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I saw BoaN in a big concert hall with live orchestra and a big audience in their finest clothes. It was a weird experience in the second half. When the KKK rode through the town to save the day (well, SPOILER...) the score played Ride of the Valkyries.― Frederik B, Tuesday, February 10, 2015 12:43 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
that cue was in the original (1910s) score, which was largely a "compilation" score, i.e. made up out of parts of other, often famous, musical compositions.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 February 2015 21:01 (nine years ago) link
the advocacy of white supremacy of a century ago has been decisively bested by a common philosophy of equal rights for all — indeed, overt *public* attitudes about race have shifted 180 degrees since 1915
maybe not 180 degrees—attitudes were more diverse then and now.
there were anti-racists in 1915, and indeed the NAACP led a boycott of the film back then (when they were a new organization; the boycott actually got the NAACP their biggest public exposure in some contexts). the revisionist history the film depicts /was/ pretty mainstream at the time, and griffith seemed genuinely blindsided by accusations that the film distorted history, but the racial caricatures did get quite a bit of pushback.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 February 2015 21:04 (nine years ago) link
three weeks pass...
nice piece (tho i don't find the entire western genre "virtually unwatchable"); things i didn't know about the premiere protests, and DWG endorsing it being pulled from public view after some years.
Monroe Trotter, a Harvard graduate and newspaper editor—along with the NAACP—helped expose the racist depictions and erroneous history in The Birth of a Nation to an otherwise oblivious nation. Not too many listened but the persistent and sustained effort had Griffith one day admitting that the film should be reserved for instructional purposes, for studying the art of film, and not be shown in public—a major step for the director who never publicly faced his racism but little comfort to the kid who enrolls in film school....
Griffith and his producers knew trouble was coming, as the NAACP had tried to get the film censored in L.A., and, for the film’s East Coast debut, the organization lobbied members of the New York City’s board of censors to ban it or at least insist on cuts. Meanwhile, to generate publicity for the NYC premiere, horses and their riders were hired to gallop around Broadway outfitted with Klan hoods and robes, apparently without incident. Thomas Dixon, the North Carolina native and unapologetically bigoted author of the original source material (a successful novel and successful play), helped forestall negative reaction to the film by writing to his old school chum Woodrow Wilson and arranged for the first ever White House screening.
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/kicking-and-screaming-the-birth-of-a-nation-at-100
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 17:52 (nine years ago) link
always something to new to loathe about Woodrow Wilson, it seems
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 17:55 (nine years ago) link
i never knew the NAACP actually tried to make a film that directly responded to this one, it's a shame that never got made.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 18:12 (nine years ago) link
that was not a bad summary, but this--
No one seemed to mind the insidious setup of the first reels that present the antebellum South in soft-focus idyllic tones, a myth that didn’t get its widespread public busting until Steve McQueen’s deft, unflinching adaptation of the memoir by Solomon Northup.
is weird. there have been several generations of high-profile books, films, and TV shows busting the myth of American slavery, "roots" to mention just one.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 19:45 (nine years ago) link
four years pass...