Both Versions

Rating: Null/10 (29 February 2008)

Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
**** (out of 4)
D.W. Griffith's landmark and technical masterpiece about a Southern family before, during and after the Civil War. This was my third time watching this film and being a film buff of the early days of cinema, it truly is amazing what Griffith was able to accomplish here. Considering movies of the time barely ran an hour, it's simply amazing that Griffith could make a three hour movie and make it as if this was the common way movies were to be made. The fact that this film turned out so beautiful just shows how wonderful the director was in creating what would become the template of movies for future generations. This was the first American epic and I think you could also call it the most epic film ever made. Considering there weren't special effects at the time, everything we see here had to be done for real and the battle scenes are among the greatest ever created. With a camera up on mountain looking down at the action, Griffith is able to fill the screen with beautiful images of varying aspects of the war. A lot of films around this time didn't know they should fill the complete image of the film and often times we would only see action in the center of the frame but Griffith, since his Biograph days, knew to make sure every inch of the screen was full. These early battle scenes look so realistic that you'd think it was actual footage of a battle. We also have the Lincoln assassination, which the director uses his trademark editing style to create a very suspenseful scene. We've seen countless movies dealing with the assassination of this President but none of them have ever captured the magic of this film. the second half of the film is when we're introduced to the KKK as heroes while certain blacks take over a Southern town and try to wipe out the whites. I'm sure everyone knows the racist ideology behind these scenes so there's no point in going into it here. Back to the technical side, Griffith adds great suspense and keeps it going for the last fifty-minutes while this final battle plays out. It's rather amazing, again considering this young format, that a director could keep suspense going for so long. The way the film is shot and edited really makes for a suspenseful picture and one unlike any other even though the movie's ugliness. Griffith regulars Lillian Gish, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mae Marsh and Robert Harron all turn in fine performances here with Gish and Walthall really sticking out. Joseph Henabery should also be singled out for his performance as Lincoln as he comes off very well and seems to match everything you've read about the real man. In the end, controversy will always follow this film and in today's age you can't even say the word Griffith anymore without a strong debate getting started. This might be the biggest achievement in the history of cinema but it's also the most tainted.
Birth of a Nation, The (1930)
** This review is for the 1930 sound re-issue **
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
The Birth of a Nation, produced in 1914, stands as the yardstick by which all great pictures are measured.
That little bit kicks off this 1930 sound version of D.W. Griffith classic. By "sound version" we don't get dialogue added in ala The Gold Rush and The Phantom of the Opera but we do get a new music score as well as sound effects added in. The sound effects of people cheering have never worked in these things but the gunshots do add something to the film. Another change is that the film was originally shot between 14 and 16 frames per second but for sound the film had to be shown at 24 fps. This here makes several of the scenes look silly but the biggest problem is that the movie only runs 102 minutes, cut from 190 minutes. This edit was done by Griffith himself and I haven't yet read why he cut what he did but some of it doesn't make any sense. One of the best scenes deals with the two friends dying together in the war but this has been cut. Most of the character development has been cut and the suicide at the end has been shown complete (it was cut out in the 1921 and 1927 re-releases) yet the "chase" has been cut. As with the girl's death in Frankenstein, the cuts to the chase actually make the film seem worse than what's in the full version. Another thing missing from this version are the color tints, which certainly add a lot to the film. While this sound version doesn't work nearly as well due to the changes, the film itself still remains one of the greatest achievements in history.
A curious bit of trivia but we almost lost several of the greatest director's ever during the making of this film. Cinematographer G.W. Bitzer was almost trampled by horses while filming one scene so Griffith jumped into the thing to save him. Griffith was almost killed here. Later in filming Erich von Stroheim was almost killed during the Atlanta war battle. Yet later John Ford was almost killed during the KKK scene when his horse went the wrong way and Ford hit a tree. Do a search on Ford's story of what happened next. And then, Raoul Walsh, who plays Booth in the film, hurt his ankle during the scene but he kept redoing the jump to get it right. With his ankle badly injured, it got infected and had he not gotten to the doctor when he did, he probably would have lost it.