The Birth of a Nation - Reaction

A fairly boring, three-hour, silent film from 1915 that shows, in a positive light, the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. Being silent made it worse than most boring movies because one can't look away from the screen lest one miss the dialog and transitions expressed on title cards. Also, I didn't care much about the characters. But, the movie isn't all bad: I liked the music and the epic feel it gave the movie. And perhaps it's notable that I'm not complaining about the cinematography. One may imagine that a movie made during these early days of film-making would seem clumsy. Yet, it does not not. It uses many now standard film-making techniques.

The first part of the film is pretty innocuous in terms of racism. There are effectively no blacks. Rather, this segment is about the horrors of the civil war, with friend fighting friend. The main objectionable line in this segment starts the movie proper: "The bringing of the African to America planted the first seed of disunion."

The latter half of the film is much more propagandistic. Covering the reconstruction, it shows the racial conflict that results as Northern carpetbaggers encouraged/manipulated Southern blacks, portrayed as uneducated and child-like, to seek power and to oppress Southern whites. It shows Southern whites being disenfranchised as Southern blacks vote, sometimes multiple times. It shows innocent Southern whites being tried by Black juries and found guilty. It claims the Southern blacks had majorities in the state legislatures and passed laws requiring whites to salute black officers (but no mention of vice versa) and allowing intermarriage (oh, the horror, the movie implies!).

The Klan forms to rescue ("save") the people from black oppression. It "tries" (yes, that's the word used on the title card) a predatory black man and summarily hangs him. Whereas blacks form mobs, whites do not. Rather, the movie seems to say, they form a rescue operation / cavalry / group of knights and ride to the rescue of the populace. They "protect" by disarming blacks at gunpoint. It's as if the director is entirely oblivious to the fact that these actions of both sides are forms of mob violence. By the end of the movie, it's clear, especially due to the music, who one is supposed to be cheering for.

Apparently the movie functioned as a recruiting tool: allegedly, the Klan's ranks and power increased soon after its release.

The film was the first true blockbuster, setting records which were only broken decades later. Partially, it got money and attention because it was so controversial. But apparently many of the cinematic techniques used were new at the time, revealing for the first time, some say, what a movie could be. For instance, the movie has epic battles (using many extras and intelligent placement of smoke bombs to make the fields seem more filled than they were), rapidly cuts between the actions of two distant characters to build tension (will he catch up in time?), uses circular framing of a close-up to really focus on a character's emotional state, and uses filters to color a scene (e.g., tint a scene red to make it feel hellish).

Based off the book and play The Clansman.

Interestingly, the movie had no script. All the scenes and dialog came from the director's head without being plotted on paper.

[I watched the movie in two sitting. The second was on the date of this posting. The first was on July 31, 2007.]