The Birth of a Nation
A Silent Film Masterpiece
Built on the foundations of its great pioneers, today's film industry still looks back to the masters of the silent films for inspiration. While many actors, directors and producers have retained their star power from this era, one picture stands out as the single most important film from Hollywood's origin - D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.
The Birth of a Nation Awakes the Public Consciousness
Brimming with racism, passion and groundbreaking film techniques, at the time of its release, Griffith's masterpiece created never-before-seen public reactions of rage and curiosity. It is known for being the first picture to raise the public's consciousness and elevate this new medium from slapstick and pure entertainment to a means of social awareness.
Based on the Thomas Dixon novel and play The Clansmen, this ambitious film starring Lillian Gish, follows the lives of two families, one Northern and one Southern, during the Civil War and into the Reconstruction. The footage captures the vivid treatment of slaves as well as physical abuse in multi-cultural relationships. Released in 1915, just fifty years after the Civil War ended, many of the original audiences were directly descendant of those who lived during these turbulent times and thus, the film struck a nerve in popular America.
Today's viewers will feel as if they have been swept back in time and are living in the days of the mid-nineteenth century. Historical accuracy was important to Griffith and the results were obvious. Journalist and critic James Agee captured the picture's mood perfectly in his quote, "the film seems …to be a perfect realization of a collective dream of what the Civil War was like, as veterans might remember it and as children might imagine it."
While Thomas Dixon's views were clearly tainted toward white supremacy while writing The Clansmen, Griffith tried consciously to make a historical film showing all of the characters, regardless of color, in both positive and negative light. The NAACP didn't buy it and openly protested every premier possible. Good intentions aside, Griffith's personal views were slanted toward the Confederacy as well. Raised in the South during the Reconstruction, and he famously recalled his mother working on uniforms for various members of the Ku Klux Klan and he was quoted as saying that the Klan was "very necessary" during that time of American history.
The Birth of New Film Techniques
For film historians and students, another feature that makes this work so groundbreaking is Griffith's use of camera in his storytelling. For the first time, the audience is engaged in "cutaway" action where the camera leaves a scene only to pick up another and then return to the previous scene, still in action. Although commonplace today, his direction that the action continues while another scene is taking place had not been done before. To further his technique, Griffith also explored the use of close up shots mixed with vast scenery. Thus, wide-angled combat scenes filled with hundreds of soldiers were personalized by the painful emotions of those wounded in battle.
At a time when "two reelers" ruled the nickelodeons by engaging the public's attention for approximately twenty minutes, The Birth of a Nation clocked in at an amazing three hours and ten minutes. The audiences didn't seem to mind the distraction and they came out in masses. While the film was made for a budget of approximately $100,000, it went on to take in over $10 million dollars, making it one of the highest grossing films of the silent era. It is still a fascinating piece of work when viewed today and a grand illustration of uncharted territory at that time in the motion picture industry.
Source:
The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director, Robert Lang, Rutgers University Press, 1994
What do you think about this article?
More in Film & TV
Latest Articles