the film clearly has a racist agenda?
HA HA
Tell me another one!
Birth of a Nation (1915): A New Perspective
-
myrnaloyisdope
- Posts: 349
- Joined: May 15th, 2008, 3:53 am
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
- Contact:
-
myrnaloyisdope
- Posts: 349
- Joined: May 15th, 2008, 3:53 am
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
- Contact:
-
myrnaloyisdope
- Posts: 349
- Joined: May 15th, 2008, 3:53 am
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
- Contact:
so what if 'Aryan' meant 'Anglo/Saxon' - you still have the 'birthright' part of the title, which means the film is claiming whites were divinely ordained to rule. Woodrow Wilson said that exactly in his history of the reconstruction, it was a common idea in 1915, as was keeping the races separate, which BoaN also espouses.
-
charliechaplinfan
- Posts: 9040
- Joined: January 15th, 2008, 9:49 am
bdp, you've said exactly what I way trying to say a few posts ago. Aryan/Anglo Saxon the word that troubles me the most is birthright. That implies that someone has precedence over another. Another example is Prima Genita (I've probably not spelt that right) this is where the eldest son inherits which is the rule of thumb for our aristocracy. The birthright talked about here is an even more troubling one.
I agree with Myrnaloy. It should be watched and I should follow my own advice. I am held back by the fact I know I'm going to find it distasteful but from the point of view of the history of filmmaking it is an important achievement.
I agree with Myrnaloy. It should be watched and I should follow my own advice. I am held back by the fact I know I'm going to find it distasteful but from the point of view of the history of filmmaking it is an important achievement.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
-
drednm
-
drednm
I finished the Stokes book. Someone previously cited a passage from the book that described a black man's reaction to watching BOAN in 1915 or 16.
Walter Walker, an actor: "Some people were crying.... You had the worst feeling in the world.... I just felt like killing all the white people in the world."
Nice guy. Obviously NOT a racist himself. All the "you" mentions in the passage must have referred to himself. The "some people were crying" tells us nothing since we don't know who or at what. But the passage is used as "proof" of response by a black eye witness. I bit of an overreaction but we'll take it for its face value.
Yet on the next page there is a comment by Maurice Yacowar who basically says the black characters in BOAN bore no resemblance to current-day (1915) blacks or their ancestors because "all the major characters who were both bad and black ... were played (and very obviously) by whites." Yacowar goes on to say "the transparent whiteness of those blacks is a reminder that we see not the black man per se but a white man's projection of a black man, an artist's deployment of an image in a poetic fiction." This transparency "only served to emphasize the film's character as fictionalized entertainment. This seems a more sensible reaction to a FILM.
Later in the book Stokes quotes NAACP's May Nerney as stating that after a showing of the film (presumably she was picketing and not in the audience) she heard a white man coming out of the theater saying he "kill every negro I know." She states this (without proof) as an example of the film's ability to stir up racism. But no one comments on the same remark by Walker aimed at white. Double standard.
In the long run, the lunacy of overreaction to this film through NINE decades is astonishing. The NAACP and others fought to ban showings of this films for deacdes (and probably still does). Has Turner Classic Movies ever shown the film?
Ultimately the home video/DVD market finally defeated all these censors and now the film can virtually be watched by anyone.
Of course I understand the uneasiness that DWG's black characters can cause. That's part of the dramatic structure and impact of the film. No one will ever convince me that DWG constructed this great film in a manner that allowed him to express his racist tendencies, tendencies that appear in no other Griffith film.
Indeed, Griffith made a film in 1911, an anti-Klan film called THE ROSE OF KENTUCKY. The Klan DWG used in BOAN is NOT the Klan that rose up in the 20s and 30s. In 1915 the Klan was largely an historic group, one that existed in opposition to Reconstruction. Griffith did not invent the Klan, nor did he ever endorse later versions of the Klan. Griffith was not the first filmmaker to use the Klan. Edison came out in 1905 with a pro-Klan film called THE WHITE CAPS.
Whew... ok I'm done. Long live THE BIRTH OF A NATION.
(and oh BTW, I'm an ardent Obama supporter).
Walter Walker, an actor: "Some people were crying.... You had the worst feeling in the world.... I just felt like killing all the white people in the world."
Nice guy. Obviously NOT a racist himself. All the "you" mentions in the passage must have referred to himself. The "some people were crying" tells us nothing since we don't know who or at what. But the passage is used as "proof" of response by a black eye witness. I bit of an overreaction but we'll take it for its face value.
Yet on the next page there is a comment by Maurice Yacowar who basically says the black characters in BOAN bore no resemblance to current-day (1915) blacks or their ancestors because "all the major characters who were both bad and black ... were played (and very obviously) by whites." Yacowar goes on to say "the transparent whiteness of those blacks is a reminder that we see not the black man per se but a white man's projection of a black man, an artist's deployment of an image in a poetic fiction." This transparency "only served to emphasize the film's character as fictionalized entertainment. This seems a more sensible reaction to a FILM.
Later in the book Stokes quotes NAACP's May Nerney as stating that after a showing of the film (presumably she was picketing and not in the audience) she heard a white man coming out of the theater saying he "kill every negro I know." She states this (without proof) as an example of the film's ability to stir up racism. But no one comments on the same remark by Walker aimed at white. Double standard.
In the long run, the lunacy of overreaction to this film through NINE decades is astonishing. The NAACP and others fought to ban showings of this films for deacdes (and probably still does). Has Turner Classic Movies ever shown the film?
Ultimately the home video/DVD market finally defeated all these censors and now the film can virtually be watched by anyone.
Of course I understand the uneasiness that DWG's black characters can cause. That's part of the dramatic structure and impact of the film. No one will ever convince me that DWG constructed this great film in a manner that allowed him to express his racist tendencies, tendencies that appear in no other Griffith film.
Indeed, Griffith made a film in 1911, an anti-Klan film called THE ROSE OF KENTUCKY. The Klan DWG used in BOAN is NOT the Klan that rose up in the 20s and 30s. In 1915 the Klan was largely an historic group, one that existed in opposition to Reconstruction. Griffith did not invent the Klan, nor did he ever endorse later versions of the Klan. Griffith was not the first filmmaker to use the Klan. Edison came out in 1905 with a pro-Klan film called THE WHITE CAPS.
Whew... ok I'm done. Long live THE BIRTH OF A NATION.
(and oh BTW, I'm an ardent Obama supporter).
I find it interesting that this thread has changed from whether Griffith himself was racist to whether The Birth of a Nation is a racist film.
It seems there’s an issue with semantics going on here. Looking up racism/racist in the Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definition reads:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racist
:
rac·ism
Pronunciation:
\?r?-?si-z?m also -?shi-\
Function:
noun
Date:
1933
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
— rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective
Applying this definition to Birth, does the film try to make the case that one race is superior to the others? I think that there have been ample examples, cited in previous posts, that the film promotes the superiority of whites over everyone else, particularly blacks.
Is Griffith racist? It seems that it is agreed that Griffith didn’t intend to make a racist film. I think, that had he intended to make a racist film, and was trying to exploit the mentality of the times to make a hit movie, it could be argued that Griffith wasn’t a racist, and was merely an opportunist, creating one of the first exploitation films.
But since he didn’t intend to create a racist film, but did, we should see if the definition applies: Did Griffith feel superior to a particular race? The fact that many (most?) people also felt superior merely means that racism was prevalent, right? By simply applying the definition, it seems to me, the film, Griffith, and many (most) of the people of the day were racist. Is this news? Certainly not to African Americans.
I don’t see the difference between “racism and racial attitudes”. If an individual sees himself “superior to a particular race”, he’s a racist, and if a society has an attitude that the majority of its members are “superior to a particular race”, that’s racist, too, just on a mass scale. Again, is this news?
In an earlier post, Mr. Arkadin made some interesting points and comments, citing Roger Ebert on Griffith’s re-editing his film. In my earlier posts I may not have been as clear as I intended. I merely was stating that since Griffith continued to re-edit his film, and never removed any of the overt racial elements, he either disagreed that they were racist (check the definition), or felt compelled to protect his art. I am not suggesting that edited versions of Birth (either by Griffith or anybody else for that matter) would be better in any way; in fact quite the opposite. I, too, want to see the film as it was presented in 1915. (If, by the way, that’s even possible. I have many DVD’s, laserdiscs and videos of Birth, all slightly different.) The fact remains, however, that film-makers continue to re-edit their movies. Spielberg, Lukas, etc. Chaplin re-edited many of his films in the early 70’s, and unfortunately these are the versions currently available on the Warner/MK2 releases. (Hope everyone got their hands on the CBS/Fox editions, if you want Chaplin’s original versions! The Gold Rush a notable exception...) In the case of Spielberg, where he CG’d cell phones over the guns in ET, he was making a comment on the current times, trying to dissuade, somewhat, from the gun culture. While, I disagree with Spielberg, and think that film-makers should leave their art alone (but it is there art, so who am I to say?), Spielberg addressed what he considered a “mistake”, something which Griffith never did.
Unfortunately there are plenty of, at best uncomfortable, scenes in Hollywood (and not just Hollywood) films depicting various forms of racism; The Bank Dick and High Sierra included. Nobody is saying that we should “consider these people racist Klan members”, but I think it’s fair to ask, do these scenes represent a feeling of “inherent superiority of a partucular race”, and if the answer is yes (which it is for me), then they are racist by definition. The excuse that the feelings represented on screen were felt by the majority of people (but unlikely by those being negatively stereotyped) doesn’t alter the definition one bit.
The fact that I think Griffith, and certainly Birth were (and are) racist, doesn’t mean I don’t continue to admire Griffith, his films, and his legacy. He was, and remains, one of the most important people in the history of cinema, and Birth, by virtue of being not only his first masterpiece, but the film that defined cinema, is a milestone and should continue to be seen (unedited!). I also believe, despite it being 93-years old, the film maintains all its power, and can still cause “an uproar” (and still be used to recruit). In my eyes, age hasn’t lessened the film’s impact at all. That’s one of the reasons the film remains so controversial; Griffith made it that good.
It seems there’s an issue with semantics going on here. Looking up racism/racist in the Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definition reads:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racist
:
rac·ism
Pronunciation:
\?r?-?si-z?m also -?shi-\
Function:
noun
Date:
1933
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
— rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective
Applying this definition to Birth, does the film try to make the case that one race is superior to the others? I think that there have been ample examples, cited in previous posts, that the film promotes the superiority of whites over everyone else, particularly blacks.
Is Griffith racist? It seems that it is agreed that Griffith didn’t intend to make a racist film. I think, that had he intended to make a racist film, and was trying to exploit the mentality of the times to make a hit movie, it could be argued that Griffith wasn’t a racist, and was merely an opportunist, creating one of the first exploitation films.
But since he didn’t intend to create a racist film, but did, we should see if the definition applies: Did Griffith feel superior to a particular race? The fact that many (most?) people also felt superior merely means that racism was prevalent, right? By simply applying the definition, it seems to me, the film, Griffith, and many (most) of the people of the day were racist. Is this news? Certainly not to African Americans.
I don’t see the difference between “racism and racial attitudes”. If an individual sees himself “superior to a particular race”, he’s a racist, and if a society has an attitude that the majority of its members are “superior to a particular race”, that’s racist, too, just on a mass scale. Again, is this news?
In an earlier post, Mr. Arkadin made some interesting points and comments, citing Roger Ebert on Griffith’s re-editing his film. In my earlier posts I may not have been as clear as I intended. I merely was stating that since Griffith continued to re-edit his film, and never removed any of the overt racial elements, he either disagreed that they were racist (check the definition), or felt compelled to protect his art. I am not suggesting that edited versions of Birth (either by Griffith or anybody else for that matter) would be better in any way; in fact quite the opposite. I, too, want to see the film as it was presented in 1915. (If, by the way, that’s even possible. I have many DVD’s, laserdiscs and videos of Birth, all slightly different.) The fact remains, however, that film-makers continue to re-edit their movies. Spielberg, Lukas, etc. Chaplin re-edited many of his films in the early 70’s, and unfortunately these are the versions currently available on the Warner/MK2 releases. (Hope everyone got their hands on the CBS/Fox editions, if you want Chaplin’s original versions! The Gold Rush a notable exception...) In the case of Spielberg, where he CG’d cell phones over the guns in ET, he was making a comment on the current times, trying to dissuade, somewhat, from the gun culture. While, I disagree with Spielberg, and think that film-makers should leave their art alone (but it is there art, so who am I to say?), Spielberg addressed what he considered a “mistake”, something which Griffith never did.
Unfortunately there are plenty of, at best uncomfortable, scenes in Hollywood (and not just Hollywood) films depicting various forms of racism; The Bank Dick and High Sierra included. Nobody is saying that we should “consider these people racist Klan members”, but I think it’s fair to ask, do these scenes represent a feeling of “inherent superiority of a partucular race”, and if the answer is yes (which it is for me), then they are racist by definition. The excuse that the feelings represented on screen were felt by the majority of people (but unlikely by those being negatively stereotyped) doesn’t alter the definition one bit.
The fact that I think Griffith, and certainly Birth were (and are) racist, doesn’t mean I don’t continue to admire Griffith, his films, and his legacy. He was, and remains, one of the most important people in the history of cinema, and Birth, by virtue of being not only his first masterpiece, but the film that defined cinema, is a milestone and should continue to be seen (unedited!). I also believe, despite it being 93-years old, the film maintains all its power, and can still cause “an uproar” (and still be used to recruit). In my eyes, age hasn’t lessened the film’s impact at all. That’s one of the reasons the film remains so controversial; Griffith made it that good.
-
drednm
I think it's admirable that the Academy gave DWG an honorary Oscar in 1936 for his "distinguished creative achievements as director and producer and his invaluable initiative and lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts."
His achievements with INTOLERANCE, BROKEN BLOSSOMS, WAY DOWN EAST, JUDITH OF BETHULIA, ORPHANS OF THE STORM, THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE, THE WHITE ROSE, THE BATTLE OF ELDERBUSH GULCH, MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY, etc... deserved this honor.
On the other hand, I still find it reprehensible that the Directors Guild removed DWG's name from its lifetime achievement award. I suppose it';; get renamed as the Spielberg Award at some point. Bleh.
His achievements with INTOLERANCE, BROKEN BLOSSOMS, WAY DOWN EAST, JUDITH OF BETHULIA, ORPHANS OF THE STORM, THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE, THE WHITE ROSE, THE BATTLE OF ELDERBUSH GULCH, MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY, etc... deserved this honor.
On the other hand, I still find it reprehensible that the Directors Guild removed DWG's name from its lifetime achievement award. I suppose it';; get renamed as the Spielberg Award at some point. Bleh.