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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:
While I was at Blockbuster, I stumbled across their "Classics" section, and I ultimately got <I>The Birth of a Nation</I> as well. It was a film I'd long wanted to see. In fact, about three or four summers ago, I did start to watch it on Google video, but I never got very far. I'm honestly surprised I have to explain this. I figured most people, whether they were into film or not, had at least <I>heard</I> of it, but apparently I was mistaken. So here's some short exposition. <I>The Birth of a Nation</I> is a Civil War drama released in 1915. I believe at the time of its release, it became the highest grossing picture of all time. It was director D.W. Griffith's masterwork and a milestone in the history of cinema. Actually, anyone who's seen <I>Forrest Gump</I> has seen a small segment of this film. As most people know, the technical charm of <I>Forrest Gump</I> was being able to seamlessly place Tom Hanks into differnt historical moments. At the very beginning of the film, he was talking about his ancestor, Nathaniel Bedford Forrest who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Tom Hanks plays that part, and it shows him put on his robe and ride off with a bunch of KKK members in grainy black and white footage. Well, that's Tom Hanks being integrated into the climax of <I>The Birth of a Nation</I>. There, you just learned something.
The film was based on a play entitled <I>The Clansman</I>, and the film originally opened with that name as well. It was controversial in its own time for its overly sympathetic portrayal of the KKK and demonization of the freedman blacks. Needless to say, its content is even more divisive now. And since I assumed more people had cursory knowledge of this film, it actually worried me a bit to check it out, especially since the clerk was a black woman. I figured she'd take one look at the title and assume I was a terrible white supremicist, but I don't think she knew what it was.
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.
But wow, just wow. Okay, the first half of the film is all about the Civil War, so you have your battle scenes and death. Basically, it's about two families, one from the north, and one from the south, how they deal with their friendships and make it through the war. The second half, though... ohh, the second half. The second half is about Reconstruction, and that's where things get somewhat uncomfortable. First of all, while there are mobs of black people, hardly any of them are actually portrayed by black actors, so you get a bunch of people in blackface, and, most of the time, it's <I>really</I> easy to tell. Interestingly, there is a disclaimer before the second act begins, where Griffith writes that he has no intention of offending any race. But, again I say wow. Granted, the film <I>somewhat</I> treats the "blacks" sympathetically by saying they were just manipulated by greedy northerners who wanted to overthrow the southern way of life. Before long, the town is completely controlled by the negro. White people aren't allowed to vote while blind eyes are turned to black people voting twice. Legislative sessions are filled with downright bestial black representatives who sneak swigs of whiskey and ogle white women, and, the pinnacle, one black representative who takes off his shoes and props his feet up on the table until a motion is passed that they must wear shoes. It's pretty ridiculous.
So finally, helpless and bullied, the main character decides the only way to stand up for himself is get all his friends to dress up in white sheets and ride around scaring and passing sentence on black people. And while there are some scenes where characters debate over whether or not this is a good thing, the film certainly portrays the KKK as the heroes of the story. There is a scene where the main character's little sister is accosted by a black man who wants to marry her. He chases her through the woods and up a mountain. She finally jumps off the cliff to get away from him. The effect of her jumping actually looked pretty good, but, honestly, the effect was totally ruined by what happened to her afterwards. It looked to me like she fell a good 50 or 60 feet at least. Let's just say several stories. Now, I'm not physicist, but I would be under the impression that someone who fell from that great a distance would certainly be dead instantly, and, more than likely, resemble roadkill. While I can certainly forgive the film for not showing the carnage, I really do have a hard time accepting that the brother finds her still alive, only bleeding a little at the lip, and that she has the capacity to talk to him for about thirty seconds before she finally dies. SHE JUMPED OFF A CLIFF! So, yeah, I admit my suspension of disbelief was shattered a bit there, much more than the body of the girl was shattered. But I digress.
The brother gets his KKK buddies together, and they hunt down Negro Gus (as he's referred to), and, in front of burning cross (tinted red, of course), they find him guilty, kill him, and throw his body in front of the home of the mulatto lieutenant governor. And the most heroic music is being played throughout all of this.
The climax occurs when the elderly father is found with his son's KKK robes and is to be sentenced to death. The family, chased by an angry black mob, manages to escape and take refuge in a cabin occupied by former Union soldiers. Oh, and I just loooove the subtitle that goes along with the former Union soldiers decide to defend this Southern family. It was something like, "North and South reunited to defend the privilege of their Aryan birthright." O_o Simply amazing...
Anyway, the family is pretty much screwed, as they can't hold off the hoardes forever. But, wait, all hope is not lost! After deposing the tyrannical mulatto lieutenant governor, the noble Klan gets wind of the trouble, and they ride off the rescue. Wowy wow wow. I have never, ever, ever seen a film that portrays the KKK as the heroic cavalry charging to the rescue. The music, of course, was bombastic and heroic (and, just to point out, this is the part that was used in <I>Forrest Gump</I>). It really was like being in Bizarro World. They make it just in the nick of time, chase away the blacks, and all is right with the world.
Ohhh, but the ending. The ending is probably enough to make anyone's jaw drop. well, first of all, the main character gets to marry the girl of his dreams. She had previously dumped his ass when she found out that he was a member of the Klan, but after the Klan saves her life, she comes to the conclusion that they were right all along, and she marries him. Fair enough, I guess. BUT it shows the town throwing the KKK a parade. Then it shows the KKK disarming all the black at gunpoint. And <I>then</I>, as what I assume is intended as a just comeuppance of the previous election where the whites hadn't been allowed to vote, and the blacks swept the ballot, the caption reads, "At the next election..." Then it shows a scene where the blacks leave their saloons, presumably to go vote, only to find a regiment of KKK members pointing guns at them until they behave like good little negroes and go back inside. And, of course, this is played completely triumphantly.
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.
D.W. Griffith would argue that really <I>was</I> the way things were. And it's certainly fascinating to see that perspective. I've always been told that, in an argument between two groups of people, each group has their own side, with the truth being somewhere in between. I would be willing to bet quite a lot of money that the members of the KKK saw themselves as heroic as this film portrays them. Nobody thinks of themselves as evil. But it's also the winners who write history, and the losers who are villified. Had the Americans lost the Revolutionary War, we'd be seen today just like the South is seen in the light of the Civil War: angry, backwards rebels who had to be put into their proper place. Had the Confederacy won... well, I somehow doubt slavery would still exist today even if that happened, but the Confederacy would be portrayed, I'm sure, as heroically as Americans portray themselves in the Revolutionary War: brave people fighting for their freedom and rights. The other day I was reading about the assassination of the Romanovs: the entire family led down to a basement and shot and bludgeoned to death. From the Communist perspective of history, this was surely written as a great victory against an evil, despotic tyrant, similar to hanging Saddam Hussein. From another perspective, it could be seen as a cruel murder of an already helpless family. And had the Nazis won WWII... well, you get where I'm going with this. Everyone has a perspective, and history will either glorify you or villify you in the end, and that's your legacy. Take note that I'm not passing judgment; I'm simply making an observation. To quote <I>Firefly</I>, which was conceived as an "in-space" analogue to the American Civil War, "I reckon everyone who's got a statue of himself was some kind of sunuvabitch or another." Even in an interview 15 years later, he adamantly stated that the <I>original</I> Klan was necessary and good. To those people who argued that his film was intended as a propaganda tool to help recruit for the contemporary KKK, he denied that vehemently, saying that the early 20th century klan was a group of bigots who simply adopted the name of the old organization.
So, in the end, all I can say about the story is that it made me think, which is always a good thing. It's made me want to do more historical research about the time period, at least. It's a perspective that you would never get to see otherwise. As Roger Ebert said of the film: "'The Birth of a Nation' is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil." There is no way in hell this story would ever be made today, and that's probably a good thing. But I do think people should see it. It's a well-made film. Its historical significance cannot be understated, and I think we're far enough along now that it's not going to incite any race riots. But it is rather surreal to think that, at the time this film was made, the Civil War had only ended 50 years prior. That's the same as us making a film today that takes place in 1959! At this point, a film made about the Civil Rights Movement will have the same perspective, timewise, to that film made about the Civil War in that it's still relatively recent history! When <I>The Birth of a Nation</I> was first released, there were a lot of people who were still alive who had lived through the Civil War. It's so hard from my perspective to view the Civil War as that recent! And that just amazes me. So, yeah... I saw a classic but controversial movie.
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 <I>The Birth of a Nation</I> 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. Racism is bad. I strongly believe that. Descrimination against any group of people based on color or nationality or sexual organs is bad. But if you're going to villify Trent Lott you might as well villify Lincoln because, let's face it, Lincoln was a racist. Most people back then were racists, although they wouldn't have been considered such in their time period. If Lott is a racist, then, well, that is a problem. But it doesn't mean he's entirely worthless as a human being. If he is a racist, and that slant begins affecting his political policies, or he begins to burn crosses or beat black people, then there's a definite problem that needs to be dealt with. A hundred years from now, civilization might glorify shit-eating monkey-fuckers. Who knows? And people in the future will look back on us and think us so uncivilized and backwards for thinking such an act vile. Conversely, they might also think that keeping dogs as pets is horribly cruel to dogs and think of us barbarians for daring to do something so malicious. Obviously I'm choosing the most extreme examples I can think of, but who knows? If we are looked down upon for those behaviors and ideals, does that make us bad people? Does that mean we were horrible husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and treated all around us with contempt and hatred? Probably not. I'd hate to close this with a video game reference, but in <I>Mother 3</I> there is a character named Yokuba who looks like a Middle Easter peddler. We are introduced to him through the perspective of a monkey named Salsa. Yokuba treats Salsa horribly. He beats him, gives him electric shocks, makes him perform humiliating acts. Later in the game, Yokuba is shown to destroy people's houses when they don't conform to his ideals. He is clearly intended to be an evil villain. But near the end of the game, after the protagonists have killed Yokuba, they find his house. And outside of his house is a little mouse who asks if Yokuba is coming back. We learn that Yokuba doted on this mouse and loved this mouse, and that the mouse is genuinely sad that Yokuba might never come back. The writer put that in there on purpose. He said it was to illustrate that even the most horrible people mean something to <I>someone</I>, that even those who do horribly malicious acts are capable of love and of being loved. And you can't help but feel a little sorry for this mouse who doesn't know any better, to whom this evil person was his whole world. And while you obviously did what you had to do by stopping this madman, there is someone who grieves, whose world is torn apart because of it. Again, just something to think about. I'm waxing philosophical today...
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
Post Deleted.
Wrong place Olie. Wrong time.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I should have actually read the post a bit first. My apologies to Gaffer Tape and everyone else. Post deleted.
Haha, no big deal. I was a bit disappointed that that might be the only response to what I hoped was a well thought out topic, but I chuckled a bit. There wasn't really any need to delete it.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
No, I shouldn't have been silly here. Not in direct relation to what you posted, anyway.
Once I got over the long text and actually read this, I was very interested. I had never heard of this movie before.
I think I've seen this movie referenced in a few documentaries before. Interesting read, Gaffer - I'd ask if there's to be a video review, but that probably wouldn't be wise on your part to make one.
I'd be interested in seeing this movie at one point.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
Haha, interestingly enough, you're probably right about that. That's why I sent Confused Matthew an e-mail asking him to review it. ^_~
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
I had heard a lot about this movie. I had heard people complaining that it was racist. But, I decided to keep an open mind until I saw the movie for myself. I saw it a few years ago. It is definitely racist. They treat the KKk as the heroes. All the African Americans are played by white people in black face. They depict every stereotype against black people there are. They depict the smart, wise black people as those that know their place was on the plantation and to be loyal to the white masters. I find the movie very distasteful. However there is something about it. It is racist movie, but it is well made.
I actually really hope someone like ChainsawAsh joins this conversation. As a film student, I assume he's probably actually seen this film.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
A black teenager was murdered by a white guy after he'd seen the film. The film prompted groups of white people to attack black people. The KKK was rebuilt based on the success of the film and they used it for recruitment for much of the 20th century (I guess racists like silent film). We can see in this the dangers of absolute freedom of speech. The film was hate speech, plain and simple. It was also the most successful film of its time, which doesn't say much for people's attitudes back then. The film is a major blot on cinema history. Also worth noting is that a common form of lynching situation was when a black guy was falsely accused of raping a white woman and lynched for it. Obviously the film expressed the thinking behind this sort of lynching. The stereotype of black men raping white women appears even in Buffy, when three black men in African garb try to symbolically rape Buffy with magic (season 7 episode Get It Done).
Good post, Gaffer.
Those where some different times, indeed. Hopefully, we've made a bunch of progress since then.
Thanks for the review, Gaffer. It is a film that I have been curious to see as well. The message is reprehensible, but I am curious about the cinematography. I finally saw Metropolis the other day. It is amazing what someone with a creative mind and a bit of technical daring can put on film.
Yeah, I have to be honest that I didn't really know how far out there it was when I rented it. I think I'd only first heard of it when I watched the commentary on Forrest Gump and found out that it was used in that film. And the back of the DVD case goes out of its way to be apologetic for the views contained within. I honestly thought that, like a lot of old media repackaged for modern consumption, it was being overly accommodating for fear of offending sensitive people. At most, I thought it would sympathize with the Confederacy and maybe have a few "Steppin Fetchit"-esque characters, so I was quite surprised with what I got. At the time, I didn't know it was originally premiered with the title The Clansman, based on a play and book with the same title. The DVD actually has excerpts from the book, and it's even more graphic and overtly racist in its descriptions if you can believe it.
Obviously the pivotal scene in the film is when the younger sister jumps to her death to avoid the pursuit of "Negro Gus." The book's analogous scene is with a different female character who was ommitted from the film entirely, wherein a group of black men, led by Gus break into the house of this young girl and her mother, and Gus actually does rape the daughter. The next morning, in shame, the mother and daughter hurl themselves from a cliff. After that is a purely ridiculous scene where Dr. Cameron uses a microscope to read the impression of Gus on the dead mother's retina. Didn't they use that tactic in Wild, Wild West?
My guess is that the movies couldn't get away with something so overt, so the end result is actually a bit strange. Gus approaches Flora in a field and asks to marry her. She freaks and runs off, and he gives chase. Amazingly, he's actually given a line where he says, "Don't run. I'm not gonna hurt ya!" Eventually he chases her to the top of a mountain where she threatens to jump if he doesn't back off. He doesn't so she jumps. From a film standpoint, substituting an action-packed chase sequence was probably a more exciting and less threatening sequence than actual rape, but the "menace" of the black man is greatly reduced. Aside from the poor decision to continue to chase her, Gus really didn't do anything wrong. I don't think he ever even touched her, so the fact that he gets lynched for it certainly has a much more sympathetic context for us than Griffith probably intended like VINH said. But who knows?
Like Warbler said, there is something about it. I think I'm actually going to watch it again before I have to return it. I admit that I do find it a bit embarrassing that I brought up the subject and feel that I have to constantly add several, "I am not a racist," disclaimers to anything I write here. Hopefully, at least, I'm not giving the impression that I am, because I certainly am not.
In terms of censorship, though, I am quite impressed and amazed to find that it is readily available at a local Blockbuster to rent. No matter how grisly or out of date the subject matter is, I am strongly opposed to simply pretending something didn't exist. I wouldn't go nearly so far to say that it's a "blot on cinema history." It's quite a marvel in cinema history, and the more I learn about it, the more amazed I am. It was the first film to extensively use telephones in its production (Griffith ran telephone lines underground during battle scenes in order to relay instructions to different groups of actors), it was possibly the first film to utilize motion photography at night, and it's generally considered the first blockbuster in cinema history. I don't think it necessarily implies that everyone who ever saw the film held the same viewpoints that the film expressed, but, like Star Wars 62 years later, it was just something that everybody had to go see. So in all those respects, it is a crowning achievement in cinema history. It just holds a reprehensible and extremely bigoted viewpoint, which I think is a major blot on the film itself, but the film itself isn't a blot on cinema history, if that makes sense.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
To draw attention to a snippet of your review, I am so glad you pointed out the fact that the Confederacy was not exactly the evil empire the schools like to paint it as today. I am an amateur historian and a direct decedent of a couple of Confederate Soldiers, it pisses me off to no end that so many people think the whole war was about slavery. Yeah, it ended up being painted that way by the war criminal Lincoln, and it did ultimately became a fine sidebar to the war, but it was not the basis of the war. I would have loved to see the South win, simply because I firmly believe we would not have half the problems we have today because of the out of control Federal Government, instead we have more control as States as to how much and where our money goes.
I don't know... do you think the U.S. and the C.S. would have been able to affect WWI and WWII the same way? I have an inkling that the U.S. wouldn't be here at all if the South had won the Civil War.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
Yeah, like I said, it's the winners who write the history. I'm sure the members of the Confederacy weren't a bunch of card-carrying, mustache-twirling villains who hated black people. But since you bring it up, the very interesting thing about the film from the perspective that you bring up is that the film, ultimately, is very overt about being pro-federal government over states' rights, which is probably very surprising considering how pro-Confederacy, pro-KKK it is. In fact, that's where the title The Birth of a Nation, comes from. It states that, before the Civil War, the United States were mere individual states, but that it took all the KKK triumphantly defending itself from Reconstruction (film's view) in order to create a unified nation. I'm really not sure how those two ideals mesh together at all. It seems to me that, whatever you think of the KKK, they were still defending states' rights, but Griffith was apparently very pro-Federal Government and saw the struggles as necessary to bring the union together. Interesting... Hell, this film, the psychological motivatioin behind its viewpoints and its history could fill several theses, methinks, which is probably why I'm so keen to talk on it. I was also very surprised at how anti-war the film was too. I believe it explicitly states its purpose at the beginning to show the horrors of war in the hopes that war will never occur again.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
xhonzi said:
I don't know... do you think the U.S. and the C.S. would have been able to affect WWI and WWII the same way? I have an inkling that the U.S. wouldn't be here at all if the South had won the Civil War.
Very good point, while we cannot perceive what could have been in history, I firmly believe that the type of government the Confederacy was advocating would have won out the country over and the Confederacy would have joined back with the US after the US embraced the idea of a less powerful central government. But that is mere speculation and hope more than anything.
Don't get me wrong, I love the United States and honor it daily. However, I just do not think that the strong central government idea was what our forefathers intended. I am pretty sure that Thomas Jefferson would be less than impressed with how we are today, with government infecting every part of our daily lives. I just believe that the Confederacy was more in tune with the the intentions of our founders. I happen to think that a southern victory would have brought that to the attention of the rest of the country and showed what kind of tyrant Lincoln was and hopefully have ousted him and went back to the roots of the United States.
On that we can agree.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
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.
TheBoost said:
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.
Thanks for confirming that for me. That's what I thought. I wouldn't say that people today don't respect film dyeing. I think it's just something they either don't understand or have no knowledge of. However, it's not like the art is lost forever. Its spiritual successors live on in the forms of gels, lens filters, and post production color correction.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
Gaffer Tape said:
TheBoost said:
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.
Thanks for confirming that for me. That's what I thought. I wouldn't say that people today don't respect film dyeing. I think it's just something they either don't understand or have no knowledge of. However, it's not like the art is lost forever. Its spiritual successors live on in the forms of gels, lens filters, and post production color correction.
I mean 'don't respect' because many of these old films have been preserved in pure b/w (also without the original scores, which is a shame as well). So yes, I guess I mean 'no knowledge of.'
These old silent films weren't these sped up, scratchy poorly contrasted b/w movies with silly piano music, they were epic, moving pictures that had all the majesty and were as impressive by their own standards as the biggest blockbuster today.
One of my favorite silent films (actually, one of my favorite films, period) is Nosferatu, which was also my introduction to film dyeing. I was completely unaware that such a thing was done, but I thought it added a great deal to the feel of the film.
as for silent films, I like Ben Hur and the King of Kings.
I guess I'm goofy, but I loved the old Charlie Chaplin silents.
Nanner Split said:
One of my favorite silent films (actually, one of my favorite films, period) is Nosferatu, which was also my introduction to film dyeing. I was completely unaware that such a thing was done, but I thought it added a great deal to the feel of the film.
That movie is just brilliant, and despite being near 100 years old, scary as all hell.