The Birth of a Nation (also known as The Clansman) is an American silent epic drama film that grossed between $50 and $100 million over an $110,000 budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1915. It’s based on the novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon Jr. and the play adapted from it. It’s rated M for racism themes (in Australia). The following are the 10 most recent IMDb reviews for the film.
Technically more than perfect, deeply racist but you know what you’re watching
A masterful achivement in filmmaking
Warning: Spoilers
The movie tries to make clear that it does not represent any present day race, and one must take into account the time this was made before juding it too harshly. What might come across as sort of racist was perhaps not always the case or just representative of one particular individual in that group.
Even so, the movie goes a little too far in some instances, particulary in blaming the black community for crimes and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.
But it has to be appreciated for its technical achivements and narrative structure, which was unlike anything ever seen. The actors also do an incredibly job, and it is truly an testament to the art of silent filmmaking that has arguably been lost in time.
This is a no-brainer must see for every lover of film!
After seeing it, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is pretty difficult to rate and review with me being so conflicted on it. While appreciating that ‘The Birth of Nation’ was/is ground-breaking and that it is of historical importance, the second part really ruins the promise that the first half showed so it was very difficult for me to get much out of it. It is very easy to see why the film is so controversial and why it is considered offensive. While it is one of Griffith’s most historically interesting films, it is also his most divisive by far and one of his worst in my view.
‘The Birth of a Nation’ still looks great, Griffith’s films always were extremely well made technically, some of the camera shots innovative and unlike what was seen before at the time. Gish is typically wonderful, the poignancy brought to her relatable role being quite powerful. The rest of the cast are also on fine form, especially Mae Marsh and Robert Harron.
Griffith’s direction is masterful and technically more than efficient, well certainly in the first part and keeps the second from being unwatchable (along with the acting). The first part of ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is absolutely brilliant, very compelling and epic as well as moving.
Which is why it is so regrettable that the second part feels like a different film and difficult to sit through. It is with the rescue and from that point on that ‘The Birth of a Nation’ falls downhill badly, despite the production values and acting still being so top notch. It is not just one-sided, but it is also blatantly racially offensive now and even for the time, which has always been the biggest criticism directed towards the film. It takes a lot for me to be offended by a film but even when judging it for the time and accepting that racism is far from gone today, that didn’t stop me from feeling uncomfortable with the portrayals of the supporting characters in the second part (African Americans portrayed negatively and a notorious group in history treated as heroes). It may be based on objectionable source material, but this was a rare example of a film that would have been much better straying away from it and not true to it.
All that being said, that is sadly not all with ‘The Birth of a Nation’s’ criticisms with the second part. Its pacing is very pedestrian and from the rescue onwards the story is badly over-stretched even for a film intended to be epic. What started off so rivetingly became a test for endurance where the eventually excessive length was felt. The characters completely lose their dimension and go from complex to one-dimensional stereotypes and the melodrama gets very over the top and downright silly.
Overall, brilliant first part but the second is a mess. 5/10
Why can’t I give a zero stars, shoot 1/2 a star is being very generous
Of course, the film is partial and is not politically correct … expresses an opinion about the conflict and the years that followed, claiming that there were political mistakes and that too much power was given to blacks, that in a sense freedom was confused with permissiveness and that values, mentality and pride of the southern white class were little taken into account by Union policies. The birth of the Ku Klux Klan, in turn, is portrayed as a consequence, a reaction of a slice of southern white society that felt threatened by new order of things. This is what the film supports, I don’t know if it was so.
In the film’s script, two families portray the divided country: on the one hand the Stonemans, with a strong political influence in Washington, and on the other the Cameron, who own a plantation in South Carolina. The families have a friendly relationship, and these ties they are not broken by war. Proof of this is mutual assistance on the battlefield. Another interesting detail is to see how Lincoln, despite being the leader of the winning faction, was portrayed as someone very respected by southerners. Each family suffers losses and dangers during the conflict but it is still at war that Ben Cameron falls in love with Elsie Stoneman. In the second part of the film, Ben is an increasingly dark and worried man, and he is the one who founds the KKK to protect those he sees exposed to the abuses of the newly freed blacks. Some scenes are strong, like the attempted rape of Ben Cameron’s younger sister, which ends in the worst way and is easily one of the most dramatic moments in the film. In a way, the little girl was the portrait of innocence in this film, and dies almost like a martyr.
Technically, the film is extraordinary. Whether you like the story told or not, it was a milestone in cinema with several important technical advances for art. The battles of the war are reconstructed with great realism. The cinematography and filming were particularly brilliant, as well as the historical reconstruction, done with great realism and rigor both in the costumes and the sets. Hundreds of costumes dressed up were part of this filming, which must have been an effort and marked the beginning of cinema as an entertainment industry. The music that accompanies the entire film is marked by diverse leitmotives, which were extracted from the nationalist and confederate national anthems, as well as from several well-known melodies of classical music.
Captivating Storytelling & Revolutionary Techniques
Here is how I came out with a rating of a 9/10:
Titles……………………………………………………………….. 10 (out of 10) Screenplay………………………………………………….,…… 9 Performances…………………………………………………… 9 Cinematography………………………………………………. 10 Editing………………………………………………………………. 7 Score………………………………………………………………… 10 55/60 =~ 9.2 (which I rounded down to a 9)
Value far outweighs its ignorant commentary, though neither should be ignored
[What do you think of this film? Be sure to let me know in the comments! Also, send me your review of any movie – in the comments section of any post – and I’ll post it on this site.]
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