The Immigrant
Oh Doctor!
The Dying Swan
Satan Triumphant
Thaïs
The Cure
Bucking Broadway
A Little Princess
The Torture of Silence (Mater Dolorosa)
The Woman God Forgot
His Wedding Night
Cleopatra
All Aboard
Fear
The Adventurer
Bestia (aka The Polish Dancer)
A Man There Was (Terje Vigen)
The Butcher Boy
Wild and Woolly
Teddy at the Throttle
The Poor Little Rich Girl
A Reckless Romeo
Straight Shooting
Coney Island
Der Magische Gürtel
Tom Sawyer
The Rough House
The Little American
Intolerance
The Floorwalker
Sherlock Holmes
Fatty and Mabel Adrift
The Rink
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Cenere
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
Judex: L’ombre mystérieuse (The Mysterious Shadow), Episode 1
Farmer Alfalfa Sees New York
Joan The Woman
Snow White
Hell’s Hinges
East Is East
The Danger Girl
Behind the Screen
Civilization
One A.M.
The Battle of the Somme
Hoodoo Ann
The Count
The Curse of Quon Gwon
The Pawnshop
Where Are My Children?
The Return of Draw Egan
Police
The Tramp
A Fool There Was
The Italian
Carmen
The Champion
Filibus
Fatty’s Spooning Days
Assunta Spina
Regeneration
The Cheat
Der Golem
The Raven
The Martyrs of the Alamo
Madame Butterfly
The Golden Chance
Work
Sage Brush Tom
Not only is there no defending The Birth of A Nation in 2019, it’s wildly offensive even for 1915. A film made to glorify the Klu Klux Klan by claiming that they saved the USA from (appalling racist caricatures of) unruly black people, it was picketed by the NAACP on release, but was enough of a hit to inspire the real KKK to return from semi-retirement to murder thousands of black people. It would be hard to imagine another film doing as much to harm humanity as a whole, and beyond any other considerations, this should clearly mark it as a bad film.
Inconveniently it’s also a landmark in filmmaking history – not the first feature film, but the one which was big enough to get everyone else making them, and a spectacle so vast and varied that it wouldn’t be matched in scale for decades. Director D.W. Griffith was a leader in the field already, but the release of the film shot him into superstardom, and he took the sleepy Californian community of Hollywood with him.
So I watched Birth of A Nation, all three hours and thirteen minutes of it, to find out if there is anything to salvage.
In terms of writing, no. The script is a hackneyed bunch of racist cliches muddled with sentimental war stories and bad political fantasy. In terms of acting, also no. Lilian Gish puts in some fairly decent work as ever, but the horrible blackface performers undo everything – the public in crowd scenes are no worse than most of the other actors. But in terms of cinematography, in the first half of the film at least, there are some moments of sublime beauty which this piece of trash does not deserve in any way. These don’t really come across in still images, but I’ll try.
Part of it is awe at the scale of everything, but I can’t deny there was some real talent wasted in making this film.
If you want to judge this for yourself, the whole thing is available on Youtube.
His Musical Career
Gertie the Dinosaur
Fantômas Contre Fantômas
Salomy Jane
His Prehistoric Past
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
The Magic Cloak of Oz
His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz
Cabiria
Judith of Bethulia
Absinthe
Mabel’s Strange Predicament
Bathing Costumes
In the Land of the Head Hunters
Tillie’s Punctured Romance
Engelein
Mabel at the Wheel
The Avenging Conscience
Cinderella
The Virginian
Suspense
The Last Days of Pompeii
Mabel’s Dramatic Career
Folkestone Beauty Contest
The Speed Kings
L’Enfant de Paris
The Grasshopper and the Ant
The Student of Prague
The Night Before Christmas
The Bangville Police
Ivanhoe
Ingeborg Holm
Atlantis
Mabel’s New Hero
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch
Fantômas
Hamlet
The Mothering Heart
The Adventures of Kathlyn
Die Insel der Seligen
Death’s Marathon
The Pursuit of the Smugglers
The Gusher
Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life
Twilight of a Woman’s Soul
Eighty Million Women Want -?
Scrooge
Raja Harishchandra
The House of Darkness
Evidence of the Film
The Cameraman’s Revenge
In Nacht und Eis
The Conquest of the Pole
Richard III
Cleopatra
How a Mosquito Operates
The Passer-By
Onesime, Clock-maker
The Female Of The Species
A Dash Through The Clouds
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Beautiful Leukanida
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
The Water Nymph
Making An American Citizen
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Copper Beeches
The New York Hat
The Girl and Her Trust
Petticoat Camp
Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth
Delhi Durbar
From the Manger to the Cross
The Invaders
An Unseen Enemy
The Independence of Romania
A Trip Through New York City
Dante’s Inferno (L’Inferno)
Little Nemo
The Battle
The Diabolical Church Window
First Indy 500
The Lonedale Operator
The Fall of Troy
Enoch Arden
David Copperfield
Les Aventures de baron de Munchhausen
The Coffin Ship
His Trust
Coronation of King George V
The Odyssey (L’Odissea)
Alkali Ike’s Auto
As A Boy Dreams
The Miser’s Heart
The Romantic Story of Margaret Catchpole
Her Crowning Glory
Defence of Sevastopol
Swords and Hearts
Ramona
Le Vitrail Diabolique
New York of Today
Twelth Night
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The House with Closed Shutters
Alices’s Adventures in Wonderland
Thunderbolt
The Abyss (Afgrunden)
Slippery Jim
Making Christmas Crackers
Frankenstein
The Johnson-Jeffries Fight
The Fugitive
The Lad From Old Ireland
Teddy Roosevelt Returns From Africa
A Christmas Carol
As It Is In Life
In the Border States
White Fawn’s Devotion
Aeroplane Flight and Wreck
The Unchanging Sea
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy
Les Joyeux microbes
A Trap For Santa
Le Locataire diabolique
The Sealed Room
The Cowboy Millionaire
Teddy Roosevelt in Africa
Fools of Fate
La Papillon Fantastique
Mr Flip
The Red Man’s View
The Airship Destroyer
The Hessian Renegades
Oliver Twist
The Doctor’s Secret
The Golden Louis
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Entrevista de los Presidentes Díaz-Taft
A Corner in Wheat
