To Screen or Not to Screen: Birth of a Nation gets the boot

-- nabisco (--...) (webmail), August 11th, 2004 2:32 PM. (nabisco) (later) (link)

that's why i suggested that this film can be quietly screened at a theater attached to a museum or school, and hackles are typically only raised when a commercial cinema (no matter how marginal) wants to show it to the public. few would be likely to think MoMA or the national archive were endorsing the film's worldview, but it gets potentially more ambiguous when it's a commercial cinema. of course this particular cinema did a fine job of trying to advertise the screening in such a way as to placate those concerns, but i guess it didn't work.

that's why i think that, in the real world, it's probably best that places like the silent movie theater not try to show this film. (another reason: there are a million silent films that never get screened publicly that are just as exciting and historical interesting.)

s1ocki: the chicago summer silent film festival tends to show the same things year after year after year. well, there are always one or two curveballs. but otherwise it's: one german expressionist classick (NOSFERATU/METROPOLIS/CALIGARI/GOLEM), one colleen moore-type flapper romance, one Fairbanks swashbuckler, one louise brooks films, one buster keaton, and one other slapstick (maybe harold lloyd).

i don't really blame them, because they need name-value films that will attract paying customers (they rent out a huge old theater so the operating costs must be high), but still it's a little disappointing to see the same thing--or more or less the same thing--year after year.

the music box is a great place that does make its money from tickets and sodas and popcorn, but no matter how great their main programming, their choices for weekend matinees tend toward the conservative (i.e. more orson welles movies than you can shake a stick at, casablanca, etc.)

Yes I have seen it. I did not find it beautiful as you did, because it is fundamentally ugly, and I can't manage the form/content split you seem to have undertaken in order to enjoy it.
The racism is very far from genteel, yes. But by saying most LiT/BoN comparison is one of the stupidest things you've read here, you seem to be saying 'genteel racism' is okay, in a sense, or that comparing it with un-genteel racism is stupid. Of course the racism is worse in BoN. But instead of saying 'look how far we've come' it might be useful to consider how little mainstream narrative cinema has advanced in its depiction of Other cultures.

fuller was a really articulate anti-racist. he made some interesting comments to joseph mcbride about the theme of miscegnation running through john ford's work. and then you have white dog, a film so aggressive in its attack on racism that it was actually mistaken for being racist by certain fools.

i wish there were a good way to see white dog--it's been six years since i've seen it (a dub with spanish subtitles found at kim's in new york) but i found it extremely powerful and disturbing.

floats like a puddle.

"one scene has mae marsh leap from a cliff to her death to be spared the "fate worse than death"--being raped by a black man."

This is kind of a strange scene to pick out as an example of the film's racism.

the first half of this film is still pretty impressive -- the battle scenes are especially powerful and eerie to watch, it's almost like seeing newsreel footage of the civil war.

the second half is kind of boring, honestly.

i love that wilson quote - 'like history written in lightning'

Godfrey Cheshire on this week's uncomfortable centennial of its release:

The Birth of a Nation of 2015 is not the Birth of a Nation of 1985 or 1965 or 1935 or 1915. And that’s a key to the paradoxical feelings the movie inevitably generates today. On the one hand, 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 — and it’s hard to imagine most Americans are not profoundly grateful for that change. On the other hand, the sentiments expressed in Griffith’s film are undeniably baked into the nation’s DNA, as events of the last century, from Selma to Ferguson, keep reminding us. In that sense, The Birth of a Nation survives — very uncomfortably for some, no doubt — as perhaps the greatest documentary ever made about the stain of racism on America’s soul. As such, pace my students, it is required viewing for anyone wanting to understand this country’s history.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/why-we-arent-celebrating-100-years-of-movies.html

required viewing for anyone wanting to understand this country’s history

but only if the viewer understands that the film's depiction of this country's history is as much a piece of detestable propaganda in the service of evil as was 'triumph of the will'

Thing is, I had TotW in my film history class as an assignment, the film society had a public screening of it - no controversy at all. Not so "Birth of a Nation" - I understand why, there are too many yahoos who would misunderstand it. But I would live to see BoaN in an academic context. Frankly I can't stomach it - again, because it's too close to home, and I've never been able to finish watching it.

there are too many yahoos who would misunderstand it

this could be extended to suppressing a great many things, in theory.

i'm not sure the problem is misunderstanding it

I'm pretty sure a public screening of TotW at a movie theater in present day Germany would stir up a lot of controversy, too.

there's nothing ignorant racist mouth-breathing rednecks like better in 2015 than kicking back with a cold brewski and watching a 100-year-old silent movie

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.

I first saw it on public TV, probably in the late '70s (same for TotW). It was certainly fully notorious (and i think Valkyries was also on the score on that print).

btw the Film Forum in NY is showing it on March 2 as part of a Griffith mini-retro, and their pre-emptive strategy is a very large photo of the black documentarian who's introducing it.

http://filmforum.org/events/event/the-birth-of-a-nation-introduced-by-don-perry-event-page

This thing is 3 fuckin hours?

It's hard not to reply to ignorance. You know Islam started through violence? Have you spoken to Armenians and Serbs, and others wiped out by Islamic armies from 635 AD to today's ISIS. Listen, I suggest just staying away from the subject. Within seventy five years England will no longer exist anyways.

KKK is evil in its means and really no longer exists except back woods Alabama. There is an interesting movie you should check out titled "The Birth of A Nation." A very true depiction of history by DW Griffith and very true indeed.

well yeah hence the first American film "epic" xp

Intolerance was also 3 hours, Whiney, Griffith's follow-up that crosscut between the oppression of assorted minorities in different historical epochs. It failed at the box office.

can't wait for Whiney's review of Greed

Are they gonna show "Within Our Gates" or any Micheaux? That would be another "pre-emptive strategy"

Or run the DJ Spooky "formless bloops" soundtrack.

(Speaking of which: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kinolorber/pioneers-of-african-american-cinema )

i am pretty sure they've run an Oscar Micheaux series in the past. xp