Its aesthetic value is immeasurable, however the subject matter of "The Birth of a Nation" really challenges your perceptions and it's frequently an unpleasant experience

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2010)

"The Birth of a Nation" is a landmark in many ways. It's an unquestionable milestone in the history of the world's greatest art form - the cinema - and it has left influence in ways that are both good and bad, majestic and evil. For me, it's also kind of a personal landmark. I saw the movie for the first time about three weeks ago. It's just one of the hundreds of motion pictures from around the world, from various periods in time, that I have seen and yet out of all of those titles, it is the first one where I sat resolutely dumbfounded at the end of it, completely unsure of how I felt. It is a movie that really challenges your perceptions of it and I had so many strong reactions at cross purposes to it that I felt empty for many reasons. Chiefly, I could not decide whether I even liked the movie or not. Three weeks later, I still cannot.
So this review will be a forerunner. I will strictly analyze the movie and my mixed reactions, since I cannot come to a positive or negative conclusion.
First of all, the aesthetic value of "The Birth of a Nation" is immeasurable. This picture, created by cinema pioneer D.W. Griffith, practically reinvented movies into the form that we continue to see them today. Dramatic structures, shot compositions, editing techniques, and themes that seem commonplace today were born in this movie. Doing all of this in a window of three hours and having cost more than $100,000 means it also defined the genre of an epic. Structurally, it's the great-grandfather of "Lawrence of Arabia." For that reason, it demands to be seen by anybody who loves film and the history of it. But it is much easier to admire (aesthetically) than enjoy.
When "The Birth of a Nation" was released in 1915, it was labeled by the NAACP as being three miles of filth (three miles of film used to create a three-hour movie.) I can see their point and wouldn't dare challenge it else sacrifice my own morality on the altars of cinematic history. Like "Gone with the Wind," it is about the Old South. Starting with pre-Civil War, the disappearance of the Old South, and the Reconstruction. However, whereas "Gone with the Wind" treated African Americans with decency, respect, devoid of bias, and as human beings..."The Birth of a Nation" depicts them as mindless, autistic and subhuman brutes. Monsters and rapists. And the murderous Ku Klux Klan are glamorized like valiant knights.
The first hour and a half of the movie is easily enjoyable, for it focuses only on the war. The African Americans are really in the background. The racial animosity does not come blaring in our faces until the second half and when it does, it comes with a sledgehammer. And that hammer hits you harder and harder every second of the way. At times, it's a really painful movie to watch. Now I could have easily enjoyed and admired this picture had it treated African Americans and the Klan from a purely historical perspective, just showing it as it was. But making former slaves into disgusting subhuman monsters and making Klansmen glorified from every angle you look at it is really quite violating. Sure, there has been racial animosity in pictures before and since, but never quite on this scope.
So why am I not giving it a negative review? Because at times, it seems to works. Moments of suspense are truly gripping and the opening war scenes are by all means commendable. D.W. Griffith was pioneering it and mastering at the same time. I hate to admit it, but at some points I was having a great time. Then the racism came sliding back in and sort of lowered my spirits. I suppose it was this and the fact that the Ku Klux Klan does not appear and is therefore not glamorized, until the very end of the picture that I was not affronted as much as I potentially could have been. At times, it also seems like there are no good guys or bad guys at all. The white southerners sometimes even seem to be getting what they deserve when the African Americans turn against them.
I am not giving "The Birth of the Nation" a rating as I usually do. Because I rate movies based on how much I liked them. And I still cannot come to a conclusion about how I felt about "The Birth of a Nation." I had so many opposing reactions to the same scenes and both sides were so strong that I can't even decipher my own emotions. The only way I suppose I could clarify or even get any closer to deciding whether I like it would be to see it again. And I'm not so sure I want to see it again. A hundred and eighty minutes is a long time to subject yourself to a big, inner battleground.
It's a landmark in cinematic history and it must be dealt with. We cannot deny its importance in this great art form of motion pictures. However, I cannot be entirely honest by giving a definitive opinion about it, either. It's a movie that has done a great many things, including befuddling this hardheaded scholar and lover of film.