Review of The Birth of a Nation (1915) by Renee M — 28 Dec 2008

I have yet to even finish this movie. It's essential, blah blah. But it's amazingly accurate, I think, that the first real American narrative film is based on a book called 'The Klansmen.' It's horrificially offensive and if I had been alive, I think I would have been protesting it like Eugene V.

Debs did. I can appreciate it just like I can appreciate 'Triumph of the Will,' but I don't go along with the idea that there can be truly great art that is also racist, etc. The thing is, it's influenced films ever since and it presented an historical narrative that is utterly false.

Folks don't know much history in the U.S. of A., so such representations carry a LOT of weight. I always figure, there are enough amazing, beautiful, skillful movies that aren't offensive. But it's true that this film just had the decency to be offensive on the surface rather than be coded, the way most racism and sexism is in American culture these days.