The Birth of a Nation
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Actor: Elmer Clifton, George Beranger, Mary Alden, Miriam Cooper, Spottiswoode AitkenBrand: Image Entertainment
Primary Contributor: Lillian Gish
Primary Contributor: Mae Marsh
Primary Contributor: Walthall, Henry B.
DVD: 2 Sides, Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC, Silent
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 165 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-11-17
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Birth of a Nation
DVD Review: Defective product DVD.I have reported it on line and verbally. by phone.
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw it a few years ago.[...]I saw it a few years ago.
Griffith's movie is sympathetic to Lincoln,viewing him as a friend of the south and shown in a kindly light,pardoning prisoners,etc.Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" addss details that I never knewon this.
The movie concludes with Webster's commnet"Union and Freedom:Inseparable".which can be construed in many ways.
The movie is best known showing the Klan riders like avenging angels ,hooded,on horseback,striving to save Lillian Gish's honor against THEM.Notre Dame showed it but leaned over backwords to be "politicall correct".Lincoln is attacked more by the LEFT than right nowadays.
DVD Review: D.W. Griffith
Summary: 5 Stars
What's truly amazing is that this movie accurately depicts the foundation of this nation. If there was a Fab 5 of American Cinema Directors, D.W. Griffith would be part of that team.
This is a groundbreaking film and definitely D.W. Griffith's greatest contribution to cinema.
If you like history, but hate reading, then watch this film...You could almost say that this is propaganda for the KKK...If Griffith didn't follow this film up with Intolerance (Enhanced) 1916 and eventually Abraham Lincoln (Enhanced) 1930, he may have been cast in a different historical light....
DVD Review: Still controversial
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Birth of a Nation", D.W. Griffith's epic film of 1915, is an amazing look at early cinematography with a topic that is still discussed almost one hundred years after its premiere. The good news is that this film, even by modern standards, could not and would not be made today for obvious reasons, but as representative "history" it stands out.
Divided into two equal parts, the film opens with two prominent families during the Civil War. The battle scenes are heroically portrayed and the long scene of Lincoln's assassination is one of the best. The second part, dealing with Reconstruction, is troubling yet fascinating to watch as hate disguised as bravery becomes the theme. The Klan (literally the "white knights on horseback") rise to many occasions to save their beleaguered friends and neighbors. The portrayal of blacks in the film is the most unsettling of all.
Besides enjoying the performance of a very young Lillian Gish, what I liked most about "The Birth of a Nation" was its historic feel rather than its accuracy. If cinematography had been around earlier in the nineteenth century, one might very well assume that the characters, the action, the sets and the props would be just as one saw them in motion.
I can understand why watching "The Birth of a Nation" would be distressing for many people today, but it helps to remember how far we've come as a country since 1915. With that in mind, I recommend seeing this monumental film.
DVD Review: The Version of The Birth of a Nation to Buy!
Summary: 5 Stars
While it seems that many reviews posted on the DVD site aren't actually for this DVD, this review is specifically a review of Kino's Griffith Masterworks edition. The DVD contains the most complete version of The Birth of a Nation known and available. The film is 187 min. long on this disk. It is a beautiful print, well restored and re-tinted. A beautiful print. The musical score is clever and very entertaining too. I think of any bad thing to say about the disk. I think most know of the story line and its hints of racism. It's there and it can't be argued away. D.W. Griffith was a son of a Civil War soldier and grew up in the South. He used the book The Clansman by Thomas Dixon Jr. as it jibed with his own viewpoints and many of the day. The hero worship of the Klan actually encouraged its resurgence in late 1910s and 1920s into the 30s. The racism brought Griffith so much grief, he spent his life trying to justify his views and created Intolerance to offset the criticism. What brings The Birth of a Nation is its reliance on story and use of the film camera never tried before in the USA before. It is a cinema powerhouse and actually a pretty moving film. Never before had Americans seen the cinema come to life before. Some French, Italian and German filmmakers created feature films that are quite good and successful, but World War I basically destroyed their film industries and the US reigned supreme. DW Griffith took American film to the next level permanently. No longer were films relegated to the poorer urban areas and Nickelodeons. It was now a popular art form and respectable to attend the cinema. The DVD also includes a making of, and introduction by DW himself made in 1930, and several early versions of his Civil War films. It seems to me that because of the closeness to the time period, the films might indicate a closer idea of how former Confederates actually thought and how they remember the war. DVD Review: ADULT'S ONLY...This movie is not for children
Summary: 5 Stars
Make no mistake about it, this 87 year old film, the foundation of movie-making language and one of the most successful films of all time, is not to be seen through the eyes of an idealist. A movie like this can crush a man's ego, forever bruise the mind of the easily offended, and ruin the life of the impressionable.
Was Griffith a racist? Perhaps so. Was Griffith a hateful, stupid white man, who believed in the dominance over others? Not at all. Anybody who had seen many of his short films, knew that Griffith's philosophy was that of the poor man's friend. A Corner in Wheat shows the struggle of the poor against a powerful merchant, who gets what is coming to him. His Trust shows a black slave gallantly risking his life for his master...the slave was not portrayed at all as a bad character; nor can the old "good slave, bad freeman" arguement be used against that film. Out of his own will, the man saved the little girl from the fire...he was a good man at heart. Intolerance and Broken Blossoms, made in 1916 and 1919 respectively, tell a message very much against racism and fanaticism. With these movies sandwiching The Birth of a Nation, what can we think about this epic monster?
I choose to think thusly: The Birth of a Nation was, perhaps, an expose of the twisted view of history as seen through a wounded, beaten land (the South). The things we see in the film, so disgustive and reprehensive, are what is seen through the eyes of the fanatic. Whether ot not it was Griffith's purpose, I will forever see this film as a brilliant expose of man's greatest enemy.
Description of The Birth of a Nation
Based on a play called "The Clansmen," D.W. Griffith's three-hour Civil War epic traces the development of the Civil War itself, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan through the lives of two families.A pivotal moment in film history. After The Birth of a Nation, nothing was the same: not the way audiences watched movies, not the way filmmakers created them. D.W. Griffith's jumbo-size saga of the Civil War expanded the boundaries of storytelling on the screen, conveying a richer, more complicated (and certainly longer) tale than anyone had seen in a movie before. The delicate relationships, the sad passage of time, the spectacular battle scenes all look as fresh and innovative today as they did in 1915. So do Griffith's brilliant actors, most of them--including favorite leading lady Lillian Gish--drawn from his regular stock company. What has become increasingly problematic about The Birth of a Nation is Griffith's condescending attitude toward black slaves, and the ringing excitement surrounding the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith, whose political ideas were naive at best, seemed genuinely surprised by the criticism of his masterwork, and for his next project he turned to the humanist preaching of the massive Intolerance. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President Woodrow Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lightning." That judgment has lasted. --Robert Horton
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