Birth Of A Nation - A Review

     Page Two Hundred Fifty-Six.
     I was in a terribly foul mood last weekend because my landlord decided to cut down most of the mature evergreen trees which dotted the apartment building I live in. I loved those trees. I felt like someone had tossed an axe through my chest when I came home and saw the homicide scene. So to deal with my temporary deep depression, I watched the movie Birth Of A Nation. I figured I was already in such an awful mood, nothing else could possibly make it worse. And I've been wanting to see this movie since I was a teenager anyhow, which is when I first heard of it.
     BOAN was made in 1915 and is considered the first full-length motion picture. All cinema prior was 20 minutes or shorter, so character development and plot was very simplistic and understated. D.W. Griffith, BOAN's director, had already made many of these short movies and was quite adept at technique and style; and if he were working today, he'd probably be an Oscar-winnining director. In fact, I'm sure that any 2014 college film class still spends much lecture time on him and this flick. The technical advancements of this film are numerous and important.

Birth Of A Nation - the Klan vs. the rapists

     BOAN has many elements of any modern blockbuster: war, battle, blood, dancing, heroes, bad guys, horses, romance, etc. In a nutshell, the plot is  the story of the pre-civil war era, the civil war itself and reconstruction: essentially 1855-1875, or so, in South Carolina. However, it also contains a brand of  racism which is so over the top that it raised eyebrows even BACK THEN!!! The NAACP which was 6 years old at the time, went on a rampage over this movie. Lawsuits attempting to ban the movie started immediately. President Wilson, watching the movie in the White House, BOAN being the first movie screening there, allegedly said, "it is like writing history with lightning".
     D.W. Griffith, a southerner who's father was a Confederate officer, made a movie which is so gruesome in its portrayal of African-Americans and Northerners, it's like the history of Israel being written by Osama Bin Laden, literally. The second half of BOAN illustrates how and why the Ku Klux Klan was born: to protect all white people, even northerners, and happy, meek, black servants, from the multitudes of newly-freed, gun-totting, swaggering black rapists. Imagine how extreme racism would have to be, to be considered unsuitable, even in World War I era America and you have BOAN.
     The response surprised Griffith. He claimed that he simply had no idea what he was saying while creating this film. His follow up spectacle, Intolerance, made in 1916, was his apology and is about just exactly that: intolerance of any people based upon their race or creed. I saw that lavish movie sometime during the 1990's and it's also fantastic. And here-in lies the conflict for any cinephile trying to review BOAN based upon it's merit as a flick and not as a political statement: good luck. Pretty much all reviewers and film historians believe it to be one of the 100 most important movies ever made, based upon it's artistic and technical achievements.

The stage set built for Intolerance

     I'm VERY used to watching ancient, silent, black & white flicks, so I was okay with all those elements. (The day before starting BOAN, I watched The Iron Horse, 1925, just wonderful. Perhaps I'll talk on that movie another time.) My biggest artistic problem with BOAN was the length: 3 hours 15 minutes. Griffith's inability to edit was almost as bad as his resentment at the North for winning the Civil War. But the editing problem not-withstanding, this is a movie worth watching and even owning a copy of if you're an extremely serious movie buff (which I am if anybody wants to give me a copy for my birthday, November 21st).
     Birth Of A Nation. My score: 10/10