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D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, a groundbreaking film that is quickly approaching its 100th anniversary, is still – to this day - a controversial film igniting the fear and loathing that invites the gnashing of teeth and tearing of flesh from some of its viewers. It is also a stunning tour-de-force historical tale about two families, one of northern upbringing and the other of southern hospitality, and the clash they make inside the trappings of the Civil War. Adapted from Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, The Birth of a Nation is not a quiet film. War is its centerpiece, slavery is its table, and its guests are none other than various members of the KKK. America, ironically enough, is the meal.
Co-written by Griffith and Frank Woods, The Birth of a Nation is divided into two parts for its narrative structure. Part One tells the story of the landscape that made up the Pre-Civil War America. With this opening, we are introduced to the Stoneman family. They are northerners and abolitionists. Congressman Austin Stoneman (Ralph Lewis), his daughter Elsie (Lillian Gish), and two sons. We are quickly whisked away to the southern side of life with a glimpse inside the Cameron family. Ben Cameron (Henry Walthall) fancies Elsie and the older of the two Stoneman sons falls for Margaret Cameron (Miriam Cooper).
Yet, all fun and games come to an abrupt halt as the Civil War begins. The boys join their locational cause and the women support them. Until the darkest of days brings news that Ben has been wounded at Petersburg and is going to be hung as a traitor. Elsie, now a northern nurse, treats his wounds and pleads to Abraham Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) to spare Ben from his hanging. The president issues that pardon but, once assassinated, the North punishes the South with – as viewed by Griffith’s south – harsh laws of Reconstruction.
Part Two, which covers the failed reconstruction era and rise of the KKK, is where things get a bit touchy. Griffith has African-Americans making laws for the white south to live by. This never happened, yet it does represent the fear that various portions had about giving any former slave power. He envisions them without manners in capital buildings across the South twisting the power to their cause. It’s a strange sort of world; one emblematic of what scared Southerners the most after the Civil War. Ben, the hero in the second half of the film, sees fit to start a sort of white guard against the rise of carpetbaggers, freed slaves, and abolitionists. Thus, the KKK is born.
A bit of revisionist history ain’t it, folks? Well, yes and no. The south, and acclaimed director D.W. Griffith was a southerner through and through, saw it this way. They were goners; obliterated by the outside forces. Their northern oppressors had cleared the land of the laws they were comfortable with and, because law and order must prevail, saw fit to allow the Ku Klux Klan to be their guardians. This is the thesis of the picture and, right or wrong, it sticks to this sentence until the end credits. It’s a position D. W. Griffith would continue to defend time and time again…especially after riots broke out in the cities that actually screened the film. It’s also a position that would be somewhat reversed with his next film - the second masterpiece of his career – Intolerance
Now, there’s a reaction for you. Neighborhoods turned inside out. People gunned down. Fear induced in suburban America. All because of The Birth of a Nation. Yes, its Part Two that gets the backlash; the hate; the animosity. Here, you see the cruel beating and whipping of numerous black men. Here, you see racism embraced by a fearful community. Here, in this debate over the fate of freed black men and women, you see the actual birth of the America we would, one day, become. And still, D.W. Griffith makes the KKK out to be law-abiding do-gooders.
Through it all, one can see just how important D.W. Griffith’s film is to our cinematic legacy. Here, our eyes are greeted with the first artfully composed long shots, the first panoramic use of the camera, epic sequences filmed at night, and superb use of the iris, and the panning technique. To suggest that Griffith and cameraman G.W. Bitzer had not a clue of what they were doing is a joke. These are skilled men waxing poetic for the very first time. Indeed, latge parts of The Birth of a Nation are groundbreaking in their earnest celebration of film as an art form. Before this film, movies were considered the lower end of the art world. This changed that perspective for good…and audiences ate it up; it was the first blockbuster.
It’s easy to get bogged down by the uneasy nature and belief system that gave rise to the KKK that Part Two of The Birth of a Nation deals with. It’s insanely problematic and induces various forms of nausea to those unaccustomed to such things. It also actually happened here in America; a history lesson for us all, one should think. That’s the true legacy of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.
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