Line #8 YMMV/TheBirthOfANation1915


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: The movie is based on Thomas Dixon's stage adaptation of his own book, ''The Clansman''. The play, for obvious reasons, hasn't been performed in decades; the book is out of print, though easy to find for the curious as it's now in public domain. For that matter, ''The Clansman'' is the second book in a series of novels; the first book, ''The Leopard's Spots'', and the third, ''The Traitor'', have faded into obscurity because neither inspired a film version.
2	* CommonKnowledge: Both involving the infamous White House screening by UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson.
3	** Wilson, as mentioned on the main page, likely never praised the film as "like writing history with lightning." However much the film reflected Wilson's own racial views, the "lightning" quote was probably invented either by the film's publicist or Creator/DWGriffith himself. At least one firsthand account of the White House screening exists, indicating that Wilson sat silently through the film and exited the theater without commenting; none of his family, staff or cabinet recalled any immediate reaction. He did later write Griffith a private letter thanking him for the screening, but made no comments on the film's quality.
4	** Strictly speaking, ''Birth of a Nation'' was not the first film screened at the White House. Wilson had hosted a public screening of ''Film/{{Cabiria}}'' on the White House lawn the year before. It was the first movie ''privately'' screened for a President, though.
5	* CondemnedByHistory: This was the first EpicMovie, the film that proved cinema to be a viable entertainment medium rather than [[ItWillNeverCatchOn a passing fad]], and the pioneer of countless filmmaking techniques. Modern-day film scholars and critics are still more than willing to acknowledge ''this'' part of its legacy. However, it would be the understatement of the century to say that the film's writing and story have [[ValuesDissonance not aged well]] (even though it is rated G). There ''is'' a reason why it's only watched today by film students (for the technical/historical aspects) and by people studying the history of racism. Specifically, it is a feature-length ode to the original incarnation of the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan that is widely credited with sparking [[TheRedStapler a revival of the organization]] in the early 20th century. [[note]]The novel it was based on, ''The Clansman'' by Thomas Dixon Jr., even invented both the hooded white robe as a Klan uniform and the cross burning as a Klan institution, both of which the film faithfully recreated on screen. The original Klan never burned crosses or had a specific uniform, but thanks to ''The Clansman'' and later ''The Birth of a Nation'', they became indelibly linked with the organization and with white supremacy in general.[[/note]] It is now seen as typical of the highly negative "Dunning School" view of Reconstruction, which promoted open, virulent racism (in the name of [[https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/reconciliation-movement "reconciliation"]] between North and South after UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar).
6	* CrossesTheLineTwice: This is the unintended reaction of many modern viewers. The racism is so extreme that it's ridiculous--and pretty darn funny. The ending, which has the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan intimidating black voters away from the polls is supposed to be a HappyEnding.
7	* DesignatedHero: Ben and the rest of the Ku Klux Klan. Even if you somehow, by some effort, conjured the perspective of the film's intended audience, a bunch of vigilantes who deny franchise to African-Americans must be hard to accept as heroic.
8	* EnsembleDarkhorse: The one aspect of the film that everyone seems to be okay with is UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, one of the few parts of the film with historical accuracy (not being a warmonger, having a fairly hands-off approach to reconstruction, and his death being seen as a great tragedy, partially because his absence would give away to new political ideologies), and overall being a CoolOldGuy and ReasonableAuthorityFigure. [[note]]However, the film notoriously glosses over his dislike of slavery as an institution, and his desire to grant educated black Americans the vote. The film lauds Lincoln while ignoring his actual beliefs and worldview.[[/note]]
9	* EsotericHappyEnding: The movie ends with the Ku Klux Klan intimidating black people from voting, which is only considered a happy ending from the racist viewpoint of the film.
10	* FirstInstallmentWins: The film had a sequel called ''The Fall of a Nation'', which is probably the first movie sequel in history. It did not involve Creator/DWGriffith or any of the original cast, but was rather directed by Thomas Dixon, the author of the original novel. The film is set in [[NextSundayAD the near future]] and depicts the U.S. being invaded by a German-dominated UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}. Basically, the film was a plea for the U.S. to enter UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and stop UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} before it's too late. ''The Fall of a Nation'' was a commercial failure and there are no known surviving prints. You might be able to track down a copy of the book it was based on.
11	* GenreTurningPoint: In the words of critic Dave Kehr, "here, in a very real sense, is where the movies began, both as an art and as a business."
12	** ''The Birth of a Nation'' was the first blockbuster in film history. Historians have a hard time figuring out how much money it made, but some have argued that adjusted for inflation it made nearly as much money as ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' (which did break the record for most earning on a single year). The film's success in America made producers realize that the motion picture business could be profitable and since Griffith (who was an ''independent'' film-maker) had made the film in Hollywood, it led many to follow suit. Of course, the film was preceded by ''Film/{{Cabiria}}'' in terms of an EpicMovie with a feature length runtime, but Griffith's use of the medium to portray a setting familiar to American audiences (and in ''living memory'' at the time of release) codified it.
13	** The ground-breaking technical achievements of ''The Birth of a Nation'' (cross-cutting, use of close-ups, long-shots and medium shots to separate action and delineate emotional involvement), its battle scenes and location shooting inspired film-makers across the world, of all stripes and political persuasions (including Soviet film-makers, who being anti-racist ''in theory'', needless to say, did not share the film's ideology).
14	** The film's controversial reception, its involvement in the rise of the Second Ku Klax Klan (who kept renting out the film and routinely screened it in the 20s and 30s), the backlash by the [=NAACP=] and the film's use of technique in support of dubious ideology, has made the film (along with ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' and ''Film/TriumphOfTheWill''), a perennial point of contention on movies as propaganda and the responsibility of artists to depicting history. To Hollywood's credit, the backlash by the [=NAACP=] against the film did make them cautious about subject matter, and few movies made later are quite as explicitly racist (implicit racism is another thing).
15	* HoYay: The "chums." Pre-war, they're teenaged boys frolicking and walking around with their arms around each other's waists; on the battlefield, they [[spoiler: die in a tender face-to-face embrace]].
16	* ItWasHisSled: The movie ends with the Ku Klux Klan "heroically" coming to the Cameron family's rescue after they're attacked by a mob of angry Negroes. If people know just one detail about the movie's plot, chances are pretty good that it's ''that'' detail. Of course, once they know that, most people aren't exactly eager to sit through the rest of it...
17	* MemeticMutation: This movie is generally blamed for shaping the concept of black people eating fried chicken as a racist stereotype.
18	** Ben's heartwarming return home from the war near the end of Part 1, especially the hug scene between Ben and Flora.
19	* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Unintentional, but watch the scene where Silas Lynch enters Stoneman's office where everybody but him is white. Stoneman tells Silas Lynch he doesn't have to bow and that he is the equal of any man in the room.
20	* OlderThanTheyThink:
21	** ''Birth of a Nation'' was actually the second attempt to film ''The Clansman''. In 1911, filmmaker William F. Haddock shot one-and-a-half reels of footage, but used an expensive color and sound process which caused him to run out of money before completing the movie. Frank E. Woods, a film critic, attended a screening of Haddock's footage (which was later destroyed) and told Creator/DWGriffith, who decided to tackle it himself.
22	** Some writers note that the scene where Ben Cameron forms the idea of the Klan after seeing African-American children being scared away by kids using a white blanket to cover them foreshadows SuperheroOrigin stories, [[http://sequart.org/magazine/40632/superhero-accessories-part-one-masked-vigilantes/ where the hero decides upon a symbol and idea]].
23	---> '''Creator/AlanMoore''': The origin of capes and masks as ubiquitous superhero accessories can be deduced from a close viewing of D.W. Griffith's ''Birth of a Nation''
24	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: A quintessential example of the trope: the film is credited with inventing a wide range of storytelling conventions that have become so mainstream that they're the fundamental building blocks of modern cinema. There's no way you can appreciate it unless you take a deep dive into very early films.
25	* OvershadowedByControversy: This film originated and pioneered many aspects of film-making and it is seen as a landmark of film history, but ask a random person on the street what they know about it and it will most likely be that the film is openly racist (even by 1915 standards) for portraying the Ku Klux Klan as the ''heroes''.
26	* PlayTheGameSkipThePlot: Due to the very racist overtones, nobody teaching this film in a film class pays any attention to the plot; they just focus on the film's many stylistic tropes.
27	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: If you're a modern viewer, you probably don't want ''anyone'' to triumph. A major conflict is between DesignatedHero white supremacists who want to keep blacks from voting and StrawmanPolitical ''black'' supremacists who want to keep ''whites'' from voting.
28	* UnintentionalUncannyValley: Some of the "black" characters in the second part of the film almost fall into this territory due to the extensive use of {{Blackface}}. The eyes and eyebrows on some performers in particular look disturbingly out of place.
29	* UnintentionallySympathetic: We're supposed to take it for granted that Gus is trying to rape Flora (he was stalking her, though), but all we actually see him doing is asking her to [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe marry]] him, then chase her to allegedly apologize, after which [[DrivenToSuicide she promptly jumps off a cliff]]. This makes it hard not to feel sorry for him, ScaryBlackMan or not, especially given his punishment.
30	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Austin Stoneman's horrified reaction to Silas wanting to marry his daughter is intended to be an EvenEvilHasStandards moment but [[ValuesDissonance to modern audiences]] it actually makes him seem ''worse'' by revealing him to be a gigantic hypocrite.
31	* ValuesDissonance: ''Nearly everything about this movie.'' Perhaps not to the degree you would expect, since both the film and the book it was based on were denounced by the NAACP as racist even at the time (though the group then was considered "radical" anyway). The film follows the highly negative [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School "Dunning School"]] view of Reconstruction. That approach was very popular among white Southerners and other racists at the time, but it has been rejected by almost all historians since the 1960s, not only for its racism but also for its wild inaccuracies. There is a reason this film is generally considered the most racist Hollywood movie ever made, as well as the most racist movie any country ever made excluding [[Film/JewSuss1940 literal Nazi propaganda]].

Context YMMV / TheBirthOfANation1915