The Birth of a Nation



The Birth of a Nation

Introduction

The Birth of a Nation is an undeniable cinematic revolution wrapped around a vision of supposed revolution that is both revisionist and vulgar. With it Griffith created one of the great paradoxical cinematic experiences of the early years of the American film industry, with its repugnance counteracted by a remarkable intonation of cinematic language. While it would be short-sighted and naïve to claim that the good outweighs the bad, for The Birth of a Nation is a genuinely unappealing work for large sections in its running time, as a technical feat it is of great interest.

Thesis Statement

The paper discuses about racial based movie “"Birth of a Nation” and how it is compared with the Woodrow Wilson's actions.

Discussion and Analysis

"Birth of a Nation" film was based on a 1905 novel and 1906 play, "The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan," by former North Carolina Baptist minister Thomas A. Dixon. With forty years, Griffith was not comfortable with the limitations imposed on their industry work. So before the onslaught of European films that anticipated some issues they had studied thoroughly, decided to take a firm step, rejecting many of the objections that some entrepreneurs were doing and he does so The Birth of a Nation.

He began his journey by acquiring the rights of Thomas Dixon's novel "The Clansman". The script developed some of the most illustrative features generated around the American Civil War: two opposing sides, two ways of understanding society and marking color as a sign of instability. Two families, Stoneman and Cameron, were chosen by Griffith for history project got the most varied moods and situations arising from conflict.

Social Value

The film is one of the milestones in the history of cinema because of its controversial content. The existence or lack of it racist ideological context is not as important as the effects caused by this ambiguity: the film is the first product of the relatively new art of film, which caused wide public resonance. It is also a fact that none of the films were able to produce such bitter disputes, the echoes of which do not cease among film critics so far like "Birth of a Nation".

The Theme

Thus, the main merit of Griffith is that he, intentionally or not, has demonstrated the ability of cinema to embody not only entertaining, but also social and political ...