The Earliest Masterpiece?

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2012)

The Civil War divides friends and destroys families, but that is nothing compared to the anarchy in the South after the war.
I wish to use this review as a defense of this film. It is considered one of the most controversial films of all time, and while I do not deny that it has earned that honor, I think it deserves a solid defense from those who would call it racist.
The opening frames say the film is intended to show the abhorrent nature of war. And the position given to the South is that it is defending the sovereign right of states. Slavery aside (and we will all agree it is a terrible crime), this is a legitimate position. President Lincoln did violate the rights of states and forced countless Americans to die. Viewed in this light, it makes sense and is understandable.
Lillian Gish denied it was a racist film (for what her opinion is worth), and D. W. Griffith himself was by no means a racist. He was personally hurt when accused of making a racist film, and had previously made a film condemning the Ku Klux Klan. His job was to tell a story, not to embrace the perceived message of the story being told.
Roger Ebert said, "The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil." Ebert does find the second half of the film racist, but the question remains: through whose eyes are we seeing this story? It is not true history, only the history told in the South.
Regardless, it is still the first blockbuster. We have to give credit to a film that runs over three hours, raked in millions of dollars and funded the beginning of MGM and Paramount. We owe the creation of thousands of classic and current films to this one film and D. W. Griffith.