“It was a box office success – a mainstream film, so utterly mainstream,” says Professor Alan Rice, a Birth of a Nation expert at The Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire, who has been organising a series of symposia on the film. https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=19597
THE BIRTH OF A NATION was utterly not a mainstream film.
A mainstream film in media studies is a commercially driven movie produced by major studios for mass audiences, featuring wide theatrical distribution , large budgets, and famous stars.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION was an independent film. It was independently produced. Reliance Majestic, the studio for which Griffith was working, divorced themselves from it. They could not see making their money back at 5 or10 cents. It was independently released.
David Wark Griffith worked primarily as an independent film maker. Yes, he made films under contact for Paramount ArtCraft and First National. Those films were made to finance his independent productions.
Something seems to happen with D. W. Griffith today. People like Alan Rice seem to think they can throw any thing they wish. In a piece published in The Toronto Star Toronto film writer Geoff Pevere published a piece on THE BIRTH that had more holes in it than Swiss Cheese not the least of which was attributing to Edna Ferber the authorship of Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell was furious with the bowdlerized screen version of her novel. She stated the only honest motion picture about The American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction is D. W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915).
Few today would echo that statement. One of those few is Griffith Scholar William M. Drew who, like myself, took Geoff Pevere to task for his diatribe dressed up as scholarship. One of the few good things that came from that piece of gross misinformation is that Geoff put me in touch with William M. Drew.
“The film is one of the most racist films ever made. Maybe the most racist film ever made,” says Ellen Scott, author of the just-published Cinema Civil Rights. “This film actually depicts lynching as a positive thing,” she says. “The politics of the film was essentially to say certain black people are worthy of being lynched. In that sense it’s extremely racist.”https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=19597
Actually, THE BIRTH is not a racist film. It is an utterly realistic telling of the time and the events told from the point of view of the American South.
The idea of separate races is scientifically false.
One can say, as many wrongfully do, that THE BIRTH is an anti-Negro film.
James Agee put the kibosh on that: “Today, The Birth of a Nation is boycotted or shown piecemeal; too many more or less well-meaning people still accuse Griffith of having made it an anti-Negro movie. At best, this is nonsense, and at worst, it is vicious nonsense. Even if it were an anti-Negro movie, a work of such quality should be shown, and shown whole. But the accusation is unjust. Griffith went to almost preposterous lengths to be fair to the Negroes as he understood them, and he understood them as a good type of Southerner does. I don’t entirely agree with him; nor can I be sure that the film wouldn’t cause trouble and misunderstanding, especially as advertised and exacerbated by contemporary abolitionists; but Griffith’s absolute desire to be fair, and understandable, is written all over the picture; so are degrees of understanding, honesty, and compassion far beyond the capacity of his accusers. So, of course, are the salient facts of the so-called Reconstruction years.”
Phillip Thomas Tucker, a Ph.D., in American history who served for over twenty years as a Professional historian for the Department of Defense, stated,“…too many of today’s historians have been wrong about our past by looking at history through a modern lens and making moral judgments about a time and people for which they have relatively little true understanding, denouncing undeniable facts as nothing more than conservative revisionism and neo-Confederate propaganda.”
The first black Senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels stated: “Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been . . enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything, no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves and perpetuate it… A great portion of them (my people) have learned that they were being used as mere tools… My people have been told by these schemers when men were placed upon the ticket who were notoriously corrupt and dishonest, that they must vote for them… This is only one of the many means these unprincipled demagogues have devised to perpetuate the intellectual bondage of my people… The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this State, except, perhaps, in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office and its emoluments to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them.”
Booker T. Washington also confirmed the claims made in the movie:“I felt that the Reconstruction policy, so far as it related to my race, was in a large measure on a false foundation, was artificial and forced. In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with which to help white men into office, and that there was an element in the North which wanted to punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads of the Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the one to suffer for this in the end.”
The revived KLAN was anti-Irish, anti-Italian, anti-Jewish, anti-Roman and anti-everything that was not the small pool of humanity they represented. It was not The Klan of the period covered in Griffith’s film. The titles attached come from Woodrow Wilson’s HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. They accurately reflect what Hiram Rhodes Revels and Booker T. Washington stated.
Griffith scholar William M. Drew writes, “As for Mike Mashon, I’ve no interest in watching his video as he doubtless will express the establishment view on the 1915 Civil War-Reconstruction film. Had he dissented, he would probably lose his standing in film circles. The way to some degree of power and influence here on controversial topics is to take the comfortable view. If you go against the tide as I’ve repeatedly learned, you are doomed to be rejected by the establishment.”
When THE BIRTH OF A NATION was first shown the picture included footage of Abraham’s Lincoln’s solution to the problem: SHIP THEM ALL BACK TO AFRICA (see MOTOTOGRAPY below) https://www.history.com/articles/abraham-lincoln-black-resettlement-haiti .
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Thankfully, Lincoln had second thoughts as did Griffith.
- Apocryphal Nature: Film historians generally consider the rumored sequence showing Abraham Lincoln proposing the relocation of Black Americans to Africa to either be an unfilmed idea, a heavily disputed concept, or a brief test/outtake that was swiftly discarded before the film’s official 1915 premiere.
- Not Part of the Negative: Archival preservation focuses on surviving camera negatives, authorized release prints (such as the 1915 roadshow versions or the 1921 re-release preserved at the Library of Congress). Because this sequence does not exist as an integrated, continuous part of the primary surviving negative master elements, it cannot be authentically “restored” into the body of the film. [1]
- Used as a Marketing Palliative: Known as the “Hampton Epilogue” or The New Era, distributors like the Basil Corporation appended this short documentary after screenings of The Birth of a Nation in select cities (and controversially in Canada) strictly as a tactical move to placate fierce local and Black-led protests against the feature film’s intense racism. [1, 2]
- Preserving Editorial Integrity: Modern restorations (such as Photoplay Productions’ 4K archival reconstructions) aim to present the historic theatrical continuity and intent of the released feature itself. Tacking on a completely separate promotional or mitigating short subject from theatrical roadshows would misrepresent the standalone text of Griffith’s original cut. [1]
AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses.
Yes, AI can make mistakes. This time it has. “film historians generally consider the rumored sequence showing Abraham Lincoln proposing the relocation of Black Americans to Africa to either be an unfilmed idea, a heavily disputed concept, or a brief test/outtake that was swiftly discarded before the film’s official 1915 premiere.” The footage was there.
While the footage of Blacks being returned to Africa was removed from the picture it should have been preserved as a legitimate part of the historical record.
Mr. Drew states the Hampton footage was filmed at Griffith’s request and included as an epilogue in presentations of THE BIRTH throughout the silent period. Individual theatres may have removed it however it was Griffith’s desire for it to be seen. The footage is a legitimate part of the historical record. It should have been preserved and included. At the very least it deserves mention. My question is why did Griffith feel the need to include it. It is a good question. For myself the answer and much more is found in this chapter from STARMAKER by Homer Croy https://dn760002.eu.archive.org/0/items/starmakerstoryof00home/starmakerstoryof00home.pdf
Thaddeus Stevens, who provided much of the foundation for the character of Austin Stoneman in THE BIRTH OF A NATION. unlike Stoneman did not have a son or a daughter.Whether or not said he wanted the White South crushed under heel of the Black South his policies as well as the actions of General Sherman which led to Souther land owners being stripped of their property led directly to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
- Redistribution: He wanted to take land from this wealthy planter class and give 40-acre plots to formerly enslaved people. [1]
- Economic independence: Stevens believed that true freedom for freedmen required economic independence, which was impossible if they remained landless and dependent on their former enslavers. [1]
The quote “Crush the White South under he heel of the Black South,” comes from the chapter on RECONSTRUCTION from Woodrow Wilson’s HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE which can be read here: https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica05wils/mode/1up
David Wark Griffith deserves better.
This is not the end.
Perhaps the greatest lesson is to be very careful in what we say.
Griffith thought he made it clear the Negro of Reconstruction was not responsible for his actions. The words of Booker T. Washington confirm that.
Stanley Kubrick could not imagine people seeing CLOCKWORK ORANGE being inspired to mimic the thuggish behaviour they saw in his picture.
“Let your ‘yes’ be a plain ‘yes.’ Let your ‘no’ be a plain ‘no.’ Anything more is from the Devil said Jesus of Nazareth.
He nailed it.
That is one of the reasons he got nailed.
-Reg Hartt
