Birth of a Nation

[Leticia]

I JUST saw this movie this week. It's from 1915.


It's THE most racist movie I have ever seen in my life where the KKK "saves the day from the 'negroes' taking over the government".


In the end they say to choose the path of Jesus and not the Devil. Cause apparently black people were the devil in 1915. The things I saw in this movie are indescribable.

I'm sure other people have seen this movie. Can anyone wrap their heads around how someone who be this horrible?

Also I heard that the history channel said that this movie brought in an influx of over 20 million clan members by 1920! Including supreme court judges and senate members!


I threw up in my mouth.

[keithy_19]

If I recall it was actually an achievement for the way movies were made. But yeah, it's pretty awful.

[PapaBear]

I've always refused to watch it, but it's strange. I think it's one of those hard subjects to discuss. Climatically, it's considered a great achievement. But the subject matter is, well... not good.

[HBox]

As far as the techniques used to film and edit the movie it was groundbreaking, arguably the most groundbreaking film in the history of cinema.

Unfortunately the plot, well, it is what it is.

[Slumbag]

I'd check it out.

Laughing at morons is kinda my thing.

[PapaBear]

I guess it's kinda like that whole Hitler thing. He was one of the most vile people who ever lived, but that Autobahn thing was a pretty good idea.

[Leticia]

I mean it's one awful thing to make a movie like this, but it was 3 fucking hours long!

Fucking details like the guy who invented a "heroic group" got the idea of wearing white from seeing white kids cover themselves with a sheet to confuse and scare black kids and how easily they were scared when you covered yourself with a sheet.

who thinks of this shit??

A court house that declares that "men must wear shoes" as a rule that apparently you have to make for black people who are sitting down sneaking bottles of alcohol and eating chicken during trials.

I mean really???

How ridiculous can you be and how stupid can you be to believe this movie back then??

It just makes me so mad and I just can't believe I had never heard of this movie.

[PapaBear]

Just be glad that the people who first saw the movie are all dead now. They did spawn people who are about as bad, but I honestly believe that (some day) the way blacks were treated will eventually be a footnote in history. After we're all dead, unfortunately.

When you think about it, the attitudes about blacks in this country were like that for about 300 years in this land. I'm 42, and blacks were still having to work toward getting basic rights in my lifetime.

[Enabler]

Its widely understood that Birth of a Nation is racist. Super racist. Like, as racist as anything could be. But its also like the first real "movie." So its got that goin' for it. But its still super duper racist.

Thems were the times. Or so Im told.

[Leticia]

does it have the same actress as in Freaks?

[A.J.]

It's THE most racist movie I have ever seen in my life where the KKK "saves the day from the 'negroes' taking over the government".

Maybe they can help the Birthers.

[underdog]

I guess it's kinda like that whole Hitler thing. He was one of the most vile people who ever lived, but that Autobahn thing was a pretty good idea.

There's also a movie, similar in controversy to Birth of a Nation, about Hitler and the 3rd Reich. It was this amazingly shot documentary, but it was recognized as Nazi propaganda. I cannot for the life of me remember what that movie is called. I just remember it was shot by a woman.

[realmenhatelife]

There's also a movie, similar in controversy to Birth of a Nation, about Hitler and the 3rd Reich. It was this amazingly shot documentary, but it was recognized as Nazi propaganda. I cannot for the life of me remember what that movie is called. I just remember it was shot by a woman.

Triumph of the Will by Leni Reifenstahl


If it makes you feel any better Birth of a Nation did cause a controversy, even in 1915

[Furtherman]

If you research a little more into who and why the movie was made, you'll find that it's the way many, many people thought back then. It's truly a sign of the times. In retrospect, people weren't as smart back then, but through no fault of their own, as that was the society they were born into.

We've improved greatly since then. Not perfect, but great strides nonetheless.

I watched that movie in college, as it was a requirement. We were all shocked.

In fact, I think more people should see it, for those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

[Misteriosa]

i remember seeing this in film class in HS. it caused riots in the streets when it came out. there is a sequel that was made called "Fall of a Nation", but ive never seen it. i think the film has been lost or destroyed.

[sailor]

I guess it's kinda like that whole Hitler thing. He was one of the most vile people who ever lived, but that Autobahn thing was a pretty good idea.

i thought you were gonna go with the leni riefenstahl films (triumph of the will and olympia).

[Dude!]

If you research a little more into who and why the movie was made, you'll find that it's the way many, many people thought back then. It's truly a sign of the times. In retrospect, people weren't as smart back then, but through no fault of their own, as that was the society they were born into.

We've improved greatly since then. Not perfect, but great strides nonetheless.

I watched that movie in college, as it was a requirement. We were all shocked.

In fact, I think more people should see it, for those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

see if you can get 3 cliches
into your next post
2 is just not enough

[Dan G]

Anyone know if this has ever aired on TCM? I've always wanted to see this movie and figured TCM or IFC would air it.

[Furtherman]

see if you can get 3 cliches
into your next post
2 is just not enough

Still upset about my insult to your injury? As soon as you face the music, you'll find that nearly all of your repeated arguments are easier said than done.

[Dude!]

Still upset about my insult to your injury? As soon as you face the music, you'll find that nearly all of your repeated arguments are easier said than done.

perfect

[strawberrypop]

In retrospect, people weren't as smart back then, but through no fault of their own, as that was the society they were born into.


Judging the cultural ideals/worldview of the past with a modern lens is a terribly flawed and erroneous way to look at history.

You're kind of getting to that in this post, but not quite. Hunters & Gatherers were no less intelligent than modern men. They did not have the advantage of time to have developed the tools that we now have at our disposal, and they had a different perspective, but were it not for human intelligence going through the ages to expand upon what had been done previously, we would not have made the advances we have.

In the same vein, we're no smarter than the average person was in 1915 - our increased knowledge & cultural sensitivity is an outgrowth of the technological/communications advances - and their societal implications - over the past century...not of our own individual doing, but of what those who have come before us/are currently making said advances...but surely, in 100 years, that which we have now will be obsolete to the point of being comically archaic.

I know it's splitting hairs and getting overly analytical about semantics, as that's more or less what your point was, but I have an itchy trigger finger when it seems like people are making assumptions about the intellect of people in the past without taking into account the worldview of the time.

[Furtherman]

Gotcha.. and agreed... and perhaps I should have clarified that people weren't as smart with race and race relations back then because there was many people who still looked down on blacks as just ex-slaves and unequal. Those people as a whole were not smart due to the society in which they were brought up, which I had mentioned before... that's not looking with a modern lens, that's looking at it for what it was.


And Grogg was pretty dumb when he went after Nuuggh, who had that bone. Just sayin'.

[underdog]

i thought you were gonna go with the leni riefenstahl films (triumph of the will and olympia).

Exactly.

[BeerBandit]

Anyone know if this has ever aired on TCM? I've always wanted to see this movie and figured TCM or IFC would air it.
It's on youtube in 20 parts.

[burrben]

you should watch griffith's intolerance next

[paracetamol flanders]

http://www.tjsrecords.com/images/KKK.jpg

[Leticia]

I watched that movie in college, as it was a requirement. We were all shocked.

In fact, I think more people should see it, for those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

I completely agree. More people should see this movie in school.

i remember seeing this in film class in HS. it caused riots in the streets when it came out. there is a sequel that was made called "Fall of a Nation", but ive never seen it. i think the film has been lost or destroyed.

I will look this up!

Anyone know if this has ever aired on TCM? I've always wanted to see this movie and figured TCM or IFC would air it.

I have it. I can burn a copy for you or you can download it off of completely legal not free sites...

you should watch griffith's intolerance next

I downladed this movie and will watch it soon.
I got a bunch of crazy movies and that was one of them.

I just saw the Unknown. Crazy movie where an gypsie circus performer falls in love with a women in the circus and promotes her fear of men's hands so that she can be only with him. She starts showing him more and more affection and (as it turns out he DOES have hands but has been hiding them) his friend tell him that he should back away from her because she'll find out he has hands. He decides that he needs to be with her and has an operation to remove him arms. Weeks later when he comes back fully recovered, he finds out that she has gotten over her fear and is engaged to another one of the circus performers.

Sad movie.

[TheMojoPin]

I think it's a good thing that this film is basically the first "movie" as we know them today and that it is so cinematically influential because it means that what the film embodies and represents historically and socially will never be forgotten or ignored. I've never once seen clips of this film shown in a class where it didn't stun most of the students into silence and then discussion after it was over.

It's very much a film of its time, influenced by the changing demographics of the West, the Midwest and the North due to the Great Migration and the perceived "black threat" to American cities. It's incredibly telling that Woodrow Wilson screened it in the White House and was a big fan, reportedly saying, "it's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true."

As morally reprehensible as they are, Griffith's films are stunning achievments when it comes to filmmaking.

[Dude!]

it's time for the loving
peter jackson remake
like king kong

[KnoxHarrington]

you should watch griffith's intolerance next

The AFI actually replaced Birth of a Nation with Intolerance when they redid their 100 Best Films list.

[CountryBob]

I am white and the clan scares me - stupid, redneck, power hungry idiots. They march each year in my town and hundreds turn out to cuss and throw stuff at them.

[Dan G]

Anyone know if this has ever aired on TCM? I've always wanted to see this movie and figured TCM or IFC would air it.
I have it. I can burn a copy for you or you can download it off of completely legal not free sites...

I always hoped to catch it on TV, but I suppose I'll download and burn it to a DVD.

This movie is like 4 hours long, isn't it?

[mikeyboy]

I always hoped to catch it on TV, but I suppose I'll download and burn it to a DVD.

This movie is like 4 hours long, isn't it?

It looks like the movie is broken up into 20 pieces on youtube.

[sailor]

It's on youtube in 20 parts.

It looks like the movie is broken up into 20 pieces on youtube.

exactly. (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=68561)

[Leticia]

I always hoped to catch it on TV, but I suppose I'll download and burn it to a DVD.

This movie is like 4 hours long, isn't it?

3 hours.

[Leticia]

exactly. (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=68561)

lol.

The quote where he asks how long the movie is was also answered already. hahaha.

[K.C.]

It's THE most racist movie I have ever seen in my life where the KKK "saves the day from the 'negroes' taking over the government".

Nazis have a nice library that could give it a run for their money.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/deztmWvm88k&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/deztmWvm88k&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

other people have seen this movie. Can anyone wrap their heads around how someone who be this horrible?


Power.

While you're upset at the racist angle (and rightfully so), it's basically a political propaganda film, and history is littered with them