DON'T FORGET YOUR SHEETS!

Rating: 3/10 (20 September 1999)

It's curious and disturbing to read the warped reviews by Confederate-sympathizers who defend this tripe. "Birth of a Nation" was a well-done movie - technically. But even in 1915 it was very controversial and often picketed. By the 1930's it's overt racism and lies was not acceptable at all; compare "Birth" to "Gone with the Wind" - which was bad enough!
The Confederate Mythology is of a "brutal Northern occupation", and the "poor South at the mercy of black-run state governments". And "Birth" glorifies the subsequent rise of, believe it or not, the Ku Klux Klan. (The movie was based on an older pot-boiler novel called "The Clansman").

The reality is only for a brief period did blacks control the South Carolina (where they were a clear majority) statehouse; they never did anywhere else. The reality is for two years after the Civil War the South was recalcitrant, unrepentant, and brutal to former slaves. It wasn't until 1867, two years after the war, that Reconstruction began. And the only thing that was "brutal" was the how the racist ex-Confederate veterans resisted it at the behest of the Southern oligarchs and the Democratic Party that used the Klan as their Terror Arm to control the ballot box (read "White Terror").
The scene in "Birth" of the white-sheeted Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue against a horde of sex-crazed black soldiers (actually whites in blackface) intent on raping some white women was especially sickening. But to the lovers of the Confederacy, THIS is "history". And it was "Birth" that directly led to the rise of the KKK to major power in the 1920's. Of note is that their power collapsed after it was revealed that their leader had kidnapped a young, white, unmarried librarian, and for days tortured and raped her on a train and a hotel room. She committed suicide, and he was convicted of murder. THAT was the reality of the Ku Klux Klan. And "Birth" is one of the most insidious propaganda deceits ever filmed. But see it - only if you know it is a LIE from top to bottom.