. If you stay awake, you are worthy to purchase this monstrosity of a film.
Rating:
Summary: A milestone
Review: D.W. Griffith was undoubtedly an artist, a master storyteller, and a visionary in the development of motion pictures. His "Birth of a Nation" is spellbinding as both epic history and intimate love story. The movie's scenes are brilliantly staged and photographed. The use of tints gives this movie a kind of aura. Griffith elicited realistic, natural performances from his talented cast. And the gifted and ethereally beautiful Lillian Gish illuminates the screen whenever she appears. Miss Gish exudes feistiness and strength while looking as delicate as porcelain. She has an angelic face which is quite unforgettable. She makes today's movie stars look ordinary and boring in comparison. The downside of this movie is that it portrays the Ku Klux Klan as noble heroes when in fact they were just a bunch of bigoted murderers. And the film uses racist and very negative stereotypes of black people. It's also disconcerting to see that many of the "black" actors in this movie were actually white people in black face. It looks ludicrous. But Griffith was the wizard who turned popcorn entertainment into artistic triumph and thus changed movies forever.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing masterpiece
Review: Anyone who considers himself a student of film history needs to watch this film at least once. It was the first feature-length (and then some) motion picture. When I started watching it, I was just hoping that I could make it through the three hours without falling asleep. But I was pleasantly surprised when the film drew me in. Considering it was made in 1915, the film is a technological and artisitic marvel. The editing in this film was a major step forward for the art of filmmaking. Lincoln's assassination scene was particularly suspenseful. I was sitting on the edge of my seat even though I knew what was coming. I became very uncomfortable during the last half of the film. I have never, ever looked upon the Klu Klux Klan as heroes, so watching this portrayal of what most of mainstream society views as a hate group was difficult. I kept reminding myself that 1) this was a product of a different time period and 2) the story was pure fiction. But I definitely can see how many people can come to hate this film. Tarnished by its portrayal of the Klan or not, this is still a landmark in the history of motion pictures.
Rating:
Summary: 2 Stars for the Film's Techical Gifts, 0 for the Story
Review: Don't rent, buy, or even watch this film just because it's on the AFI's top 100 list. This film is racist, racist, racist! Hearing it was a classic, I watched it, and, no lie, I really tried to like it. But the Klan glorfication on this film is something I cannot overlook. The fact that the majority of the black people is this film are actually white, and dyed, doesn't at all help this. No wonder this film is still used as a recruitment piece for the KKK! But another thing in this film that cannot be overlooked, is the vast majority of technical achievements. I think it is the only thing that keeps this film from my utter reviewing wrath. Buy it for the technical contributions, but, hopefully, for nothing else.
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult to watch of many levels!
Review: First, The Birth of a Nation DVD~ Lillian Gish, is difficult to watch since it portrays individuals of other origin then the director as lazy or buffoons. However, the biggest problem that I had with the movie was not the content itself. The lack of the normal dialogue screen, i.e., the screen that depicts the important dialogue in a silent movie is missing and therefore, one is left to guess what the actors are discussing. This is not good, since allot of the scenes become confusing and unlike Metropolis, where one understands the main ideas of the character. To think that this was the pinnacle of American movie making at the time is sad in a way, since Lang's movies (even his earliest work) is so much more interesting with better camera work and storylines that get to the point. As far as the actor go, I would have to say that I have seen much better performances and sometimes their gestures are way to exaggerated.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important films
Review: Unfortunately, this was one of the most important films in history. Every High School should show it as part of Black History month. I am a white man who was raised in the South during the racial strife of the 50's and 60's. The story in this film represents what the white people in the South believed was true. This film was a nightmare to whites that were afraid of the blacks. This movie put back racial equality back to nearly the slave days. It was an awful event when it was released. You should try to understand that people believe it and it had a terrible impact on our country.
Rating:
Summary: Superbly executed ideology that underpinned lynchings
Review: Being from the U.K may place me at too much distance too fully take on board the depth of feeling and polemic debate which this movie produces. It makes me rather sad to think that people consider this movie a "good and accurate" history lesson (note that the "good" tellingly preceedes "accurate"). Of course aspects of the film can be substantiated historically, in fact Griffith went to enormous length to consider historic "details" such as buttons on coats and types of thermometers used, not to mention the stunning recreation of battle scenes. Historical accuracy is never the summ of such arcane parts however. As a source for attitudes, tastes and discourses (much contested even then) around 1915 the film is a superb source, and it is for this, and also the visionary formal qualities of the film that it recieves 4 stars. On the subject of the separation of form and content, such a binary is alawys somewhat illusory, but used carefully and pointedly should be illuminating. Finally, and making use of that binary, the content is quite indefensible. Saturating the film is the popular social mythology (rendered with considerable paranoia) of the rapcious lewd black buck, and the pristine, virginal white woman. Such a discourse effectively could deny the masculinity of the black man, and simultaneously (more subtly) keep the white woman in her place also. This far from benign configuration effectively propped up a enduing legacy of lynchings and racial violence. The black woman is conspicuously absent in the film (apart from the one dimensional and, in this case significantly, asexual Mammy). This silence itself speaks volumes about the legacy of systematic and unhindered, unreported, unaknowledged sexual violence commited by white men toward black women. By all means try and watch the film through the eyes of a 1915 movie goer, try and read it enbedded in its context and contemporary history, but this is in no way incompatable with a recognition of its partial and overtly ideological representations of History, Race and Gender. P.S Racism does not presupose racial hatred, though that is often its form. It merely posits the existense of certain key, "essential" (biologised) racial characteristics, that characterise, structure and in many cases limit and demarkate the social potencialities of certain more or less immutable "races". Thus racism can be subtle, appear to be divorced from any extreme "hatred", and propagated in a seemingly calm, collected and rational way (see other reviews in this section). Thus i don't think Griffith's paternalistic view of the black "race" can really be called non-racist.
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