The Birth of Feature Film as an Art, Reivew on The Birth of a Nation

Before The Birth of a Nation, there were also fragmentary films that explored the specific techniques of this or that film, and these explorations of techniques were also used in this film. These techniques include: close-ups (as in Happy Shoe Salesman), cross-editing (as in The Great Train Robbery), follow-through (as in The Great Train Robbery), and more.

It's a pity, though, that those films tend to be mediocre in terms of fundamentals (art, composition, scenery, or whatever. Of course, "Journey to the Moon" is the only exception), except for the technical exploration, so their technical exploration Meaning is weakened by its own quality. And "The Birth of a Nation", a film with excellent fundamentals coupled with these technical explorations, can be said to truly make the best use of everything.

Of course, "The Birth of a Nation" is not just these summaries, he himself has also created a lot of creative visual designs (because it is a silent film, so the auditory design naturally has no bright spots), such as:

- Crossover montage of last-minute rescues at the end

——Night photography (his previous work "The Telegrapher of Lontel" is not night photography, but dyes the pictures during the day into another color to represent the night)

——The first film to use a mask to highlight the center of gravity and enhance the atmosphere by limiting the audience's viewpoint

The perimeter of the screen is obscured by a mask of darkness, creating a feeling of "endless" people in the trenches

- Conscious and systematic use of long-range and long-range lenses.

Combined with the smoke from the shooting, the big vision makes the war scene with only a dozen people appear grand. This feeling will be more obvious when you watch the original film

"The Life of an American Fireman" (1903) also has visions, but they use them not because of any expressive purpose, but as an unconscious habit of stage play. For example, in this scene, the actual use of the perspective actually weakened the "emergency" atmosphere of the rescue.

——(Strictly speaking, this is not "groundbreaking", but this is the first time in film history) The grand war scene of the Civil War in the film, which lasted for ten minutes, was the scheduling of the first large-scale war in film history, almost Defines the basic principles of how to shoot large-scale wars. Various close-ups, transitions, screen direction match, long-range and close-range switching, etc.

So the significance of "The Birth of a Nation" is that it not only puts those experimental techniques into a film with a very good foundation (that is, the composition/set/art design/... . are very good), but also designed a lot of skills. In this sense, The Birth of a Nation can be said to be the Citizen Kane of the 10s. However, it is a racist film, a film that is totally evil in terms of values. So even though I give him a 9, I only give him one star.

View more about The Birth of a Nation reviews