It's agony to watch

Rating: 7/10 (31 July 1999)

It's agony to watch this film. One must approach it exactly as one does Triumph of the Will. There is historical significance, and technical excellence, and dreadful bigotry, all in one. DWG was absolutely unconscious of his intolerance; to him, white superiority was so evident that he was utterly unable to see its savage nature, or the vileness of this racist celebration. When, a year later, he tried to repent of Intolerance, he never repudiated this Birth, a birth that triggered the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. The movie is, at the same time, a stunning summation of all that film could do in 1915; the battle scenes in particular hold up remarkably well. Do always remember that many Americans, black and white, condemned its pornographic racism.