Birth of a Nation Still Sparks Controversy

Perhaps no film in history is more reviled than Birth of Nation. It is also true that few films have had as much praise showered upon them. For nearly ninety years D. W. Griffith’s epic has spawned debate from both camps. It was a revolutionary film, with numerous technical innovations. It’s also one of the most disgustingly racist pictures you’ll ever see.

I must admit, I’d never seen the film before my first viewing acouple of weeks ago. The contoversy around it had scared me away. The Silent Film Theatre in Los Angeles decided against showing it as recently as a year ago because of protests. But I finally decided to see what all the fuss about with my own two eyes.

Birth of a Nation is really two films. The first dealing with the Civil War and the second with it’s aftermath in the vanquished south. The opening 90 minutes are – even today – amazing. The battle sequences are stunning in their scale (how did he shoot that stuff) and their seeming authenticity.

Griffith tells the story of the war through two families, one from the north – the other from the south. In so doing, we lament the losses each recieve. The first section concludes with a stunning recreation of Lincoln’s assassination.

The second half is where ninety percent of the objectionable material resides. It paints the northern carpetbaggers and the black soldiers as evil, crazed, & violent people. Most of the African American characters are whites, dolled up in “blackface” which makes this all the more unsettling.

In a particularly disturbing sequence that Griffith claims was lifted from a newspaper account – we see the new state legislature goofing off and ennacting a series of useless laws (not to mention legalization of inter-racial marriage, the argument left unsaid that this was just as ridiculous a law as the the others passed).

The white southerners dealing with this reconstruction are shown as sophisticated folks that are living under a tyranical mob. The film argues that they had no choice but to fight back at the powers that be. Suffrage of the freed slaves is seen as a mistake.

Whites are kept from the polls and uneducated blacks don’t take voting seriously. The blacks are made to be the oppressive force as they are led by a mixed race antagonist (definitely a shot at intter-racial unions and their offspring) who is borderline maniacal.

To the rescue comes the Ku Klux Klan as a rag tag policing force to help the southerners take their “country” back. It’s rather disturbing to see the KKK literally riding to save the day not once, but twice, in the fim’s climax. I admit that Griffith was a master at building the tension in the climax with his numerous cross cuts between storylines(apparently a first from what I have read).

There is no doubt the film was a hit. President Wilson even praised the feature before the protests came. That might’ve even spurred it onto greater boxoffice glory (supposedly it was the top grossing f ilm of all time until Snow White). It’s also accused of being instumental in bringing the Klan back from it’s dormancy.

Where do I stand on the film? That’s hard to say. Watching the last half was excrutiating. However, there’s much to appreciate from the movie(especially in the opening). Even the objectionable section has it’s merits – and not just from a technical standpoint.

If anything the freedmen are made so stereotpypical to how whites viewed them, that it argues against racism – it’s simply that ridiculous. I think it should be required to be discussed in high schools and universities. It’s not a film I can really give a rating to, other than to see it for yourself.