racist theme outweighs good movie

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2005)

Birth of a Nation, like all D.W. Griffith movies, is groundbreaking and beautifully shot. It is almost hard to believe that is was shot in 1915. The acting by Henry B. Walthall and Lillian Gish is very good. Yet everything good about this movie is outweighed by its total lack of credibility. Its theme that the Southern whites were the valiant victims of the blacks would be laughable if not so upsetting. The statement before the beginning of Act 2, that this movie was only a representation of the history of the nation, and that no offense was meant towards any race does nothing to dismiss the omnipresent racism throughout the picture.