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_Birth of a Nation_: cinema's problem child? (1 Viewer)

Seth Paxton

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Kenneth, nice point about the "Why We Fight". I guess what Ken is saying is the kind of thing I'm talking about above.
 

BrennanZ

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Oct 27, 1999
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The NAACP did not censor this movie. They merely protested it. Censorship can only come from governmental edicts, not private businesses or special interest groups. Don't blame the NAACP for protesting. Blame the theater owners/managers for caving to the pressure.
 

Dave Hahn

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Seth and Kenneth,
I understand your argument and agree with it, to a point. Your discussion of the plot elements and themes of BOAN, Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, Saving Private Ryan, and Unforgiven are indeed an interesting academic discussion. I don't think that's what Jack was asking. He was asking a question regarding the real world, and in the real world, as opposed to the academic or intellectual worlds, art has real meaning and effect.
In both Saving Private Ryan and in the Why We Fight series, the Axis powers were our mortal enemies. They were attempting to take over the world and kill anyone who got in their way. It's okay to cheer when you see a fictional (or real) movie about your then real-world enemies being vanquished. I, for one, refuse to apologize for winning the war.
It is impossible to discuss the implications of Birth of a Nation in a vacuum. It has real world implications, and I believe we should be discussing those, and not the more cerebral issues regarding the film.
Al,
That was a great article and nicely stated the depth of the differing sides of this argument. I'm really interested in where you stand on this issue.
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Seth Paxton

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Dave,
The majority of people WERE racist, unless you are saying the racists had all the power, otherwise why did it take so long for a black to make it to MLB, star in Hollywood films, become President (whoops, not yet)...??
You are confusing racist with violently racist. BOAN could exist because a racist society tolerated it, not because a minority of racists pushed it through.
And speaking of the violence, you really think it took a movie to make those racists kill blacks?? Come on, what you are saying is that movies make people do stuff, which means that Columbine DID occur because of Basketball Diaries, and that by eliminating BOAN blacks would have been spared.
Getting a bunch of cruel rednecks worked up may not be a good thing, but you still need the cruel rednecks in the first place. Unless you are saying that BOAN made blacks kill blacks as well??? If not, then it is clearly NOT BOAN that made racists kill blacks, they already had it in them and may have already lynched people before that. Only the violent racists took "lets go kill blacks" out of BOAN. In that respect, BOAN is a nice litmis test to find violent racists. Anyone leaving the theater with a noose in hand, lock em up.(if only it were so easy
wink.gif
)
And finally, you defend us cheering on the heros in our films because they are on our side, they are right...how do you know? Maybe you are just like those racists leaving the theater in 1915.
As pointed out, films like "Why We Fight" were made to make people want to kill the "enemy". There are 2 reasons that Ben-Hur, Star Wars, etc don't result in people being killed like BOAN did:
1) Romans, Stormtroopers, etc are not near at hand when you leave the theater
2) You must already have a violent nature, or be prone to being led by other violent people
The last time I checked, America did get pretty uptight about "Commies" and "Japs" within the last 50 years, right? Was the red scare nothing? McCarthy did NOT destroy peoples lives? Japanese Americans were NOT rounded up into camps? People did NOT fear/hate Asian Americans during WW2, or Russians/Communists after WW2? Propaganda does get people worked up.
In my opinion, we see the legacy of BOAN everywhere, including films like Red Dawn or The Deer Hunter. Those films depict the killing of Russians, Cubans, and Vietnamese as a good thing, and certainly ensite an angry response to those races during the film.
Yet Russia and Cuba have not gone to war against us ever. And I'm sure not all Vietnam POW camps made prisoners play Russian roulette. But I wonder what reaction a Vietnamese man would have gotten outside a Pittsburgh theater on the opening night of DH, or a Cuban in Tulsa after RD just let out. I bet it wouldn't been hugs and kisses, especially if liquor got involved.
I'm not against those films, or against cheering in those films. I'm just saying that it's dangerous to go off half-cocked about right and wrong in American film. BOAN got made and many people loved it. That in itself is more a documentary on America at the time than any other film made, IMHO. That is reason enough to keep it around, leave alone the fact that it was very well made for it's time.
 

Barry S

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I haven't seen Birth of a Nation yet, but it seems to me that it must be quite a potent motion picture to be able to stir up controversy 85 years after its release. I don't think we can or will be able to say that about many films.
 

Patrick_S

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Dave,
Linking Nazi medical experiments to this subject is Red Herring. These are two entirely different subjects. The addition of the Nazis adds nothing to this discussion and it appears that its’ inclusion is designed solely link those who disagree with you to something that is truly morally apprehensible. In the end using such a device erodes the credibility of your posts.
To answer Jack’s original question:
Is this a film we should let quietly die in the dustbin of history? Or should we revere it for its technical genius, while overlooking somehow the racist content?
In the context of movie-making BOAN’s technical achievements should never be overlooked, but the films racist content should also never be overlooked. Acknowledging the technical innovations does not equal acceptance of the film’s message.
It is possible to discuss a film and break it down into form and content. With its' technical innovations BOAN’s form was ground breaking, while it’s content was garbage. Those who say they cannot separate the two, should come down off of their high horses and join the real world.
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BrennanZ

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Actually, Barry, I watched it for the cinematic significance, but with the exception of the battle scene, I found it rather boring. The racism is quite shocking though.
 

Dave Hahn

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Patrick,
From my very first post I was trying to make an analogy between the two. I was trying to point out that the medical and scientific communities did not use the information for the Nazi experiments for moral reasons, ergo, we should not look on BOAN as a great movie for the same moral reasons. My attempt at making this analogy work have failed miserably.
I don't like racists. I don't like racism, and I don't care for D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation, or anything else connected with this over-celebrated "son of a Confederate Colonel."
With that said, "Let's all go drink some beer!"
------------------
"Go ahead, make my day!"
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Bhagi Katbamna

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870
I think that all here would agree that the film's message is really deplorable but that no one should arbitrarily decide that it cannot be shown. Getting to the NAACP and their protests, they have every right to protest. I think that the teater took the easy way out and pulled the film because the theater management were afraid of the controversy it would generate.
This film is not the only one that is a "problem child", Song of the South has the same sort of problem.
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What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here
 

Larry Schneider

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Aug 9, 1999
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Birth of a Nation isn't likely to start a redneck revolution, you know. For entertainment those folks generally don't go see old silent movies. Gone With The Wind, yes. Rasslin' certainly.
 

JungWoo

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Unfortunately, I did not see this movie, so I cannot comment much on this. But from what I read and hear, this is virulently racist movie while it is also a landmark film which pretty much defined the classical Hollywood Cinema, setting the groundwork for later Hollywood movies. There is no doubt that this is a very significant piece in the history of cinema.
It also appears that Griffith was a hardcore racist even by the standard of those days, by all accounts. And what an irony to call his later movie "Intolerance", but obviously he didn't mean it ironically.
I am kind of middle, too. I don't really blame NAACP for protesting the screening just as I wouldn't blame Anti-Defamation League if they object to the public screening of the "Triumph of the Will". The DVD for BOAN is already out, anyone who's interested can see it, and NAACP wouldn't object to that. The thing is for many people, movie screening is perceived as an entertainment/event rather than education. And movies are one of most effective form of propaganda, as Goebbels knew it.
However, racism notwithstanding, I think Griffith and his movies are significant, and I think one could watch, study, and even admire them in conscience as long as we frown upon the racism part. This is already too much talk on a movie I need to see yet.
------------------
"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
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Seth Paxton

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"Rasslin'"
You are killing me here Larry.
laugh.gif
It's a pretty good point too.
We could make a documentary and call it:
"What if we had a Klan rally and nobody came?" :)
There are only 3 groups of people that can now start redneck riots:
1) Stock car drivers, although this usually causes in-fighting among the 'necks
2) Wrestling stars, although this also causes in-fighting among the 'necks
3) Hank Williams, Jr or Charlie Daniels
Come to think of it, maybe the real greatness of Griffith was that he could motivate a bunch of lazy, worthless racists into some sort of action and orginization. It seems to be harder than I thought
wink.gif

OK, I'm sorry, I am having some fun at southern stereotypes (but it's sooooo easy :))
If you like to sing "Fire on the mountain, run boy run" while cheering on Dale Jr. just before switching over to TNN to catch Stings latest match, that does not mean you are a racist. You have poor taste, but you are not necessarily a racist. :)
biggrin.gif
 

Rich Malloy

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I've seen this movie exactly once - in a film class as an undergraduate in Texas. My professor gave us the option of viewing or not viewing, but he really didn't prepare us for the actual content of the film. It's a very long film and by the end of it, more than half the class had left, most of them shaking their heads in disgust as they did so.
I disagree with the opinion of one of the interviewee's in the article I posted who said that this movie was frighteningly compelling to a modern audience. Frankly, I find the notion of Harvard students cheering on the KKK while watching this film in the late-70's to be ludicrous and utterly unlike my experience watching it in a film class in Texas during the mid-80's - I simply don't believe it. I think that statement was more than a bit on the alarmist side and not at all something that should be feared. I'm sure there are enclaves where this film might be received in that manner, but they are fortunately few and far between (I hope!).
Aside from its ugly racism, I have other quibbles with this film and Griffith's oeuvre in general. Unlike the great silent films by Dreyer and Murnau and Stroheim, this movie and his other movies do not rise to the level of art. Griffith's innovations are essentially a pastiche of pulp literary styles applied to cinema, rather than the purely cinematic innovations of someone like Dreyer. Granted, Griffith began to cut loose the cinematic image from the static tableauxs that mimicked stage productions, but I nonetheless find the more 'stagey' look of a Feuillade film to be more visually compelling than even Griffith's greatest spectacles. And his 'insights' into human behavior, history and sociology are not merely racist, but evidence of a true simpleton. Neither this film and none of his later films that I've seen displayed the artistry and sophistication of, for example, Stroheim's Greed or Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Clearly, it was never Griffith's intent to elevate cinema to the level of the fine arts, and nor was he influenced by the rest of the art world in the manner of Bunuel or Cocteau. He made big, dumb popcorn movies for big, dumb audiences and thus doesn't register for me as someone of all that much significance.
I'll never see Birth of a Nation again. However, I don't wish to see it (or anything else) banned, and I wouldn't want to bully someone into not showing it (although I don't consider the protests of the NAACP to be anything like bullying). If I owned a theater, I don't know if I would screen it. Probably not. It has its place in the history of cinema, but that place is not so high in my mind as it is in some of yours. For me, cinema is about more than adapting literary conventions to the screen, and any artistic endeavor, cinematic or otherwise, should strive to reveal something of depth about its subject. Griffith put a lot of spectacle on the screen, but very little art. He put a lot of characters up there, but never explored them with any depth. As a dramatist and an artist, he was third-rate at best. His importance begins and ends with what he added to the grammar of filmmaking.
And adding to the grammar of filmmaking seems to me to be the least of all innovations. As a modern audience, we take them for granted, or are long since bored of them as they have lost their potency over the years and become merely 'conventions' rather than 'innovations'. It seems to me that we should require something that transcends the medium in which it is expressed to truly call it 'great' or 'art'. Griffith's innovations, it seems to me, would be of interest more to the historian than to one who demands that a film fill his soul in the same way that great literature, poetry, painting, staged drama, and all other human endeavors worthy of being called 'art' do.
Perhaps I'm dismissing him too readily - too eagerly even? Does anyone wish to defend him as an artist, beyond and aside from this issue of his racism? There are many artists whom I appreciate in spite of their horrible personal bigotry (Wagner, TS Eliot), dubious political alliances (Reifenstahl, Ezra Pound), or questionable moral behavior (Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Allen Ginsberg...er, this list could go on for quite some time!). Anyway, I'm listening!
 

Iain Lambert

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Actually, your opinion that Griffith had a lack of an attempt to raise cinema to art that is an indication of where his significance lies; I agree with you that his films are overrated on an artistic level, but compare your criticisms with those given in the attack on the recent Lucas retrospective at the Barbican (if no-one remembers what I mean I'll go find the thread later).
Some of his innovations in moving away from stagey presentation were important, but his main contribution to Cinema is the big crowd pleasing/exploiting (take your pick) epic action movie, rather than the 'art' film.
iain
 

Jack Briggs

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Congratulations, everyone, on a thoughtful, reasoned, and stimulating discussion. It is such a pleasure to be able to talk about this hot-potato subject while maintaining such calm dignity.
Thing is, I still don't know quite how I feel!
To add to this--and the title was mentioned earlier in this thread--I now see that another significant film carrying a ton of baggage is about to be released to DVD: Triumph of the Will. I've seen this film and admit to its power. Do I want it in my library? I honestly don't know.
But I had planned to spend money on seeing The Birth of a Nation. Is there much of a moral difference? Not really.
This is another example of the timeless power of cinematic art: an eighty-year-old film can still exert such emotion and controversy.
 

DeborahK

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Jun 13, 2000
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530
Al (and everyone),
This is one of the most interesting threads I have read to date on HTF. Of course, I am very new to the Forum, so God knows what I have already missed! ;-)
As far as DWG's films being considered "art" or not, I think that people will probably never agree on what "real" art is or who qualifies as an artist. But film, as well as other forms of mass/popular entertainment, are important, influencial, and very worthy of the kind of attention that DWG and BOAN have always gotten for reasons completely other than their artistic merit. This is because mass entertainment forms such as movies,television shows, comics, etc. also exist as kinds of cultural artifacts that tell much about the attitudes and dispositions of the historical periods which both create and consume them. And much can be learned from them even when they are not the best or the most artful.
The very fact that in 85 years we have moved from demonizing "evil negroes" to demonizing evil Borgs (or whatever) in our blockbuster action movies tells one a great deal about some very key cultural shifts that have occurred over the course of the 20th century. No matter where any of us fall in this to-screen-or-not-to-screen controversy, everyone here clearly understands that BOAN could never be made and sold to a mass audience today, even as we all also understand that racism is all too alive and well in the USA. Although practice clearly often lags far behind principle, one can probably as easily trace the demise (or persistence as the case may be) of certain long held and cherished cultrual beliefs of a society by looking at these shifts in its mass entertainment over time as one can by looking at the shifts in its laws. And for this kind of insight, even the drekkiest stuff from an artistic p.o.v. has considerable value, I think.
Deborah
 

Rob Willey

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Jack,
Congratulations on creating one of the best threads ever on this forum.
I feel much the way you do. I have such a strong ambivalence toward this film that I ultimately don't know how I feel about it. The contents are unsettling in the extreme, but Griffith is widely credited with originating feature-length story telling in film with BOAN (although as I learn more about Lois Weber's work, I think she may have scooped him by a year or more). As a film buff and old movie lover, I'm forced to tip my hat to one of the great pioneers (the racist son of a bitch...).
I find the theater's decision to drop the showing in these ultra-PC times due to the NAACP's protest to be very disquieting. Isn't this theater in business specifcally to bring the glories of the silent screen to modern audiences?
Perhaps even more disquieting is the NAACP's protest of the film. I'm unclear on the EXACT nature of their protest, but if an organization is dedicated to the advancement of people of color, isn't it important to keep in mind where we're advancing from as well as where we hope to advance to? I'm mindful of Santayana's warning that people who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Rob
 

Jarod M

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First, I would like to warn those of you that are planning to watch BOAN (some of you have to watch it in order to successfully complete the AFI challenge) that it is three hours long. If you think "talkie" three hour movies can be an ordeal, just wait until you try to watch BOAN. Unless you possess a lot of knowledge about the technical advancements of early film AND are used to watching silent films, you probably are going to find your attention beginning to wane pretty early on. Another problem is confusion-the first time I watched it I had a lot of difficultly keeping the characters straight. So I would recommend that you plan on watching BOAN in two segments, with the first segment being at least until the end of the Civil War. But go ahead and watch more of it if you don't find yourself becoming drowsy. Unfortunately it is the racist elements that are the most attention grabbing, unless you're into the technical aspects of the film.
Second,
Al wrote:
Aside from its ugly racism, I have other quibbles with this film and Griffith's oeuvre in general. Unlike the great silent films by Dreyer and Murnau and Stroheim, this movie and his other movies do not rise to the level of art. Griffith's innovations are essentially a pastiche of pulp literary styles applied to cinema, rather than the purely cinematic innovations of someone like Dreyer. ... Clearly, it was never Griffith's intent to elevate cinema to the level of the fine arts, and nor was he influenced by the rest of the art world in the manner of Bunuel or Cocteau. He made big, dumb popcorn movies for big, dumb audiences and thus doesn't register for me as someone of all that much significance.
Your assessment of Griffith leads me to conclude that you haven't seen Broken Blossoms. If this film is not a work of art, then no film is. Dreyer, Murnau, and Stroheim produced movies that were more refined, but they were building on the influence of Griffith. Stroheim even worked under Griffith for a while. Griffith was very influenced by Victorian works-he loved the work of Charles Dickens for example. Wouldn't you also call some of Dickens' novels big, dumb books for big, dumb audiences? As DeborahK said, it all depends on your definition of art. I could go on and on about this, but I wouldn't want to wear out my welcome, so I will end by saying that Broken Blossoms is anything but a popcorn movie, so check it out (it's on DVD) if you haven't seen it. It also contains a storyline that sheds more light on Griffith's racism.
Jarod
 

Mitty

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Jan 13, 1999
Messages
886
I've always been lead to believe that cinema was big, dumb entertainment for the masses at the onset. The upper classes, used to attending stage performances thought it was a foul thing, for the poor and uncultured. It was a long time, by all accounts I've read, before it was accepted as anything other than just a diversion for the great unwashed of society and was not accepted as an art form by anyone for a long time.
The notion of creating art in cinema is dodgy anyway. In many cases, through the filter of time, we see a great work of art but it wasn't what the filmmaker was going for. Some of our greatest directors were not aspiring to create art films, but to make great crowd pleasers. Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin are the two most obvious examples. People go to art house revivals to see Hitchcock films now, but in his hayday, guys took their girlfriends hoping to scare them into jumping into their laps - just like I exploited the films of Wes Craven for instance, when I was younger. So, when I read "...it was never Griffith's intent to elevate cinema to the level of the fine arts..." I can't help but agree but also wonder what that has to do with anything. He was a pioneer. The films of Lumiere and Edison were pretty banal also, the thrill being that a previously static image "sprang" to life before the audience's very eyes. But we would never think of taking away their due.
 

JungWoo

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Oh NO! Not again!
Mitty, I respect your opinions, but please don't say "cinema is big, dumb entertainment", especially in regards to Hitchcock and Chaplin, because when people do, I go out of control. :)
First deep breath.
You must understand that cinema is only 100 years old, by far the youngest art from. Just consider how long literature, painting, music, and other arts have been with us - they had time to evolve for thousand years! First few hundred years in their history would be considered infancy.
Though I wouldn't say cinema is in infancy, it certainly draws heavily on other arts. When people watch movie (or even make movie), most often they apply literary aesthetics, which does not fit in well with the nature of cinema. I think cinema still lacks the kind of general aesthetic system that we find with other arts because of its young age, has rather hodge-podge of aesthetic theory from theater, literature, photography, etc.
Perhaps the cloesest art form to cinema is theater. Since the MIddle Ages, plays were considered low form of entertainment. Shakespeare was by no means revered in his lifetime as he is today. Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, etc are today's equivalents of blockbuster movies. Does that make Shakespare just a clever wordsmith catering to rowdy theatergoers? It took German writers and new artisitc movement of Romanticism to discover Shakespeare in true light.
The filmmakers, because of the nature of cinema (means of production and distribution), make compromise with their artstic vision inevitably (though in different degree); nevertheless, this does not make cinema all entertainment and no art. It's not by coincidence that the Rear Window, while telling an entertaining and suspeseful story of goodlooking character suspecting a murder, also speaks about the voyeursitic nature of cinema and shows the human world through windows of neighbors' houses.
I've been rambling quite a bit, but as recent threads on classic/foreign movies demonstrated,
CINEMA IS ART
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"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
My DVD Collection
Cinema: seventh art
 

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