Gaffer Tape said:
So yesterday I rented The Birth of a Nation. I had long since wanted to see it, and I had seen the beginning of it a few years ago via Google video, but this is the first time I'd watched it in its entirety. Due to the discussions in the Politics thread, this seems relatively topical, and I'd like to get a discussion started on it. Right after I watched the film, I wrote down a lengthy review of it, if you will, and I will post it here:
I came home and popped this three-hour epic into my computer. And... wow. I'm really glad to have watched it. From the perspective of a film historian it is fascinating. I do enjoy silent films. Seeing some of Griffith's attempts at early visual effects, like the double exposed elements depicting the burning of Atlanta, were quite impressive for 1915. I also like the way he would tint the film's color to depict the mood. For example, any scene depicting fire was dyed red. I assume this was in the original film and not done later. I mean, it makes sense to me that, since they couldn't film in color, a good alternative would be to dye the film itself to create certain moods. So some scenes are in blood red, some in blue, some in beige. Quite interesting.
There is just so much to say about this film. But, of course, I shall tread very carefully... As a work of cinema telling a narrative, I have to say it does a very good job at what it sets out to do. It actually succeeded in portraying the Ku Klux Klan as defenders of justice, and the main southern family as very sympathetic, while, conversely, making most of the black characters seem evil, amoral, dangerous, perverse, and all around underhanded. Whether that's at all historically accurate... that's a different matter altogether. All I'm saying is, that as a story, it works. Hell, that's the reason it created such an uproar at the time of its release: because it works. The people fighting against its release argued that very thing: that it had the power to influence people that that was the way things really were.
P.S. There actually is one more thing I want to add. Again, it's about perspectives. Here's a good example: Abraham Lincoln is today seen as a hero (and I should mention that his assassination is depicted in The Birth of a Nation and is seen by the southerners as a terrible tragedy) and champion of race relations. Any accusations that he's a war criminal and that he suspended habeus corpus and broke the laws of the Constitution are always swept under the rug in order to portray him as a hero and a great American. Obviously if he had failed, we'd be talking about his faults rather than singing his praises. But, of course, it stands to mention that Lincoln did not at all want the races to be equal. Most people do know that, but, again, it's not really talked about because Lincoln is so awesome. Conversely, when the whole Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott controversy came out a few years ago, it got some people talking at Ole Miss that we should take Lott's name off of the building that's named after him. First of all, I thought that the "scandal" was totally blown out of proportion based on a flattering comment Lott made at Thurmond's birthday party. But just because Lott said that Thurmond should have become President doesn't automatically mean Lott's a racist. And even if it does, it doesn't automatically negate his total value as a human being, although some might argue that it does.
I've never seen the entire film, my university film library had a 90 min version. I'm shocked a Blockbuster carried it... but as a former Blockbuster manager, I'd be even more shocked if a clerk knew what it was at all.
Dying old b/w films was an awesome process that people today don't respect (the opening of Wizard of Oz is supposed to be sepia toned, but on some versions they've taken it to straight b/w). Chaney's Phantom of the Opera had some green and red scenes, and the flag in "Battleship Potempkin" was sometimes painstakingly handcolored red, frame by frame... imagine how awesome that must have seemed back then.
It's hard sometimes to seperate the brilliant art from the hateful message, similar to watching "The Triumph of the Will" (I have similar issues with rap music, which both fascinates and repulses me). But there's no denying this film practically invented the genre of narrative film as we know it today.
Trent Lott's an interesting case. Does an off-the-cuff comment about how proud you are that your state voted for Strom Thrumond and his "I Hate Equality" party make one a racist? I wouldn't call it a point in his favor, but it did seem to get a bit out of proportion (as opposed to Joe Wilson saying that Thurmond's half-black daughter should have remained hidden so as not to besmirch Thurmond's good name is a bit harder to dismiss).
But even Strom Thurmond ("There are not enough soldiers in the Union to make us accept the nigra race into our theaters") was not entirely one-sided evil. He was notable for filibustering against civil-rights, but he also was widely praised an an enemy of lynchings and although he kept her in hiding, he financially supported his half-black daughter at the same time he venhemently opposed her rights.
Kind of a rambling response, you threw out a lot of food for thought.