The Birth of a Nation (premiered with the title The Clansman) is a 1915 silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Set during and after the American Civil War, the film was based onThomas Dixon's The Clansman, a novel and play.
The Birth of a Nation was the highest-grossing film of its day, and is noted for its innovative camera techniques and narrative achievements. It has provoked great controversy for promoting white supremacy and positively portraying the "knights" (male members) of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.
The first scene shown in the movie is of a black man tied up, his clothing is very torn and he is surrounded by white men. This connotes the power of white supremacy, and the fact that black people then were slaves. Whereas compared to crash, black people are shown to be strong. For example when one of the black characters releases a set of immigrants and gives them money. The film itself follows two halves, post civil war and the introductions of african americans into america.
In Griffith’s version of the postwar era, all blacks who aren’t “faithful souls” team up with carpetbaggers from the North to loot, pillage, and degrade the time-honored traditions of Southern culture. The film follows two main families the Stonemans who live in the north and the Camerons who live in the south and own a plantation of black slaves. This shows a division between the north and south as later on in the movie Austin Stoneman is shown to be a champion of black equality in the south.
During the film there is a cut of two years, and a scene is shown of a black group storming the Camerons house. Again this shows blacks in a negative way, which to a certain extent we can also see in the movie crash.
One President Lincoln is shot, Austin Stoneman and other radical congressmen punish the south for succession (withdrawing from an organisation) Stoneman has a proteage called Silas Lynch, who is shown as a "mulatto", a person with one white and one black parent. They go to the south to observe what has been going on, one there at the election whites are shown being turned away while blacks stuff the ballot boxes. The newly elected black legislature passes laws requiring white civilians to salute black officers and allowing mixed-race marriages.
Ben Cameron is inspired to see white children scaring blacks by throwing bed sheets over them acting as ghosts, this is when he comes up with the plan to make the KKK.
Gus, a former slave proposes to Flora, who is scared by him and runs away. He chases after her aggressively and his actions are shown to be very quick, eg proposing to her. She jumps to her death, as she did not want to be touched by him. Ben finds her and the KKK hunt Gus down, kill him and leave his body on Lynch's door. This shows the KKK in a positive way as they were protecting white supremacy.
When Austin Stoneman is gone, Lynch tries to force her to marry him, and disguised klansmen see her situation and get reinforcements. The klan are shown saving her along with killing many black militia. Again this reinforces the representation of blacks being bad and represents the KKK very positively. Lynch's men are trying to get in the hut where the Camerons were hiding but they are killed by the Klan and the Camerons are saved. The film ends with the KKK celebrating on the street as they manage to stop blacks from voting and disarm the blacks.
Has the representation changed??
Yes and No. In crash we see that an innocent black man has been shot by a white police officer as he was reaching for his pocket. This shows the innocence of the black passenger and represents the policeman negatively as he thought he was reaching for a gun, which is a stereotype. This shows how the representation may have changed, as in A birth of a nation, black characters are shown rioting and trying to force marriages, which result in the KKK killing them and representing the Klan positively.
However, Matt Dillon plays a crooked police man who is touching a black female inappropriately, while her husband does nothing. This shows his power over them and links to the white supremacy in a birth of a nation, as many blacks are shown as slaves to the white man. The representation of the other links to this as in both films blacks are shown to be feminine. eg dancing for their masters in a birth of a nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment