Film History - This Is A Must See

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2009)

The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 silent film. The movie is based on two of Thomas Dixon's novels The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots. This early film is noted for its innovative technical and narrative achievements and is studied in virtually every Film History 101 class in colleges and universities. Of course it also provokes controversy due to its treatment of white supremacy and its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan.
Originally this film would have been presented in two sections with an intermission in the middle. The first half depicts a before Civil War America and introduces two families, the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons. The Stonemans visit the Camerons at their South Carolina estate. The elder Stoneman boy falls in love with Margaret Cameron and one of the Cameron sons, Ben (Henry B. Walthall), pines for one of the Stoneman daughters, Elise. Of course the Civil War breaks out and the young men join their respective armies. A black militia (with a white leader) ransacks the Cameron house. The Cameron women are rescued when Confederate soldiers rout the militia. Meanwhile, the youngest Stoneman and two Cameron boys are killed in the war. Ben Cameron is wounded after a heroic battle in which he gains the nickname, "the Little Colonel," by which he is referred for the rest of the film. The Little Colonel is taken to a Northern hospital where he meets Elsie, who is working there as a nurse. The war ends and Abraham Lincoln is assassinated at Ford's Theater, allowing Austin Stoneman (meant to parody real life Congressman Thaddeus Stevens) and other radical congressmen to punish the South for secession using radical measures supposedly typical of this period of the Reconstruction era.
The second part depicts Reconstruction. Stoneman and his "mulatto" follower, Silas Lynch, go to South Carolina to observe their agenda of empowering Southern blacks via election fraud. Meanwhile, Ben, inspired by observing white children pretending to be ghosts to scare off black children, devises a plan to reverse perceived powerlessness of Southern whites by forming the Ku Klux Klan, although his membership in the group angers Elsie. Shockingly a former slave proposes marriage to the other Cameron daughter, Flora. She is scared by the former slave, Gus (Walter Long), and runs off into the forest pursued by him. Eventually she is trapped and then leaps to her death. The Klan hunts down Gus and lynches him. A crackdown on the Klan is then ordered by Silas Lynch (George Siegmann). The Camerons flee fro the black militia and hide out in a small hut which is home to two former Union soldiers who agree to assist the Camerons.
Meanwhile Lynch tries to force Elsie to marry him. Disguised Klansmen discover her situation and leave to get reinforcements. The Klan, now at full strength, rides to her rescue and takes the opportunity to disperse the rioting "crazed Negroes." Just then Lynch's militia surrounds and attacks the hut where the Camerons are hiding, but the Klan saves them just in time. Victorious, the Klansmen celebrate in the streets, and the film cuts to the next election where the Klan successfully disenfranchises black voters and disarms the blacks. The film concludes with a double honeymoon of Phil Stoneman with Margaret Cameron (Miriam Cooper) and Ben Cameron with Elsie Stoneman. The final frame shows masses oppressed by a mythical god of war suddenly finding themselves at peace under the image of Christ. The final title rhetorically asks: "Dare we dream of a golden day when the bestial War shall rule no more? But instead-the gentle Prince in the Hall of Brotherly Love in the City of Peace."
D.W. Griffith, the film's director, agreed to pay Thomas Dixon $10,000 for the rights to his play The Clansman. Since he ran out of money and could afford only $2,500 of the original option, Griffith offered Dixon 25 percent interest in the picture. Dixon reluctantly agreed. The film's unprecedented success made him rich. Dixon's proceeds were the largest sum any author had received for a motion picture story and amounted to several million dollars. The film is estimated to have cost Griffith a total of $112,000 causing him to seek out many different investors. At the film's premiere in Los Angeles the title was The Clansman but it was later changed to The Birth of a Nation to reflect Griffith's belief that the United States emerged out of the Civil War and Reconstruction, ended by the Klan, as a unified nation.
The films stars Lillian Gish as Elsie Stoneman and Mae Marsh as Flora Cameron. They must be credited for causing some of the stir that arose when the film was released. Not only is the film polarizing, but as the black men in the film are being portrayed as sex crazed and violent men after these so innocent white women had to bring about a response. To stir up this type of emotion in 1915 is an impressive undertaking by D.W. Griffith.
As you watch the film you can't help be confused by part one and two as they look and appear to be two separate movies spliced together. Part two is the section with all of the disturbing material and does not match up with part one which has more cinema techniques. Watching the film without keeping history and film history in the back of your mind, one can easily find the film tedious and hard to keep your attention. It is like eating aged cheese, it takes a refined pallet. If you have an interest in film history and how we got from there to here with styles then this film is a must watch.