The Birth of a Nation
Director: DWGriffith DW Griffith
【Story Review】
The film is three hours long and divided into two parts, which are divided into two halves at the time of release. The first part mainly tells about the friendship between Stoneman and Cameron, the Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln, and the second part tells about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
At the beginning of the film, the arrival of black people sowed the seeds of unease on the North American continent, and the contradiction between the north and the south over black slaves became more and more intense. The free North called for the emancipation of slaves, while the plantation owners of the South opposed the emancipation of slaves. And South Carolina is a typical example of the South.
The Stonemans in the north owned a radical abolitionist congressman, and the Camerons in the south owned vast cotton fields. The two have a very good personal relationship. During a visit, Phil, the eldest son of the Stoneman family, fell in love with the eldest daughter of the Cameron family, Margaret, and the younger son of the Cameron family, "Little Colonel", fell in love with the daughter of the Stoneman family in the photo Elsie. At this time, the United States was peaceful in singing and dancing, but the happy days ended with the outbreak of the contradiction between the North and the South.
The two sons of the Stoneman family and the three sons of the Cameron family joined the Northern Volunteers and the Confederate Army, respectively. After the fierce Civil War, only Phil and "Little Colonel" survived. In the post-war hospital, "Little Colonel" met Elsie, who was longing for each other, and their identities were patients and nurses. News came that the 'Little Colonel' would be hanged as the leader of the enemy. At the begging of his mother and Elsie, President Lincoln pardoned the 'Little Colonel'.
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was attacked by the South at Ford's Theater. The assassination of Booth, a federal supporter. In the following elections, the radical representatives Stoneman and the biracial Lynch took power. The black people of the South became the rulers at once. They didn't need to work, just dance and receive Free items, they occupied almost all the seats in the House of Representatives, and black slaves loyal to their masters were retaliated against.
A black man falls in love with the Cameron family's youngest daughter, Flora. During her escape, Flora fell off a cliff. The "Little Colonel", who saw his sister's death, was distraught and founded the Ku Klux Klan to protect white people.
Elsie learns that her lover has become the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and she chooses to stay true to her father and break up with her lover. At the same time, the trauma of the war could not be removed from Margaret for a long time, and she chose to avoid Phil.
Stoneman and Lynch ordered a scrutiny of the Ku Klux Klan, and anyone with a KKK uniform in their home was sentenced to death. Cameron's KKK clothes with a white cross on a red background were found, and the old Cameron was captured by the militia and paraded in front of his former slaves, chained. The former black slaves of the Cameron family and Phil worked together to rescue the old Cameron. In the process, Phil also shot and killed a black slave.
A former hut of white soldiers of the Union Army became their sanctuary. The hut was besieged by black militiamen. Meanwhile, biracial Lynch falls in love with Elsie, and after her marriage proposal is rejected, he forcibly binds her and orders his men to prepare for the wedding.
The Ku Klux Klan attacked the black militia occupying the city streets, saving Elsie and the Cameron family in the cabin at the last minute. Elsie and "Little Colonel", Margaret and Phil, are happily embracing. America, as a whole nation, was born at this moment.
[The historical value of the film]
As the world's first feature film, the 3-hour "Birth of a Nation" is undoubtedly a milestone in film history. It was also a successful commercial film, earning $3 million at the box office for a production cost of $110,000. Since the invention of the film by the Lumiere brothers in France in 1895, people have produced almost all short films. It wasn't until Griffith's The Birth of a Nation that the era of commercial feature films officially began.
Movies are the culmination of various techniques of that era.
montage. The film has a lot of parallel montages and cross montages. Life of an American Fireman (1903) was the first example of the use of montage, clearly separating the art of cinema from the art of theater. In The Birth of a Nation, the montage is more mature. The last minute of the film's rescue, the camera constantly switches between struggling Elsie, the terrified Stonemans in the cabin, and the Ku Klux Klan on horseback, creating a sense of tension.
Flashback. Margaret recalled the tragic scene of her brother's death on the battlefield, indeed, as Phil was courting. This broke the conventional narrative method of strictly following the development of events, which was a major innovation at the time.
Rich scenery. Covers everything from long shots to close-ups. Perhaps the concept of stage play was deeply imprinted in the minds of people at that time, and the film had a special love for panorama.
close up. A close-up of Elsie's photo shows us a serene and beautiful noblewoman. The woman in the photo has a good-looking appearance and is full of grace in her gestures. No wonder the "Little Colonel" can go crazy for the woman in a small photo. Take another example, Elsie, who came back from a date with her boyfriend, hugged the wood beside the bed and kissed and kissed, shedding tears of excitement, which made the audience truly feel her joy when she fell in love.
Another feature of the film that is easy to notice is the circle in and out. A lot of circle in circle out force the viewer to pay attention to the core part of the picture.
The depiction of war scenes was also successful. A large number of extras created a magnificent war scene, and the large number of people gave the audience a sense of powerlessness. Such crowd tactics are also often used in later films.
These techniques are commonplace today, but 100 years ago, it must have been an amazing breakthrough to be able to combine them in one movie. Therefore, "The Birth of a Nation" was able to sell for a high price of $2 in that year, and it also made the audience feel that it was worth the money.
[politically incorrect]
In the contemporary liberal democratic society, this film must be politically incorrect. It weakened the role of the Civil War in promoting racial equality, beautified the extremist Ku Klux Klan, and the film's depiction of black people is also full of discrimination.
There is a scene in the movie where the House is occupied by blacks. Black people don't take their political rights seriously, eat, take off their shoes, put their feet on the table, walk around and talk in meetings. After the passage of the bill allowing blacks and whites to intermarry, the white women at the scene fled, and the black congressmen stared at them with lustful eyes. Black people can sell their votes for a basket of goods. Negroes only dance and don't work. Black people would force women to accept their marriage proposal. Negroes shrank in battle, huddled together to defend. Not even the half-breed. The mulatto maid hooked up with the master and felt good about herself. After the war was over, she happily turned over to be the master. The mulatto Lynch even treated Elsie brutally and forced her to marry.
These pictures in the film are in line with some people's stereotypes of black people. Every frame seems to say that black people are an inferior race that cannot be taught. On the contrary, the Ku Klux Klan, which fought for the rights of white people, was glorified as an American hero.
The KKK in the story has a reasonable fuse, that is, Flora jumped off a cliff and died. The Ku Klux Klan has a blood-stained banner. The Ku Klux Klan had mass white support, and white women sewed 400,000 outfits for them. The KKK has always been able to rescue people at critical moments, including last-minute rescues for the Elsie and Cameron families. The Ku Klux Klan bravely marched forward without fear of sacrifice.
Racial discrimination, in post-Civil War America, did not break away from mainstream culture. Otherwise, the condemnation of the film would not have appeared so late.
There is no doubt about the nature of the KKK, an extreme civil hate group. Hatred of black people, hatred of communists and socialists, advocating violence and the death penalty, no matter how you look at it, the Ku Klux Klan has no sympathy.
The birth of a country in the film is based on the second rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the control of blacks by whites, not the balance of rights between whites and blacks, and the mutual respect of whites and blacks. This is the birth of a racist America, not the real America.
Racial discrimination, both blacks against whites and whites against blacks. Today, in many parts of Africa, white people are a group living in slums and are disdained by black people; while in Europe and the United States, black people are indiscriminate. Racial equality is a topic that has been discussed and talked about, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in today's world where we already think it is very free and equal.
Equality does not imply the privilege of any weaker or stronger party. The day when people of all skin colors can enjoy the same rights under the law, and sincerely eliminate their sense of superiority and respect each other, will we be able to remove racial equality from our conversation.
Also remind yourself not to be brainwashed by anything you see.
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