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

[Kenneth]

I think it is more important to understand and discuss films like BOAN and others rather than ban them. One of the dangers of racism is that it creeps in silently sometimes if you are not watching for it. Films like these help highlight what the creeping evil looks like. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up in another discussion like this next month when they release "Triumph of the Will".
Another interesting series to watch if you want to see racism from a different angle is the "Why We Fight" series by Frank Capra. Made during WWII for a US military audience these films are some of the best propaganda ever produced. They do an excellent job of dehumanizing and diminishing the enemy so that American troops would be ready to kill them. Of course this is a necessary condition of war and few would argue that the Germans, Italians, and Japanese weren't inhuman in many ways (or too human, depending on your point of view

) and this was the only way to address their evils. However, it is often difficult to set aside these biases after the war is over, especially when the same effort used to instill the bias is not used to uninstill the bias.
Kenneth

 

[Zane Charron]

I have to agree with Rachael B. Just because the films topic is today considered offensive and racist doesn't mean it shouldn't be viewed. Mein Kampf should be available to everyone who wants to read it (although it has been banned here in Germany forever). We cannot forget or ignore the past, and when I watch Rosewood, it just sickens and saddens me that those events once occured.
World changing events like The Civil War and WWII should never be forgotten, in any depiction. Remembering them is all we can do to try to prevent them repeating in the future.

 

[Jarod M]

brianacook wrote:

First off, I am about as liberal a person as you are going to find. It is obvious that the message of this film was hatred, pure and simple, that point is not even to be argued. Also, in my opinion, the question of it being a landmark film does not come into play. The term "great film, but racist" just doesn't cut it in my opinion. If it is racist, it is inherently NOT great. The big question is this - is the general public better served by seeing this film or by not seeing it??

This really depends on your definition of "great" and "racist." There are probably better example than this, but do you think that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were great men, even though they were slaveowners? Doesn't the fact that they were slaveowners make them inherently racist, thus inherently NOT great? You could argue that they were a product of their times, but the same argument could be made about Kentuckian D.W. Griffith whose father was a slaveowner.
No one forced Griffith to make a movie depicting such feelings, but then again no one forced Washington and Jefferson to own slaves.

 

[brianacook]

Jarod, I did think about Thomas Jefferson after posting my remarks. It sort of goes along with the Ty Cobb comment made by Jack in the initial post.
What I will say is this - Thomas Jefferson's contribution to history can be viewed separately from his racism, as can Ty Cobb's. Griffith's cannot. If we were talking about a landmark film that Griffith had made that didn't reflect his racist views, this would not be an issue.
I hope this makes sense.
Brian

 

[Dave L]

We need to remind ourselves that we are viewing a film made in 1915 with year 2000 viewpoints and mentalities. Was the film racist in 1915 when miscegenation was a crime in many U.S. states? When segregation was an institutionalized fact? When racial discrimination was justified with Biblical quotes? Yes, the film was racist in many aspects, but so was the country and its laws. It reflected the times as much as films with Stepin Fetchit played to stereotypes in the 1930s.
Griffith answered his critics with his next film "Intolerance," that showed injustice through the ages from ancient times to the present. Although the film was admittedly ahead of its time, it's interesting that a film condemning man's intolerance to man was a commercial failure, while one that played to the injustices of the day was the biggest commercial success of its time.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Thomas Jefferson's contribution to history can be viewed separately from his racism... Griffith's cannot.

Can it, really? I mean, Jefferson wrote the line about "all men being created equal". I also seem to remember that the Declaration originally included a denunciation of slavery that was eliminated as part of a political compromise. That Jefferson never freed his slaves does introduce some hypocricy to his contributions to history.
Griffith, on the other hand, made a movie. A movie that, while ideologically repugnant as entertainment now, is tremendously important in terms of social history and cinematic technique. Birth was a watershed of new movie-making technique, and deserves to be seen, in context, for that alone.
And context is key. We're not talking about Disney restoring and re-releasing Birth in 2000 theaters as popular entertainment. We're talking about a theater that shows silent movies exclusively and caters to a clientele that sees cinema as an art form and would likely be viewing it from an intellectual, rather than emotional, standpoint.
By attempting to deny this film even to students of art and history, the NAACP is trying to erase history which should be moved past, but not forgotten.

 

[MatthewA]

I believe, personally, that the film should be seen and studied for the same reasons as Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, as a study in film technique and to study racial attitudes of the time. Birth of a Nation is an inherently racist work, albeit one that was technically well-done for its time, but we must view the film in the context in which it was made. Black people were treated horribly in 1915.
The film did, however, set the standards for techniques of those grand, sweeping epics such as Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, and so on.
The NAACP seems to have forgotten the old adage "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it." The film should be shown as a historical curiosity, and to bring up discussions about its context. At Duke University, the movie theatre there showed Triumph of the Will not as a ploy to incite Nazism, but to bring up discussion about Hitler, propaganda techniques (American WWII films used some of the exact same techniques as that on), and the techniques for making documentaries.
Birth of a Nation holds interest to film students, film buffs, and sociologists for those reasons.

 

[Dave Hahn]

This is a good, healthy discussion on an important matter. I guess I should clarify some of my points.
Jarod M wrote:

Quote:

I agree 100%. This is the vast problem with this movie, it portrays the KKK "as upstanding and heroic" and not as ignorant murdering bastards.
I don't believe in censorship in any form. Let them show the movie. Just don't go to see it; and don't go because I or someone else tells you not to go. Don't go because you heard the man who made it was a racist bastard, and that the film portrays African-Americans as nothing but criminals, and the KKK as heroes. Decide for yourself that you don't want to support those kind of ideas. Don't glorify Griffith, his techniques, or BOAN because of the evil associated with the man and his work.
We are not talking about some Storm Troopers on a Death Star getting blown up. Real children were brutally killed because of this film. Good ole' boys got so pumped up by this movie they went out and broke the kids' necks, shot their parents, and burned down their houses and churches. Then they bragged about it. There's nothing fictional or academic about that.
Unless, of course, you feel it's okay if just a few little kids get their necks broke, as long as the artist and his art are allowed to flourish.
------------------
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[Chris Lock]

> The big question is this - is the general public better served by seeing this film or by not seeing it??
That's a dangerous way of looking at things.

 

[Mitty]

I'm just checking to see if Mitty is really a Canadian, because that is the most perfectly succinct description of the contemporary American political climate that I have read. Very well said.

Thanks. You should come to Canada some time and turn on the television. That'll answer any questions you might have.

 

[Aaron E. Smith]

Dave L wrote:
The decision not to show the film was an attempt to rewrite history, which cannot be done (except maybe in some totalitarian counties).
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As an historian, I cannot disagree more! This nation has plenty of examples of "rewriting" or "revising" history, both our own and that of other countries. Historians, in general, are aware of the difficulties of our profession and strive to avoid blatant revising. Nevertheless, this HAS happened. For information of this sort of thing, read "History on Trial." This is a excellent book and recounts, among other things, the complete rewriting of American colonial history to romanticize this period. Take a trip to Williamsburg, VA and you'll get a chance to walk around in a living example of the revisionism that you said cannot happen here....
As for the movie, freedom of speech allows both for the showing of this movie AND the protesting of it. I understand and am sympathetic for both sides of the issue. I suppose it is most important to detach one's self from the technical achievement of the film and its message, which had become all the more detestable as years progressed. As others have noted, however, the subject matter does not really dimish the technical achievement of the film, just as Leni Reifenstahl's (sp?) work still remains important in cinematic history, but abominable as social commentary or however else one might take it.
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- Aaron
"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
-Emo Phillips

 

[Jason Seaver]

Yes, that is possible, but if that's true then we should use all the results from the Nazi experiments at the death camps, right? We'll just use the results and techniques the Nazis developed while performing these "tests" and ignore how those results and techniques were applied in the first place.

The two aren't really comparable. Not just because there's a difference between research and art, but because cause and effect are reversed in the two cases.
D.W. Griffith developed cinematic techniques and used them to make Birth Of A Nation. Montage and crane shots aren't deplorable, but depiction of the KKK as heroes is, so in this case what's "good" is the tool and what's "bad" is the product.
Nazi scientists, meanwhile, used torture and inhuman techniques to learn about physiology. There, what's "bad" is the tool and what's "good" (or at least "useful") is the product.
Also, directors have been using the techniques Griffith pioneered for 80 years. Should we invalidate damn near every movie made since then because the dolly shot is tainted? Or do we accept that knowledge can come from imperfect, even reprehensible, sources, and concentrate on putting what we know, and know how to do, to good use?

 

[Gary Tooze]

> The big question is this - is the general public better served by seeing this film or by not seeing it??
Yes, and who is supposed to decide that ?
We are coming right back to the idea of censorship... It is far better to allow no limitations and deal the results than allow one person ( or small group ) to decide what your limitations should or should not be...
Perhaps, some person would see BOAN and become so illuminated that they gave up their racist beliefs...
WHO is to decide that ??? Best, like abortion, and many other ideals, to let each person make their own decisions.. you know like when we are allowed to decide who to vote for...
Aren't we all ( society ) becoming a little too sensitive these days ? Personally I think the color of text and background I am writing on may be offensive to someone somewhere...
Its time to mature out of this phase ( society again, I mean ) and stop wasting time banning things and using that energy to help educate. That is the core to correcting problems. All problems...
IMHO
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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau
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[Aaron E. Smith]

Larry Schneider wrote:
I deplore censorship, period. Nobody is trying to persuade NAACP members to watch the film; they are infringing the right of others to watch it.
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OK, but by saying they shouldn't protest the film aren't you then infringing on their right to free speech and freedom of expression?
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- Aaron
"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
-Emo Phillips

 

[Gary Tooze]

OOOPs.. I recognize BOAN is about the U.S.A., I freely admit I am a Canuck as well... please disregard my Standpoint then, eh...
------------------
[email protected]
"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau
My DVD collection
My Laser Disk collection
The Ultimate DVD Website

 

[Larry Schneider]

Of course the NAACP are free to protest. They're just wrong, just as the theater was wrong to cancel the screening.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I'm just checking to see if Mitty is really a Canadian, because that is the most perfectly succinct description of the contemporary American political climate that I have read. Very well said.

But I'll find out for sure if he really lives in Vancouver next Spring.
~Edwin

 

[Rich Malloy]

I'm a bit surprised that no one's yet mentioned the whole Director's Guild Award brouhaha. In case you missed this, here's the best piece I was able to dig up on it:
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2000, Tuesday, Home Edition
DEBATING AN ICON'S GENIUS, RACISM; D.W. GRIFFITH'S 'BIRTH OF A NATION' STANDS AS A SEMINAL WORK, EVEN AS IT DEMONIZES BLACKS AND GLORIFIES THE KKK. THE DIRECTORS GUILD HAS DRAWN FIRE FOR STRIPPING HIS NAME FROM ITS TOP PRIZE.
BYLINE: ROBERT W. WELKOS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
It had been weighing on his mind for more than a year, ever since several African American directors expressed concern that the Directors Guild of America's prestigious life achievement award was named for D.W. Griffith, whose 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation" glorified the Ku Klux Klan and seared racial stereotypes into the collective conscience of moviegoers everywhere.
Jack Shea, the president of the guild, came away from that encounter unsettled. He had never really thought of it in those terms, he would later recall. "The Birth of a Nation," after all, was considered a masterpiece of the silent era whose innovative techniques, such as crosscutting and deep focus, are still studied in introductory film courses.
Yet Shea also knew there was no denying the film's racist content.
Based on a popular book and stage play titled "The Clansman" by the Rev. Thomas Dixon, Griffith's sweeping film of the Civil War and Reconstruction contains many degrading images of blacks and depicts the Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue of white Southerners imperiled by northern Negroes and white carpetbaggers.
When it was shown in a large theater to the accompaniment of a live orchestra, white audiences of the era often stood and cheered. It even led to a revival of the KKK. But the film was so controversial that it triggered riots in theaters, was banned in some cities and became the focus of street protests by the fledgling National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which has been battling the film ever since.
In November, Shea went before the guild's national board in New York asking it to endorse his decision to rename the D.W. Griffith Award. With little debate and no input from the guild's nearly 12,000 members, the board unanimously concurred.
On Monday, Steven Spielberg, who has won Oscars for "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" and whose body of work includes "Jaws," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," the Indiana Jones trilogy and the black-themed saga "The Color Purple," received the guild's newly renamed DGA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Just as the Confederate battle flag fluttering atop the South Carolina statehouse has triggered impassioned debate on whether the flag symbolizes a region's racist past or simply honors its Southern heritage, a continent away another debate has been raging over the symbolism evoked by the late D.W. Griffith, often described as the founding father of the American cinema.
But whereas the flag debate in Dixie seems polarized between liberals and conservatives, the debate over Griffith and his legacy is taking place in one of the true bastions of liberal politics--Hollywood.
Indeed, some of the harshest critics of the guild's decision are respected film critics, university professors and authors who abhor the racism contained in "The Birth of a Nation" but believe Griffith's silent epic is a landmark achievement despite its content.
The guild's action was hailed by many as long overdue and morally justified. But it touched a raw nerve in the film community at large, leading to a vigorous debate over age-old questions about censorship, intolerance and whether great art in the service of hateful ideology should be praised or damned.
'Rewriting' of Film History Decried
"It's very childish to start picking on something somebody did 85 years ago and say, 'That represents the man and, therefore, we are not going to use his name again,' " said London-based film historian Kevin Brownlow. "This is a man who made 400 films before he made 'The Birth of a Nation,' let alone all the films he made afterward. This is the man who shot the feature film that caused the big theaters to be built, the feature to become standard and the middle class to be won over to motion pictures. Without Griffith, these fellows wouldn't be working."
It was, he added, as if politicians had begun dismantling the Lincoln Memorial because they disliked some of the things the Great Emancipator had said about blacks.
The 53-member National Society of Film Critics issued a statement deploring the board's action:
"The recasting of this honor, which had been awarded appropriately in D.W. Griffith's name since 1953, is a depressing example of 'political correctness' as an erasure, and rewriting, of American film history, causing a grave disservice to the reputation of a pioneering American filmmaker."
"Griffith was a great artist, but he wouldn't be the first nor the last great artist to be racist," said Armond White, an African American film critic for the New York Press, who voted to endorse the critics society's resolution deploring the DGA action.
"It's ridiculous to rewrite history that way," White added, arguing that the DGA's decision "suggests there is no more racism today or racism in the film industry, when we all know the problem still exists in the film industry."
But those who defend the board's action argue that Griffith's pioneering work behind the camera cannot erase the racist images flowing from "The Birth of a Nation."
"There is no question that D.W. Griffith was a great pioneer and, in America, the father of the modern film industry," said African American actor and director LeVar Burton, who starred in the landmark TV miniseries "Roots" and is now a DGA board alternate. "The work for which he is probably best known--'The Birth of a Nation'--is, without question, a powerful piece of filmmaking, but in terms of the content, there can be no question that it is . . . a racist tract.
"I can admire Griffith's place in history and some of his contributions," Burton added, "but I don't admire his politics."
In many ways, the soul-searching at the Directors Guild reflects the growing diversity of the board itself. Of the current 21-member board and its 23 associate members and alternates, 13 are women and three are blacks. And, although such black directors as Gordon Parks, William Craine and Ivan Dixon served on past boards, the board seated its first African American officer last year when Paris Barclay, a DGA award winner and co-executive producer of the CBS drama series "City of Angels," was elected third vice president.
"It was a white boy's club," Burton said. "The face of the DGA is changing. When in history has there been as many people of color and women on the board of the DGA?"
As he lunched at his house one Saturday with a black director, Shea inquired what his guest thought of Griffith's name being attached to the guild's highest award, one that has been conferred on such legendary filmmakers as Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles.
"I asked him if he thought it was a bad name," Shea recalled. "He said, 'Jack, I got to tell you, any African American director knows enough about the situation that he's going to tell you he's offended by it."
Concerned that one day an African American--or a director of any color--would win the award and refuse to accept it, Shea conferred with former guild presidents, Griffith biographer Richard Schickel, and either personally or by letter with all nine living recipients of the award, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet and Robert Wise. All agreed the time had come to retire the D.W. Griffith Award.
In December, the guild announced its decision, praising Griffith as a "brilliant pioneer filmmaker" but adding "it is also true that he helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes."
Film Audience Cheers KKK
For Barclay, the decision to retire the D.W. Griffith Award was sweet news.
Barclay remembered the first time he saw "The Birth of a Nation" and the powerful, frightening pull it had on the audience.
As an English major at Harvard University, Barclay recalled, he had stepped into a campus theater to attend a screening of the silent classic.
"I knew it was an important film to see," Barclay said, "but I was not prepared for what it contained. I did not know that the KKK would be the heroes and people in the audience would be cheering for the KKK. This was in the late 1970s. The film is so persuasive. That is what is so scary about it. The audience found themselves cheering for the KKK to get those bad black guys and lynch them."
Still, Barclay stressed that by taking its action, the DGA board was not endorsing censorship.
"We are not saying 'The Birth of a Nation' should be banned and never shown again and that D.W. Griffith's name be besmirched," Barclay explained. "What we are saying is that the DGA should not name its highest honor after that particular filmmaker."
Oscar-winning director William Friedkin, whose credits include "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist," said a membership-wide debate should have taken place "before you take down what is arguably the greatest name in American film."
"The Directors Guild pays for the maintenance of Griffith's grave because he died a pauper," Friedkin said. "Are they now going to contest that?" The DGA Foundation, since 1949, has maintained a perpetual memorial at Griffith's grave site in Crestwood, Ky.
Shea said that seeking a membership vote would have been "very unwieldy," and added that "the membership didn't have anything to do with the formation of this award." That decision, he said, rests with the guild president in consultation with past presidents.
The guild will continue to prominently display Griffith's photo along with past award winners outside the sixth-floor boardroom at DGA headquarters.
In his 1988 book "Blacks in American Films and Television," Donald Bogle wrote that Griffith introduced "the mass movie audience to the black film stereotypes that were to linger in American films for the next 70-some years--the noble, loyal manageable Toms, the clownish coons, the stoic hefty mammy, the troubled 'tragic' mulatto and the brutal black buck."
"In the fields, darkies contentedly pick cotton," Bogle writes of Griffith's depiction of the pre-Civil War South. "Mammy joyously runs the big house. All is calm, at peace, in order during these glory days of the Old South."
Then Reconstruction rears its head.
"The old slaves quit work to dance," Bogle adds. "They roam the streets, shoving whites aside. They take over the political polls, disenfranchising the white citizens. A black political victory culminates in an orgiastic street celebration. Blacks dance, sing, drink, rejoice. Later they conduct a black Congressional session. . . . They gnaw on chicken legs and drink whiskey from bottles while sprawling with bare feet upon their desk."
One of the movie's more memorable scenes depicts a black "renegade" pursuing a delicate young white woman to a rocky cliff where she jumps to her death to avoid being raped.
Film scholars do not defend the content of Griffith's film, but are alarmed that the DGA board did not give greater weight to Griffith's overall contributions to their craft.
Rick Jewell, associate dean of the USC's School of Cinema-Television, said the guild's action smacked of "political correctness run amok."
"I think the DGA, in trying to do something that they thought was beneficial to minorities and to their own image, have shot themselves in the foot," Jewell said. "People who know about the history of cinema know what this man contributed to it. Those contributions were enormous."
Jewell doesn't dispute that the film has the power to create controversy. "When I first started teaching cinema, 'The Birth of a Nation' would be shown in almost any sort of survey of film history," he recalled. "Over time, because of the controversy of the film, you might show excerpts of the film in class, but almost nobody will show the whole film anymore."
Robert Sklar, a professor of cinema at New York University, remarked: "I'm not going to say this is outrageous and an act of censorship because the film is still there, Griffith's name is still in the history books . . . On the other hand, you would hope they would have done a better job of explaining what they were doing."
Sklar said that certain films like Leni Riefenstahl's 1935 German film "The Triumph of the Will," an infamous documentary of Adolf Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rallies, can be admired for its technical achievement while deploring the message.
'By Any Standard,' Director Was Racist
Film historians point out that after "The Birth of a Nation" was censored in many cities, Griffith became an ardent foe of censorship in motion pictures. His 1916 silent classic "Intolerance" was seen as an attempt to answer his critics. Griffith's 1919 film "Broken Blossoms" told the story of a Chinese man who protects an abused waif from her brutal father.
Griffith's defenders note that as the son of a Confederate soldier, he grew up hearing stories of the South wronged by Reconstruction and that his views were rooted in his era.
But Schickel, the author of "D.W. Griffith: An American Life," said that "Intolerance" and "Broken Blossoms" notwithstanding, "by any standard Griffith was a racist."
"There are people who instinctively react, 'Oh, God, it's just political correctness,' " Schickel observed. "There's some truth in that, I suppose. But on the other hand--I guess I can say this as Griffith's not entirely admiring biographer, I don't mind if they are renaming the DGA award. His attitude is manifest in that film and is undeniable."
As late as the 1930s, Schickel said, when Griffith was trying to get projects off the ground, "he was still playing the race card in letters and memos to studio people." If there is a defense, the author added, it would have to be that "he was a man--and a Southern man--of his time."

 

[Mitty]

I had never heard ANY of that Al. How did it slip under my radar?
Of course, there was probably a celebrity wedding that week which pushed it out of the mainstream news...

 

[Seth Paxton]

Brian asked me

Seth,
I don't understand what your point is here. Are you saying that movies depicting the struggle between good vs. evil (with or without elements of revenge) are no better than BOAN? Please clarify.

Sorry, I realize my thoughts came across a little vague in my whole post. I didn't mean it to sound like the Klan was OK, or supporting the Klan was OK, any of that. And I realize that this part is vague too.
What I mean is, how do we know that we are any different from the crowds leaving BOAN cheering when we cheer for the Germans to be killed in Saving Private Ryan or Viet-Kong to be killed in Platoon. Why do those characters deserve to die?
Because they oppose the films heros? Same in BOAN
Because they were cruel killers full of greed and lust? Same in BOAN
Because of their race? Same in BOAN
Because we know they were evil, but the blacks/carpetbaggers weren't? Do we know that all those soldiers were evil, my guess is more that they were just on the other side. And no carpetbaggers/freed slaves took advantage of their situation? I'm sure some did.
What I am saying is that at the time of BOAN people believed this sort of history/prejudices, if for no other reason than films told them this is how it was.
Then you go to The Patriot and the British are cruel beyond belief, and people believe this characterization that they were so evil. Therefore the movie punishment is justified.
We look back now and say "Those idiots were so racist. They had no idea that blacks were equal". But what are the people 100 years beyond us saying about people leaving "The Matrix", when intelligent androids walk among us with feelings and are insulted by their depiction as cruel and evil, or when an awakened understanding of Asia, Russia, Germany, etc. make us feel bad when we share a viewing of SPR with a German person, or watching Platoon with your North Vietnamese neighbor feels uncomfortable.
My point is that if you accept the roles of the characters in the film, then the film itself is no different, and in fact is groundbreaking, in its ability to set up a big revenge/heroic rescue scene. Hurray, the good guys saved the day after the villian was so evil. The drama of it all is remarkable.
The problem is in accepting those roles in the first place, since they are clearly inaccurate. But if you didn't know that, what indicator in the film itself would tell you otherwise? So just how do we know we are cheering for the good guys in today's films if those people thought they were cheering for the good guys then. Is someone telling me that they know they are definately right now after BOAN showed just how completely wrong people can feel about something? Certainly the films don't bother to tell us if our feelings are right or wrong outside the context of the film. Their villians/heros are more for effect than for history.
This is why Unforgiven was so groundbreaking. It took the western, a classic "good guys wear white, villian/hero roles are well-defined" format and made it grey. It is the next step beyond a BOAN format. Unfortunately, we still only see a few of these "questioning roles" films. Mostly, BOAN's format is the one that still sells.