The Birth of Seventh Art and history written in lightning

Rating: 10/10 (12 May 2007)

Silent motion picture historical epic, about a Southern family's experiences during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction, based on two novels and a play by Thomas Dixon. The movie costed 110.000 $ and was a big box-office hit, (10.000.000 $ in its time, about 1 billion $ today !!) but it also inspired race riots , protests, boycotts and eventually a move toward film censorship laws. Released in 1915, this film was directed by D. W. Griffith and is notable for its radical technical innovations. The Birth of a Nation is considered among the most important and influential films ever made, for its success established not only the feature-length film but also the Hollywood star system ,Griffith as the leading motion-picture producer of the time and motion pictures as an art form for cultured spectators, stunning audiences with its dazzling spectacle of a still-recent event. Until Griffith's time, motion pictures had been short, rarely exceeding one reel; episodic rather than dramatic; and poorly produced, acted, and edited. Griffith's films were frequently several hours in length, contained powerful dramatic situations and vivid characters, and were produced with technical virtuosity. Besides that's why he is often called The Father of the Motion Picture. Unlike most of his predecessors, Griffith used in Birth a variety of camera angles and close-ups, for dramatic emphasis and moved the camera close to the action, using many separate shots with flashbacks, which for purposes of clarification of plot or characterization, introduce scenes antedating those already shown. He was one of the first to use a technique called crosscutting( parallel editing), which involves switching back and forth between different story lines to achieve suspense, and an other called fade-out, a transition from one scene to another by the gradual disappearance of the first scene from the screen. Griffith's extensively collaborator and legendary cameraman Billy Bitzer did a great work, so did Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, Henry B. Walthall and other great actors under Griffith's direction that emphasized an intimate, restrained style of acting suitable for camera close-ups.
The film is also notable for the enormous controversy it aroused because of its "racist" portrayal of African Americans, except the faithful servants, and its very pro southern view of Civil War and Reconstruction era. Griffith traces the disastrous effects of Civil War through the lives of two friendly associated families, Camerons from South and Stonemans from North, divided now by war's storm. When Ben Cameron (Henry B. Walthall) returns to the South after the Civil War, he feels that the region is being torn apart by carpetbaggers and black people in positions of power, like Silas Lynch the mulatto lieut. Governor of S. Carolina, backed from Radicals (Congress's main political force) and their leader Austin Stoneman (a character merely inspired from radical Edwin Stanton), head of Stonemans's House, who promote complete equality between blacks and whites and the crash of South's white dominion.
After Abraham Lincoln's assassination (truthfully depicted), who stood against the severe treatment toward Southern States, Radicals can easily carry out their plans. Meanwhile a love affair flourishes between Ben and Elsie Stoneman(Lilian Gish), Stoneman's daughter. After a black man (Gus) attacks his little sister (Mae Marsh), Ben organizes the Ku Klux Klan, a name adapted from the Greek word kuklos ("circle"), and with his companions rise the ancient Scotland's "flaming cross", to restore law and order in the South, defending the white supremacy and protecting racial purity. A controversial cause in its own time and repugnant decades later in modern Hollywood. Lynch betrays Stoneman and uses his power to force his daughter Elsie to marry him and plans to turn the South in to a "Black Empire". Elsie resists, defending her "white woman's pride", in a scene where Gish gives a great performance. Finally after an epic ride of Ku Klux Klan's cavalry, and the disarmament of the black pro federal troops Ben saves his beloved Elsie from Lynch's hands and sets an and to anarchy and oppression. President Woodrow Wilson was so impressed with this version of the Reconstruction that he said it was "like history written in lightning.".
IMHO Birth's portrayal of African Americans is no more racist or stereotypical than this of other national groups often harshly humiliated by US Motion Picture Industry's products, such as the Germans, the Indians, the Japanese, the Russians, the Romans etc., yet none received so much criticism. Before condemning D. W. Griffith that offered a biased view of black people and glorified Ku Klux Klan, we should consider that he was the son of a ex-Confederate Colonel and he grew up attending stories about the Civil War, the South's humiliation during Reconstruction's era, and Klan's rebellion. Therefore, he saw these historical facts through a southern perspective and put all his ideological passion in his work. So, what? As an artist, he had any right to express his beliefs, controversial or not, and anybody can disagree with him using arguments . Intolerance (1916) was Griffith's statement of feeling persecuted for his beliefs.