The Birth Of A Nation

In chapter two of The Cultures of American Film, the main focus is the establishment of studios. As demand for films rose in the early 1900’s, production companies needed to expand; this lead to the creation of large scale studios.

Birth of a Nation uses its histrionic plot to show how tangled destinies of a southern and northern family before and after the Civil War. It willingly portrays southern blacks as spiteful and uncivil, the northern whites as crafty, dishonest, and conceited, and the film’s southern whites as anguish recurrent radical and erotic mortifications at the hands of white northerners and black southerners before factually being saved by the thoughtful, Ku Klux Klan. The film is divided to show the different aspects of those two sides during this historical time. During this time Africans were coming to America and it started the reconstruction on our country. D.W. Griffith made this film to show us the reality of racism at this point in time.

On March 3, 1915 the movie The Birth of a Nation was released at the Liberty Theatre in New York City. This film was financed, filmed, and released by the Epoch Producing Corporation of D.W. Griffith and Harry T. Aitken. It was one of the first films to ever use deep-focus shots, night photography, and to be explicitly controversial with the derogatory view of blacks.

The Birth of a Nation, arguably one of the most ambiguous names in the history of cinema, is only about to get more complex and chaotic. The Birth of a Nation was originally the title of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist propaganda film about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan who “saved” the South from being dictated by blacks during the Reconstruction era when the North tried to rebuild the South after the Civil War. Now, that title poises a new movie written, directed, produced, and starring actor Nate Parker that dramatizes the 1831 slave rebellion led by enslaved African-American Nat Turner.

The American Revolution is almost like the civil war but, it is split in three parts instead of two, happened in late 1700s. The movie, The Patriot, is a fictional movie that shows us the battles and life during American Revolution. Some people were forced to fight because their family members died and some did not fight because they did not wanted to risk their family even though both sides are die-hearted patriot. Family could make people do anything. The producers of the movie The Patriot, Dean Devlin, Mark Gordon, and Gary Levinsohn, chose a composite of different colonists, like Francis Marion, Colonel Daniel Morgan, Elijah Clark, Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens, to make Benjamin Martin look better and the hero with no fault what-so-ever.

In the fourth chapter of The Cultures of American Film, author Robert Kolker, indulges into the legacy of one of the most well-known writers, producers, and directors in early cinema – D.W. Griffith. Kolker dissects the cultural and racial implications of Griffiths most successful film, The Birth of a Nation, as well as, how Griffith impacted film. Griffith’s use of naturalism, parallel editing, and formal methods separated himself from other’s in the film business. We also get a look at how Oscar Micheaux responded to The Birth of a Nation, and became one of the first African-American filmmakers.

The 1920's also saw the growth of the motion picture industry. It was highly influential and helped shape popular culture by promoting the diffusion of common values and attitudes nationwide. Soon movie studios began building elaborate movie palaces in cities, and by 1930, the movie attendance grew to about 115 million. Movies performed many purposes. It created national trends in clothing and hairstyles and even served as a form of sex education.

This further demonstrates how the affluence of that period enabled people to support this industry and help its enormous growth. It was during the roaring 20s that the first real celebrities began to appear, with the ever-increasing role of cinema having a huge role to play. Similarly their fame contributed to the growing status of Hollywood and the American film industry. (Source J). Charlie Chaplin is one example of an actor that gained worldwide recognition in the twenties; he was particularly famous for his ‘highly visual style of acting’ (Soucre J). The 1920s was often referred to as “The Golden Age of Hollywood” (Source G) emphasizing how this period represents the era of greatest output in the United States movie market [an average of 800 films were produced annually]. ‘The cinema came of age in the 1920s and Hollywood confirmed its position as the “dream factory” of the English- speaking world. It was there that fame and fortune could be found.’ (Source J) This also highlights the growing image of Hollywood ‘throughout the roaring 20s, which started to represent wealth and achievement. ‘The establishment of the Academy Awards showed the maturing cinema as an industry confident of its own technical and artistic standards.’ (Source J) This further shows how there were many other expansions and transformations from this industry that occurred during this period. Artists, directors and other personalities of the film making industry received acknowledgement and recognition of their work in this industry. ‘The awards soon acquired international status’ (Source J) showing how Hollywood’s film industry developed into a global sensation that was supported by people all over

The debate over Casablanca and Citizen Kane has been a classic argument between film critics and historians alike because both of these pieces contain great cinematographic value, and are timeless pictures that have managed to captivate audiences well beyond their era. However, the real question at hand is which film is the greatest? Which film transformed the future of American film making? It is these questions that I as many others have, will attempt to answer in the following essay as I explain why I believe Citizen Kane has achieved the status of greatest film ever made.

In this movie the African Americans were treated nicely but in reality they did not feel this way. The masters mistreated their slaves but in the movie they were actually having conversations. There is a scene in the movie where a group of African Americans were shaking hands with the white Americans. The producer of the movie wanted to inform others that the “birth” of America was founded on the basis of equality rather than discrimination. If the producer of the movie did not show how the slaves were mistreated, the people will just see the world in only that point of view; the slaves’ point of view does not exist. Ruling countries oppressed both the undeveloped, barren places and the African Americans. The Birth of the Nation is a perfect example of a form of travel writing; the Americans wanted to inform others about America but this movie was only produced in their perspective. Rather than recording the reality, the produces or writers record history with the input of their own influences.

The history of African Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew about African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article “The Birth of Birth of a Nation” emphasizes that the film was a “highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of Reconstruction, and it glorified the role of the Ku Klux Klan” (76). While viewing this film, one would assert that the Ku Klux Klan members are heroic forces that rescue white women from sexually abusive black men. Griffith

When Birth of a Nation was released, the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) panned the film’s disregard of civil rights. As a result, the organization staged a massive protest at an opening of the film held in New York City. The NAACP urged whites to boycott the film. However, the idea of reserved seating and dressing people up as Klansman to advertise the film drew in millions. Even with daily rallies opposing the movie, Birth of a Nation grew to be the most successful picture in the silent movie era. Thus, the NAACP chose to instead pressure the director, D.W. Griffith, in cutting some of the more offensive scenes. One that included a group of

“D.W. Griffith was the first American director to be as well-known as the films he directed, and he was among the very first to insist that filmmaking was an art form” (Lewis 53). This statement is very true. However, the inherent discriminating content in some of his movies also made him one of the hardest to appreciate. One of the most famous examples was The Birth of a Nation (1915), which was in favor of the Ku Klux Klan. After a few more controversial movies, he finally tried to redeem his reputation with Broken Blossoms (1919). Broken Blossoms is Griffith’s attempt at an apology in the portrayal of minorities and the idea of miscegenation within The Birth of a Nation in the midst of a troubling society heading towards the anti-miscegenation law.

Griffith reached the peak of his popularity and influence in the five years between 1915 and 1920, when he released The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, and Way Down East. He also directed Hearts of the World during this period, a film that incorporates newsreel and faked documentary footage into an epic fictional narrative. A First World War propaganda epic, Hearts of the World, alone among his early spectacles, is ignored today. But in 1918 it was the most popular war film of its time, and rivalled The Birth of a Nation as the most profitable of all Griffith's features. Today, it is usually studied as an example of World War I hysteria or as a pioneering effort at government-sponsored mass entertainment.

The introduction of sound films in the late 1920’s was a divisive issue among those involved and interested in the emerging motion picture industry. Even though it wasn’t the sudden breakthrough it is often perceived to be, the addition of sound and voice to mainstream cinema revolutionized movie making and led to conflicting viewpoints as to whether or not this innovation was a positive progression for film as an art and as an industry.