1. A Review of the “Birth of a Nation”
“Birth of a Nation”, directed by D. W. Griffith was one of the great
masterpieces accoding to the authorities. In its time, it was totally beyond the other
films in the meaning of film method. The film gives us clues about how the American
people viewed that time period. After watching the movie i made several conclusions,
which i am going to explain in this response paper.
The movie is seperated into two parts. First part includes the American Civil
Wars. This part is untill Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The war is showed to be
pointless. The brothers are killing one another. We see the Cameron family in the
centre of the story. Sometimes we get information about the movie from the textes
given in the movie. The second part can be considered as the birth of a nation. The
period after the war is shown. Dr Cameron is accused of to murder a black man. To
the way to court some black men are laughing, however Cameron families servants are
helpfull to them. As the film progresses it seems very clear that the Northern whites
and the African American slaves of the South who rebel against their masters shows
the dark side of the America. I think in the general of the film we see racist patterns.
Even the blacks are blamed for hey have more rights than the whites in southern areas.
The Ku Klux Klan apperars also in the film. The Klan is doing the right things
according to Griffith. A black man burns a house and the Ku Klux Klan goes to punish
this black man.
As a conclusion, i think it does not show us the reality im America. In America,
the black people never had more rights than the white people. Even in 1950’s a black
2. man could not seat near a white man in the bus, or wash his hands in the white wc. The
white were never minority in the whole region. The ideas given or stressedin “Birth of
a Nation” seems to me not true. Griffith says in the second part that the film is just a
historical story, it does not refer to any race. I found this very funny actually. I think
the film is made good as technically however it argues for evil purposes.
