The Birth of a Nation
1915 Directed by D.W. Griffith
Synopsis
The fiery cross of the Ku Klux Klan. The nation being born is not the United States.
The Birth of A Nation is a silent film from 1915 and the highest grossing silent film in film history. The film tells a romance story during the American civil war. Director Griffith created many new camera effects and innovations in filming the movie. Way ahead of it's time in many regards. That said this movie will offend most people today. The very negative portrayal of newly freed slaves (mostly white actors in black face) went on to create and propagate negative images of blacks of the early 20th century in the Unites States. This film was used as a recruiting propaganda by the KKK until the 1940's.
Cast
Studio
Popular reviews
More-
Whoa. Talk about a "problem picture!"
-
I just hit my 999th movie watched and I felt that The Birth of a Nation would be a good 1000th film. It certainly was.
This viewing has also marked a first. I think this is the first time that I feel I can't properly rank a movie. How many stars would I give The Birth of a Nation? It's terribly hard to say. If the rating is meant to describe the experience of viewing the film than it's impossible to remove the disgusting racism from the second part of this film - which makes it hard to enjoy in any natural way. If I'm to look at the film in a more objective, film history way and remove the…
-
How does one review this? Please, tell me, because I have no idea.
It's a very ethically and morally dubious film, to say the least. The first half of the film isn't particularly offensive, it just tells a story of romance and America during the Civil War.
However, after the assassination of Lincoln, the film becomes this toxic tale of the proud and triumphant Southern White's who protect their culture from the invading rapscallion freed slaves. It's pretty appalling, particularly when you consider it tries to present the film as a story based on facts rather than having any bias. Yuck.
It was impressively made given the time it was from, and it keeps up a certain standard for the…
-
I'm teaching my class this next week so went in for a refresher. Textually it remains a horrible, vile experience. Unfortunately one cannot deny the importance of the work from a history of technique perspective.
-
One of the greatest, most controversial movies of the silent period. The action set pieces and war scenes are still exciting to watch.
-
Wanna watch a 3 hour silent epic that follows and glorifies the establishment of the KKK? That's what I excitedly asked all my Asian friends in my first year of university.
I suppose I should be careful to mention that we intended to watch it "ironically". But then, I put that last word in inverted commas because I totally was in complete appreciation of the incredible spectacle this film provides.
D.W. Griffith, while establishing an utter shitload of to-be-conventional cinema grammar, still hadn't ironed out his stagey theater-director sensibilities. So, when people watch it, it's easy to get caught up that the camera almost never moves, or that shots are held heaps long, or that there's totally a white-man in…
Recent reviews
More-
One of the greatest, most controversial movies of the silent period. The action set pieces and war scenes are still exciting to watch.
-
Wanna watch a 3 hour silent epic that follows and glorifies the establishment of the KKK? That's what I excitedly asked all my Asian friends in my first year of university.
I suppose I should be careful to mention that we intended to watch it "ironically". But then, I put that last word in inverted commas because I totally was in complete appreciation of the incredible spectacle this film provides.
D.W. Griffith, while establishing an utter shitload of to-be-conventional cinema grammar, still hadn't ironed out his stagey theater-director sensibilities. So, when people watch it, it's easy to get caught up that the camera almost never moves, or that shots are held heaps long, or that there's totally a white-man in…
-
I took off a star for the racism. Hopefully that's enough to salvage my morality.
-
groundbreaking
-
It's quite a good silent film, but takes about 3h to watch it. If you are interested in history of the american cinema, i would recommend watching this film.
-
I can't even rate this. Three hours of torturous, racist, cinematic genius.
-
Ew. EWWWW. This movie has ruined unicorns for me forever.
I’m sorry, sweet Lillian. You didn’t deserve this.
-
Surprisingly engaging for a three hour movie made almost a hundred years ago. Cool battle scenes and pretty quick paced. Unfortunately incredibly, incredibly racist.
-
Very racist. Interesting to see how later movies were influenced by it. (Such as Gone with the wind.)