Alright, I'm in film class this semester, and while I've seen a lot of the movies before and formulated opinions of them in my mind, I am relishing the opportunity to write my very own reviews of them!  Since I know you guys just LURVE my opinion, I've decided to share a little bit with you.  Plus, when I put the review into my very own blog, I don't have to place myself within the length constraints of a teacher, and we all know I love a well-rounded thought =]   Enjoy~

The Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith's ground-breaking 1915 film that both paved the way for his equally pioneering career as well as the birth of Hollywood as we know it, cannot be approached like any other film.  It's important to the history of cinema.  It's a powerful piece of film-making.  It's racist.  Its legacy has been stained by that racist content: the violent depiction of African Americans  and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan sparked riots at its release and subsequent releases, it earned itself a spot on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Best Films of All Time and was subsequently removed due to controversy, and it is often still used today as a recruitment film for the Ku Klux Klan.  However, to see how important this movie is and what a leap it was for film-making, one need only look to any movie made before it.

Released on the 50th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War, the film presents what at first looks to be a genuine, almost documentary-like glimpse into historical events spanning the entirety of the Civil War and the subsequent "injustices" of the Reconstruction that led to the creation of the Ku Klux Klan.  The movie actually portrays Griffith's adaptation of the second volum of Thomas Dixon's anti-black trilogy created for the stage, The Clansman, in which two families, the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons, are caught up in the horrors of war and the depicted horrors resulting from African American rights.  This friendship between the two families shows that while divided for a time by war, Northerners were just as appalled by blacks as Southerners and the two are inexorably united by their "Aryan Roots" and the desire to protect themselves from the marauding, out-of-control blacks.  The conclusion: African Americans just aren't suited for equality or integration into decent, white society, and the Klan is full of heroes that saved us from those ne'er-do-wells.

"The Little Colonel" earning his nickname in a realistic battle recreation

To see the realism contained in this film, much of the inspiration for which was taken from historical photos, it is not hard to imagine why people would have been driven to riot over something like this.  People either genuinely believed that all this horribleness was true or were completely pissed off by the gross inaccuracies that sought to reverse emerging civil rights.  People were appalled to learn that such a film had earned a special, honorable screening in the White House by President Woodrow Wilson (who praised it heartily) while it had been banned from several major cities.  Klan membership jumped to its highest membership in history in the decade following this film's release, despite the fact it had indeed been around as long as the movie said.  Because of all this controversy surrounding it, it became the first real blockbuster hit.  Griffith offset the production cost, a whopping $2.5 million in today's dollars, making it the most expensive movie ever made at the time, by charging $2 per ticket, or about $43 today, a price people were more than happy to pay.

The Lovely and Talented Lillian Gish

However, despite all the mess surrounding it, it is one of the movies that helped to build the fame of the amazing and noteworthy actress, Lillian Gish.  Gish, shining star of almost all of D. W. Griffith's most successful movies, gave a lovely performance as Elsie Stoneman, love object of the eldest Cameron boy, later known as "the Little Colonel" and founder of the Ku Klux Klan, and daughter of the "Radical" who gains for blacks equal rights using his "mulatto" protege, Silas Lynch.  As in any of her movies, she is immediately recognizable for her acting style if not her looks.  She has dramatic and believable facial expressions that inspired most of the close-up shots incorporated by Griffith in this and his other films featuring her.  She is an artist in the way of depicting tragedy and distress and was perfect for the role in which she is captured, chased, and set-upon by the villain Lynch, to her father's dismay.  She is also everyone's favorite love object in most movies; she seems to be effortlessly beautiful, despite the fact we all know she's incredibly done up with makeup to make her lips that cute shape.  However, no one ever made frizzy, unkempt hair and rags look more beautiful.  But I digress...

The Birth of a Nation was born out of an emerging art form, which is why while it contains many techniques moviegoers are familiar with today, they sometimes seem to drag out too long or hiccup.  However, we would net even have to most basic moviemaking techniques that we take for granted today, such as panning, close-ups, fade-outs, cross-cutting between two scenes to create suspense and excitement, and original musical scores, if it weren't for D. W. Griffith's first feature-length masterpiece.  We wouldn't even have the great (racist) classic Gone with the Wind if it weren't for this movie, as the novel was heavily inspired by it.  The Birth of a Nation effectively captured the attention of a nation, revolutionized film, and paved the way for Griffith to further change the face of cinema with perfection and advancement of his new techniques in movies such as Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm and with the creation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.  It might be said that those subsequent films were only part of his attempt to redeem himself after The Birth of a Nation, but even if that is true, it may be truthfully said that the film pushed him to greater heights.

While I do not recommend that The Birth of a Nation be the first silent film you see, it is an absolute must see if you care about the history of movies.  However, it cannot be truly appreciated until you've seen a few movies that were made before 1915 or even some of Griffith's subsequent epics listed above.  Again, this movie cannot be approached like any other movie; go in with your eyes open or not at all.