THE BIRTH OF A NATION was controversial when it was first released and is still controversial over 100 years later, now more than ever. No film in the history of cinema can make that claim although plenty would like to. It’s hard today for people to get past the film’s politics but the passions it arouses obscure its many accomplishments. It has also cast director D.W. Griffith in a very narrow light which undeservedly negates the rest of his career. Before BIRTH, Griffith was considered a progressive filmmaker who tackled serious social issues such as corporate greed (THE CORNER IN WHEAT), drug addiction (FOR HIS SON), treatment of the elderly (WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR OLD?), abuse of Native Americans (THE REDMAN’S VIEW), and even an anti-Klan film (THE ROSE OF KENTUCKY). After BIRTH he did INTOLERANCE, BROKEN BLOSSOMS (mixed race relationship), ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and THE STRUGGLE (ravages of alcoholism). There were other epics, potboilers, and misfires but to judge Griffith on the basis of one controversial film seems unfair. It would be like judging Steven Spielberg for THE COLOR PURPLE and nothing else. Taking his name off the DGA award without a vote from DGA membership smacks of political correctness, a gesture that Griffith, who was a long time opponent of censorship, would have found all too familiar.
Be that as it may, THE BIRTH OF A NATION remains his signature film and it represents a giant leap forward in the development of the motion picture technically if not thematically. When adjusted for inflation it is still one of the most successful movies of all time although once sound arrived, very few people have seen it. It takes a theme which has been recycled many times about two families on opposite sides of a conflict and tells it in a very effective manner. The movie is divided into 2 Acts. Act 1 starts before the Civil War and ends with Lincoln’s assassination. If Griffith had stopped there the film would have been 90 minutes long and there would be no controversy. It is Act 2 about Reconstruction that contains the racially inflammatory material and the origins and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan. This is where the Reverend Thomas W. Dixon’s book and play THE CLANSMAN (the film’s original title) takes over and his racist message is hammered home. Yet this was the prevailing view of Reconstruction at the time as historically expounded by the Dunning School (named after a professor at Columbia University) and one that was not fully discredited until the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s.
For years BIRTH OF A NATION could only be seen in substandard public domain prints that were heavily and very badly edited and that were projected at the wrong speed (too fast). It wasn’t until the start of the video era that a visual approximation of what Griffith intended could finally be seen. Also made available was the original Joseph Breil music that was composed for the film in 1915. Curiously the 2011 restoration did not use this score. While there’s nothing wrong with the Mont Alto Orchestra score in that version from Kino, the lack of period melodies and Civil War tunes that are found in the original robs the film of some of its emotional impact. Fortunately this 2015 restoration features the Breil score in a newly recorded version by John Lanchberry. Of historical interest are the two 1930 sound introductions that feature Griffith and Walter Huston talking about the film. The disc also comes with a booklet by noted silent film historian Kevin Brownlow explaining why the movie should be continue to be shown declaring that “we cannot censor the past”. This Twilight Time edition was a limited one for the movie’s 100th anniversary and, as a result, copies are very expensive.
The Capsule Critic 