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...
