The Birth of a Nation
Directed by D.W. Griffith
Written by Thomas Dixon Jr., Frank E. Woods and D.W. Griffith from Dixon’s novel
1915/US
David W. Griffith Co.; Epoch Producing Corporation
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
intertitle: [in the little cabin] The former enemies of North and South are united again in common defence of their Aryan birthright.
Having returned from vacation I am resuming my project to review all the pre-1934 films from the 1001 Movie list that I have not yet reviewed here. Unfortunately, the next one up was a film I was hoping not to watch again before I died.
The story concerns the Stonemans, a family from the North, and the Camerons, a family from the South. Human interest is provided by the romances between Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish) and Ben Cameron (Henry Walthall) and between Margaret Cameron (Miriam Cooper) and Phil Stoneman (Elmer Clifton). Another main character is Ben’s little sister Flora (Mae Marsh). Relations between the two families are strained by the Civil War.
After the war, the assassination of Lincoln presages Reconstruction. Elsie’s father is a Radical Senator and implements the takeover of the South by freed slaves, to be manipulated by him of course. The many insults to the South causes our hero, Ben Cameron to found the Ku Klux Klan. Both a Cameron and Stoneham girl are menaced by African-Americans seeking to marry them. It is the KKK to the rescue.
The content is repugnant, made more so by the blackface used on many of the African-American characters denigrated in this movie. Lillian Gish is exquisite as always. Mae Marsh, the original manic pixie dream girl, irritated the hell out of me as usual. The importance of the film for its pioneering cinema techniques is undeniable. But to be subjected to this obnoxious drivel for 3+ hours is like torture.
This 11- minute Eastern neatly encapsulates the plot of many more elaborate Westerns. It’s enjoyable and the closing image is iconic.
I was predisposed to like this movie and to sympathize with Oppenheimer. In the event, I didn’t find him or any of the characters all that likeable and did not care all that much what happened to any of them. I thought the running time could have been trimmed by half an hour or more with no harm to the story. I did not think that the out of order exposition or the constant transitions between past and present and color and black and white worked. In short, I was cranky and the whole experience left me flat. I’m probably in a minority of one.
I don’t associate King Vidor with comedies but this one is quite fun. Davies is a talented comedienne. Dressler is more severe than the usual but very good. Some of the gags go on for too long near the end but I was thoroughly entertained. Well worth a try.
