A revolutionary film that was ahead of its time - with a hateful and wrong message.

Rating: 8/10 (28 August 2016)

Beforehand, I highly condemn the message this movie has. The high rating is solely based on the qualities of the film in regard to the craft involved in its making which is, objectively, just phenomenal for its time.
What makes this silent historical epic revolutionary are the enormous battle scenes, involving hundreds of extras and a director directing from a big tower via light signals, its use of music and camera, filming at night (which wasn't common back then), coloring of specific scenes (mostly battle scenes) in one color and a battle in the films' climax used as a tool of dramatization and storytelling. The film paved the way for big epic movies which would mark Hollywood forever since then. At a running-time of over three hours it was the longest film to ever be released back in 1915.
Obviously, due to its racist portrayal of black people this movie is not for everyone but if you are interested in the history of Hollywood you've got to check it out, while ignoring the historical inaccuracies and racist bull crap Without this movie Hollywood wouldn't be what it is today. It would not have impacted America and its film industry that much if it wasn't done so well.
Even when ignoring the racist viewpoint this was made from you don't get around to notice the historical inaccuracies and at over three hours this movie seems a bit too long for me even though its an epic. Plus several characters weren't fleshed out enough. Of course, this is due to the fact that this is a silent film and it was made over 80 years ago with different narrative standards at the time but from my viewpoint, which is currently set in the year 2016, I simple cannot ignore it and it bothers me. And again, the racism in this film simply feels overbearing sometimes, the director even went so far to cast mainly white actors for the most vicious black characters, simply painting their faces black. But as I said, I tried to not let the racist overtones of this film affect my rating. Overall I give this movie a strong 8/10. I only give higher ratings to films which really touch me on an emotional level and the pure viciousness in its portrayal of an entire group of people makes this impossible for me.