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| Henry B. Walthall as Colonel Ben Cameron |
Based on Thomas Dixon’s novel, The Clansman, which was the film’s original title, The Birth of a Nation is provocative in the extreme. Its depiction of members of the Ku Klux Klan as saviors of a glorious south that (never?) was is second only to its characterizations of post-Civil War blacks as lazy, shiftless characters who prey on white women. Further, white actors in blackface portray the film’s black characters, which was a common practice at the time as few - if any - African Americans were cast in mainstream films by white filmmakers in the early decades of the 20th Century. Also worth noting is the film's first half, which deals primarily with life before the War Between the States and was not taken from Dixon's book. These scenes show an idealized version of southern life before the Civil War’s outbreak in 1861 and were undoubtedly based on the stories heard by Griffith, a southerner, when he was a child.
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| Another reason for The Birth of a Nation's success was its controversial portrayal of African Americans, in this case played by a white actor in make-up. Its image of the KKK as the savior of the south also fed that controversy. |
The Birth of a Nation was the first film shown at the White House for then President Woodrow Wilson, who may or may not have said the film was "like writing history with lightning." Across the country the film was a cause celebre, inciting protests from the NAACP and eliciting derision in the black press for its shameful depiction of blacks and its interpretation of history. Shameful, it was. In The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith presented some of the most incendiary stereotypes of the American South. Nevertheless, The Birth of a Nation is a film worthy of acclaim for how it moved film forward. When Birth was released, most Americans had never seen a movie longer than 15 or 20 minutes. The comparative complexity of the narrative as well as its production values demanded attention like no other film had.
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| Indelible images such as this are a big part of why The Birth of a Nation was the phenomenon of its day. |
To modern audiences, The Birth of a Nation may be easy to dismiss for its flaws, which are undeniable. Yet those flaws are also part of what makes the film relevant 100 years after its release. It incites discussion, perhaps even an attempt to understand our past and deal with it. While not entirely unreasonable, dismissing Birth simply as a racist film is not giving it its due. In its day, white audiences did not instantly recognize the film’s offensive depiction of blacks, the south, or the KKK. 1915 was a different time – what we recognize as oppression today was everyday life 100 years ago – and it was likely that whites saw blacks as inferior as a matter of fact. For better or worse, D.W. Griffith was largely a product of his time, as were those filmmakers who made movies starring white people in roles as Chinese field workers (1937's The Good Earth, starring Paul Muni and Louise Rainer) or Mexican peasant workers (1942’s Tortilla Flat, starring Spencer Tracy, John Garfield, and Hedy Lamarr). Film history is littered with casual discrimination like this, yet The Birth of a Nation remains the flashpoint for commentary on racism in cinema. Most likely this is due to the blatant nature of the racism on display in the film as well as to the power the film still has over spectators today.
Among the victims of The Birth of a Nation’s divisiveness are the subsequent accomplishments of D.W. Griffith’s career. After Birth, Griffith created arguably his greatest film in 1916 with Intolerance. Following that was Hearts of the World in 1918 and Broken Blossoms in 1919, which was a love story about a white girl who is brutalized by her father and befriended by a kindly Chinese man, and based on a story called "The Chink and the Girl" (which lends some insight into how acceptable racist ignorance was in the first half of the 20th Century). Other hit movies followed: Way Down East with Lillian Gish being rescued from an icy river at its climax; 1921's Orphans of the Storm, a drama set in the late 18th Century before the French Revolution, considered Griffith's last popular hit; and America, made in 1924 and set during the American Revolutionary War. America’s failure, coupled with the poor box office returns of his subsequent feature, Isn't Life Wonderful?, left Griffith with a huge debt and forced his departure from United Artists, the company he co-founded with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin. Pushing though the decade, Griffith kept busy by making six more films, including a couple of early W.C Fields films. He made his first talkie, 1930's Abraham Lincoln with the great Walter Huston as Honest Abe. The film was fairly faithful to the early parts of Lincoln's life, though it became less factual as the story approached its climax (including Lincoln’s delivery of passages from the Gettysburg Address at Ford’s Theater immediately before his assassination). The film's box office was poor. Griffith's next film, The Struggle, which was released in 1931, told of how alcoholism affects a young man and his wife, and was partly inspired by Griffith's own battle with the bottle. It also died a quick death at the box office and marked the end of D.W. Griffith's career.
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| Griffith followed up one epic with another. This still is from 1916's Intolerance. |
In D.W. Griffith's last years, he was neglected by the industry he helped found. Occasionally, he would be brought out for publicity, like during the production of Duel in the Sun, which co-starred former Griffith company players, Lionel Barrymore and Lillian Gish. Or in 1936 when Griffith received a much-needed paycheck by assisting with direction on earthquake scenes for his former assistant director, W.S. Van Dyke’s production of San Francisco, starring Clark Gable and Jeanette McDonald.
While living at the Knickerbocker Hotel (still standing in Hollywood but currently a retirement home) Griffith suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on July 23, 1948, and died a forgotten man. Orson Welles was quoted as saying "I have never really hated Hollywood except for its treatment of D.W. Griffith. No town, no industry, no profession, no art form owes so much to a single man." Charlie Chaplin called him "the teacher of us all." Other directors including John Ford, Jean Renoir, and Stanley Kubrick have spoken of their debt to Griffith. In 1953, the Director’s Guild of America named its lifetime achievement award after him, though that was rescinded in 1999 due to the racial stereotypes his most famous film helped to perpetuate. As the National Society of Film Critics suggested back in January 2000, I can’t help but think a better approach would have been to keep the name while advancing the work of directors with diverse backgrounds. But, it’s easier to make a simple change like the removal of a name from an award than to acknowledge the offenses of the past with a commitment to challenge and overcome them in the future. The entire body of D.W. Griffith’s work is significant to cinematic history, none more so than The Birth of a Nation, from its contemptible characterizations to its innovative narratives and exemplary production values. To ignore any of it is to avoid the opportunity to engage with our history, learn from it, and improve our piece of it.
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D.W. Griffith with megaphone, a familiar prop for silent film directors
Sources: Wikipedia page on D.W. Griffith and The Birth of a Nation IMDB: D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith: An American Life by Richard Schickel Indiewire: Peter Bogdanovich |
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