Hateful, mean-spirited propaganda...

Rating: 1/10 (18 February 2000)

It's an absolute shame that Griffith allowed his politics to poison his art. "Birth" is an overly long, melodramatic propaganda piece that is the "original" hatchet-job on Blacks. The effects of this film are still being felt today. Instead of using his gift to further real progress in this country, he chose to create a film that distorts history, while juxtaposing powerful images of Blacks as incompetent savages (or fawning servants) with courageous virtuous whites thereby pandering to xenophobic hate mongers and misguided members of his own race. It gets 1 vote...the minimum.