The Birth of Filmmaking ...

Rating: 8/10 (7 August 2013)

There are two truths regarding D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation": it IS a cinematic landmark AND a disturbingly racist -much more- racialist film. If technical greatness doesn't redeem from the controversial content, blatant racism can't cancel out the revolutionary achievement either.
I read my recent review of Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" where I conceded that if anyone could make a masterpiece of propaganda, there couldn't be an 'objective' masterpiece happening to be propaganda, for instinct of superiority is morally low and easily aroused. The fact that it doesn't take much efforts for a director to win the hearts of a specific audience, contradicts the universal and timeless appeal of Art, that can only be reached by attempts to reach truth, beauty and justice.
Let's face it, "The Birth of a Nation" while not totally inaccurate, encapsulates the most abject aspects of the Old South's mythology, reviving a myth that can no longer appeal to any decent audiences from any part of the world. Not every piece of Art should carry grand values, we can have art for the sake of art, but "The Birth of a Nation" can't get away with that excuse for the film was made with a clear and explicit purpose: it was meant as a historical film, chronicling, only 50 years after, the Secession War.
The Civil War was recent enough to leave some unconcealed wounds in the heart of many Southerners. And the fact that the film pretends to be humanistic by vilifying the War shows an unspoken parallel between the Union and Confederate Armies' brotherly bonding at the end and the same waste that painted in bloody red the mud on the European trenches. But the 'treacherous' reason of such hellish depiction relies on the emphasis made on the "Liberty and Union, now and forever" as the film's motto, to convey an uglier message: the Black is the enemy. However, there's no doubt that if not the message, the technical achievements stood the test of time.
The War sequence is made of magnificent crosscutting between panoramic shots and individual fights, and the action is cleverly punctuated with brief sequences involving the protagonist's families. The film, unlike "Gone With the Wind", operates in several fronts: the South where the Camerons live, the North where the Stonemans lives (Stoneman is a fictionalization of Thaddeus Stevens) the battlefield, and Washington, Lincoln's headquarters. And through Griffith' bravura directing, we follow the lives of these protagonists during three separate acts.
The pre-War period features a bucolic postcard-like South, where men with chivalrous looks court young and playful ladies. Then the War sweeps off everything and concludes with Lincoln's assassination, recreated with such historical accuracy it felt like real footage. Then, the reconstruction part forever soiled the film with the black paint on white actors told to act like 'savage beasts'. Although it's impossible to close the eyes on such aberrations, we shouldn't overlook the film's age: its context is as historical as the Civil War and ethical standards don't excuse chronological leaps when it comes to criticism: the film is an inevitable masterpiece.
In fact, it's as a great film as America is a great nation, whose greatness was built on the ashes of such crimes as the Natives' genocide and slavery. These are stains on America's heart and it's befitting that the seminal film of the country of filmmaking would carry the same racism that forged the nation. Especially since the film works like a mirror of an era when things were different: some people were racist, other were not, some others believed they were only honoring the heritage of the South and were truly believing that peace depended on a separation between Whites and Blacks, hence the fact that the good 'blacks' were named 'faithful souls'.
Again, this patronizing attitude doesn't excuse the black faces, but they contrast so much with the historical perfectionism of the War sequence that they speak more negative statements against Griffith's genuine naivety than the Black community. So, if the film doesn't speak the truth, it says its own truth about the standards of the Day and the way History of America was still misread, when people needed a scapegoat to justify the ruin of Civilization (today, there can still be a "Birth of Nation" with Arabs as the evil-doers). As for the other purposes of Art: beauty and Justice, within their own debatable subjectivity, they do complete each other for the sake of entertainment.
To make myself clearer: we all resent the Ku Klux Klan ideals, and we don't believe that Blacks were the one-dimensional evil renegades or carpetbaggers who plotted a vengeful destruction of the South, but the film efficiently created two sides: the good guys and the villains, and at the end, through an operatic apotheosis, the 'good' guys triumph and 'Justice' is restored. Within the films' intellectual limitations, we're absorbed by the romanticism of the action and the iconic culmination with the climactic Ride of the Clansmen under the Valkyries' music, the film's most iconic moment.
The clansmen go rescue the Cameron's family trapped in a Union veteran's cabin. The inter-cutting between the different protagonists, the music, the fast-paced montage and the final confrontation, are so perfectly handled that we watch the film for what it is: a heart-pounding epic. And if I said that there couldn't be a masterpiece of a propaganda, maybe it's because it wasn't intended as propaganda, explaining why Griffith, baffled by the racist allegations would make one year later "Intolerance".
Still, I believe "The Birth of a Nation" should have been kept on AFI's Top 100 Movies and not be replaced by "Intolerance" for politically correct reasons. The film, despite its content is one of the most important movies ever made; its impact on directing, editing and storytelling is invaluable. Without "The Birth of Nation", there would be no movies, not even those to contradict its message.