D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is still great in epic scope, but awful in promoting race relations

Rating: 5/10 (11 February 2014)

All right, after previously seeing this on VHS cassette back in the '90s, since it's Black History Month, I decided to again watch this on YouTube. My verdict: It's quite awesome seeing various filming techniques either invented or improved by director D.W. Griffith, not to mention his risk in making such a long movie (remember, many films of the time were usually shorts of either 10 or 20-minute length). And during the first part before the intermission, one gets involved in the saga of the two families-the Stonemans of the North and the Camerons of the South. And the Civil War battle scenes retain their awesome power though more close-ups would've helped. By the second part, however, which emphasizes the exaggeration of the way various blacks and northern "Carpetbaggers" ruined the Southern way of life and how the Ku Klux Klan "saved" them, one can't help constantly rolling eyes at the racist way one views those exaggerations including noticing how many of those "blacks" look obviously like Caucasions in burnt cork. I mean, how ridiculous does that scene with Walter Long-familiar to me because of his subsequent work as one of Laurel & Hardy's nemeses-as a buck named Gus chasing innocent Mae Marsh look now? And then there's the mulatto Silas Lynch character then going after another virginal heroine played by Lillian Gish. Oh, if you're willing to be manipulated, yeah, they're effective. But it's scenes like those that set back positive race relations back 50 years. As negative as those scenes are, they were probably a lightning rod for the NAACP to take action in taking positive steps in presentation of making their race look like a better round up of human beings for the most part. And because of the Klan's rejuvenation as a result of this film's success, the Civil Rights era of the '50s and '60s probably became possible because-having been used to being harassed constantly-African-Americans would eventually become effective with their non-violent methods not to mention making more intelligent arguments. So on that note, I recommend The Birth of a Nation with reservations. P.S. Looking at the cast list on Wikipedia, I found out one of the cast members was a woman named Madame Sul-Te-Wan. She's one African-American in this movie that would subsequently appear in other classics like the original King Kong and Carmen Jones.