Wrong on many levels the film still has the power to make you think and feel

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2009)

Sat down to watch the longest version of the DW Griffith epic I had ever had in my possession, a version running around three hours and ten minutes. Clearly racist, even if it was never intended to be, the film is not really possible to defend on any sort of racial grounds because it was wrong in the day it was made (it really angered many people right out of the box-and it amazes me that Griffith would ever have thought that people wouldn't have been upset) and it still angers people today .Its a mind trip movie and while its aged badly it still has a great deal of power. Its the power in a the creaky old bones that has people still turning apoplectic when ever the film is screened because you want to cheer when the hero rides to the rescue, even though we really shouldn't. Remember that this is the film that manged to change everything about film, culture and history. yes the Italians were doing grand epics and yes the bits and pieces of what we know as cinema were floating around, but here at last it was all put together. a Huge story told in the most modern way. Certainly Griffith's story telling ability is stilted, it always was and always would be, but the way he put sequences together, especially in the later part of the film, changed the way movies were seen. Essentially this erratic film helped speed us to the present.
The film as entertainment is a mixed bag. Some of the sequences are so horribly stilted that they are near unwatchable. The black face make-up is bad, never mind offensive, its just poorly done.(and if you think anyone can justify, even remotely the portrayal of the African Americans you must be mad) The main story of the two families is horribly melodramatic. But at the same time there is something about the film that keeps you watching. The sequences of real life events are mesmerizing, the battle and action sequences (Including the Klan to the rescue) are spectacular and if they seem clichÃ© its only because they have been stolen thousands of times. And as melodramatic as the family story is you do manage to become invested in the romance. The film actually works as an entertainment, even if its uneven (which is what angers many people-they get involved and hate themselves for it). Yes I like the film, though to be perfectly honest I prefer shorter versions of the film since the three plus hour version I saw last evening was just too damn long and I hit the scan button a couple of times.
Is the film worth seeing. Yes. Though understand what you're getting into a film from another time and place that is a creaky as they come and really morally questionable, but still manages to be watchable. See it if for no other reason as to understand where movies came from and to understand the mind set of the worst kind of racism, the sort that doesn't realize its racist.