The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Too much of everything

Just perfect...

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Decidedly, this WWI Americas is very conservative: after a War propaganda (Lusitania), an anti-abortion eugenic pamphlet (My children), here we have an Aryan movie, in which old white enemies during the Secession War become new allies to fight the new Black Power! What's upsetting is that the movie opens very differently as maybe the only good movie that brings together Lincoln and a family around the war. Usually, we have movie about Lincoln or about the war but never the 2 scales at the same time. Here it's done and it's quite brilliant in production and in cast. The second part is interesting because previous movies stop at the end of the war (Victory, Emancipation, ...) when all seems good and right while in fact it wasn't this peaceful and empowering road. But here the change is drastic because it's indeed a KKK propaganda: it's maybe the first movie in which i see indeed black people harassing, threatening, humiliating white people, their children, their vote... It's strange and as a citizen, i would be interested if the facts told in the movie are true or not. So that's why it's a good historical piece because you have a lot of things in it to think and that's explain why this is the last DVD in my french for old movies. So the first 20 years of cinema was just experiments to give this first benchmark... we will see...

I've watched this while on a binge of silent-era films and I knew I would come to this film eventually. I expected the racist propaganda, but I was still a bit shocked by how overt it was. Regardless, I knew that it had been praised for its technical and artistic brilliance so I knew it was a must watch. Honestly, I was severely disappointed.The characters are paper thin with little explanation of their motives. This is especially true of the antagonists such as Austin Stoneman and Silas Lynch, who seems to want to do what they do just because they are bad people who need mustaches to twirl. The acting is also pretty atrocious, even making allowances for the theatrical nature of acting at the time. It sometimes looks like some actors are smiling or laughing while in peril or under attack and supposed to be showing fear and terror. The story structure is also pretty poor and different events in the narrative seem to be very loosely connected. Large swaths of the film could have been removed in order to tell a better story. This is even true compared to contemporary films like Les Vampires, released in the same year. Pacing suffers, particularly in the first half of the film in which it languishes introducing characters that won't be relevant for another 2+ hours. The themes are unclear or appear contradictory as well. Griffith's opening intertitles point out that the film is meant to show the horror of war, but the treatment of Ben Cameron's actions during the war are glorified and shown as heroic. Likewise, the final intervention of the KKK is shown as heroic and glamorous rather than horrifying, complete with trumpet fanfares. It's not subtle. Aside from that, there are several references to insidious plans and evil agendas of "carpetbaggers and scalawags" but it's never clear what those plans are or what makes them so insidious. I was left to assume that this evil agenda was equality between the races. In the final minutes of the film there's a reference to "Aryan birthright" without ever explaining what that birthright would be, leaving me to assume that Griffith meant White Supremacy.My research has shown that the film is notable for it's advancements in cinematography, but it doesn't really show. Griffith has gotten credit for introducing intercutting, tracking shots, and close-ups but there are earlier examples of each, several more effective than Griffith's in this film. Intercutting, tracking shots, and close-ups were used in The Great Train Robbery in 1903. 1903 also had a famous example of a close-up in Little Doctor and the Sick Kitten. All of these techniques already existed.Even aside from the horrific racist propaganda, it's just not a good film and there are much better films from the time period. For example, Buster Keaton's silent film The General features a Confederate soldier protagonist with clear motives, amazing shot composition, and a tight story.

It was good during the civil war part. I liked the big battle scenes and the story during that part was interesting enough and everything, but then the second half started and I thought at first maybe the director was going for something that was actually pro-rights for African Americans but then I noticed all the black face, and then the story takes a much darker tone that really wasn't necessary, accurate, and came from a place of ignorance. I know it was a different time, but as the highest selling silent movie of all time, I guess I was expecting something, you know...less racist. Anyway, I guess that shows you that controversy sells tickets, if nothing else.

Disclaimer: I detest the KKK and White Supremacy This is possibly the greatest film ever made. While it is truly deplorable in what it condones and promotes, the propaganda aspect of the film is paralleled only by Triumph des Willens. Watching this movie in 2016 is a constant battle between feeling sympathetic towards the downtrodden white supremacist and remembering that that very same person that the movie is making you feel sympathetic towards is an absolutely terrible person. This movie makes me, a northern Jew, feel bad for the KKK at times. I have never before, and likely never will again, see a movie that I have so viscerally despised yet admired. It's enthralling and dangerous. It comes as no shock that this film helped renew the KKK after it came out. It's an important historical piece and also is possibly still the greatest film made over 100 years later. You need not be, and hopefully are not, a member of the KKK or a white supremacist to watch. Contextualizing it into modern history is something that is incredibly important.