Rating: 
Summary: People Need to Use Their Heads
Review: Listen folks, just because you watch a film about the forming of the KKK does not make you a racist. In fact, those who are willing to watch the film instead of bashing the film are the smart ones. You can never learn if you never see the mistakes of the past. People need to consider that in this day and age we don't have the time to be mud slinging each other about watching a film! That is what it is, a film; pure and simple. By watching you can gain a more accepting aspect on people and their behaviors, not everyone is a peace loving person. Some make poor decisions and end up going towards hate, to prevent this you need to learn to better yourself as a person. This goes for films on the Nazis as well.
Rating: 
Summary: a great blueprint for the future
Review: This film is spellbinding in its simplicity. I will forever remain the cornerstone for cinema and film study in the United States.
More important, it reveals the truth about reconstruction in the South. This is "truth" not welcomed in today's socialist, politically correct society. Nevertheless, the truth will always stand.
The role of the Ku Klux Klan's honorable defense of the South against a 'kangaroo court' reconstruction government of negros and scalawags is the epitome of good versus evil.
Not only is this film a great view for its innovation, it is a useful blueprint for dealing with the social ill's of the United States today.
Rating:
Summary: Yes it's racist propaganda, but-
Review: Okay, we all know that when it comes to it's handling of Recontruction and the African-American situation, this film is raw, racist propaganda from the poison pen of Thomas Dixon. With that said, there are a couple of good things I can say about it.The "historical facsimilies" are probably what holds up best today than anything else in the film. The actors playing such historical characters as Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, John Wilkes Booth, Ulysses S. Grant, etc. are quite good and the recreations of Lincoln's assassination and the surrender at Appomatox are such that I have no problem showing these segments to my students in my US history class to illustrate these events. Unfortunately, there's the matter of the rest of the film, which has already been discussed....too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have never been put on DVD
Review: (I am a white, southern, Christian, Republican descended from Confederates on both sides of my family, BTW) A piece of racist garbage from the past. This movie helped the rebirth of the KKK in the 1920's. The movie has been kept around all these years because it was a) the first full length motion picture b) the first epic. The truth is, it was NIETHER. Movies made in America may have started to get more elaborate after this film's release (another erroneous credit it's given), but that was because they were starting to catch up with European movies. The movie is STILL in use by the KKK as a recruiting tool. It's easy to see how this movie must have inflamed white audiences of the day. First, the movie is titled wrong, it's about the DEATH of a nation, namely the CSA. It starts out with the "War Between the States". The protagonist of the film is captured by "Yanks", and awaits his hanging. Johnny Reb's wife makes a tearful plea to a cranky and somewhat mean Abe Lincoln, and his life is spared. That part would be almost funny in a way if the movie wasn't so serious in it's racism. In one scene, a black reconstructionist USA Yankee soldier (played by a white guy in black face) pillages a white southern home, while being chastised by a 300lb black Aunt Jemimah type (fat white gal in black face). So you have the "good negroes know there place" cliche`. In fact, every stereotype about black folks is in this film. And for that matter, this film reinforces stereotypes about white southerners all being racist redneck bigots. Anyways,the hot blooded Negro can no longer stand it, and tries to rape a white women. The woman, the embodiment of southern pulchritude (whatever that is) flings herself head first of a cliff to avoid being taken by a Negro. Our heart broken hero holds his dead wife in his arms and cries in anguish (I wonder how many ignorant people joined the Klan after seeing that scene alone?)Then in a scene with a white child frightening a black child with a sheet over his head (not the way the Klan started, BTW), our "hero" gets the idea of how he can save the south...and you get the idea. I see no reason this bit of celluloid trash made it on to digital. If enough people don't buy it, it will go out of print. It may be "historical" in some ways, but then again so is Mien Kampf. Some things just need to die and be forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: David Shepard gives this film its due and then some
Review: D.W. Griffith's 1915 epic wasn't the first full-length motion picture or the first epic. But there's a good case that it may have been the first "blockbuster" film event. After _Birth of a Nation_, American films became more elaborate, more spectacular and more costly. That rough-hewn American emphasis on large-scale epic grandeur persisted up to the era of sound (a mere thirteen years), when new technology made such spectacles temporarily unfeasible. The film itself offers a race-baiting vision of Reconstruction, as interpreted by the now-discredited Dunning School. Woodrow Wilson, another historian in that movement, praised the film for "authenticity," but contemporary historians know that it's all a load of bunk. The real surprise, for people who are familiar with the horrifying, bottomless race hatred of that period, is that Griffith is far more sympathetic to Black Americans than his sources are -- which says quite a lot about his sources. (For another major American film that reiterates the Dunning School party line, albeit in a more moderate form, see _Gone With the Wind_. Or don't.) Video restoration guru David Shepard has done an excellent job in restoring this landmark film (using a 1921 print that cites Wilson's praise), and even includes a half-hour documentary on the making of the film. The score is of recent vintage, but it is well-performed and fits the action. The recent 2-disc release by Kino Video also features several early Biograph films from Griffith, all of them pertaining to the Civil War. If you must buy this film, get the edition with the Biograph shorts -- they're worth an extra ten bucks.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than school.
Review: Every home in america should have this film. It is not perfect, but it is a fairly acurate account of the historical basics. This was made before political correctness. Birth of a Nation also recieved a very high acclaim from President Woodrow Wilson; a democrat who also championed Women's Sufferage, the United Nations, and guided the country through World War One.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant historical drama
Review: Birth of a Nation is one of those rare brilliant films that comes along just a few times in a great long while. It was so magnificently done that even in the 21st century, film-makers are still awed by its' breath-taking style and grand epic inspired perspective. Along with the incredibly well made production comes a history lesson in the Civil War and its' subsequent Reconstruction Period that has been long since banned from public school books and forbidden from rational discussion in historical dialogue. The realities of the barbarism of the Union armies committed against Confederate civilians and the period that followed where White Southerns were denied their civil rights are displayed in the brutality of the era. Griffith's artistic bravery in accurately depicting the KKK as heroes (unlike the degenerates that occupy those roles today) in that time should be applauded. Although I dislike silent films, this film stands as a marvelous achievement and a must viewing for students of film-making and of anyone interested in an accurate perspective of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: First Impressions
Review: It's sad to think that this notorious and rather dismal effort from D.W. Griffith will be the first (and possibly last) silent film encounter for many viewers. Unlike another pioneering feature Intolerance (the main case for Griffith), Birth of a Nation plays out like an overlong American Biograph (the assembly line shorts he made prior to Nation) exhibiting all the trademarks: poor production values, distracting use of blackface, scurrying.... Frankly, if real black actors were cast in the more offensive, leading 'colored' roles, my objections to the film would be more muted as they centre more on its amateurish presentation than on its objectionable political views. Griffith is the pivotal figure in silent cinema, but his work alone cannot contain the creativity and visual splendour of the genre. Still, if you must, this is the definitive DVD edition, a repackaging of the Image edition along with seven civil war biographs, a visual essay and a fascinating prologue. Yes, we'd all love to have a cleaner print and a scholarly commentary, but given the small market for silents, fans have learned to settle.
Rating:
Summary: Cinematically Good
Review: People thought I was crazy when I bought this DVD mainly because of the cover artwork. I had to explain to them that this is a Ku Klux Klan propaganda film, but that also it's one of the first epic films ever made. I watched Birth of a Nation in a film class I took in college, and even though I was appalled and disturbed by the content, I had to look at the film from the perspective that, cinematically, it's a good film, especially since it's a silent film. You just have to look beyond the content, as hard as that may seem, to see the real beauty of it: the filmmaking.
Rating:
Summary: Overblown history, but still alot of truth
Review: I am not much for sitting through this long silent movie but it does have alot of true historical facts, although overblown. The movie does portray the true basis that Reconstruction in the South was not a nice thing. After Lincoln was killed the North vented their anger on the South and made them pay dearly. Theft, assaults, no justice to be had if you did not fit in with the Northern thought. Many blacks were put into state offices to do what carpetbaggers wanted them to do against Southerners. And yes there were rapes that went unpunished, just like Sherman's army did.
It really amazes me the reviews that seem to totally throw out the horrors of Reconstruction suffered by much of the South. This is just a movie. It has some overblown thoughts in it, but it does have a basis if you study the history of that time, but you must do alot of study outside the classroom and mainstream media.
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