Michael Ledo The Alpha Film edition was restored, but has no special features.The film claims the US became a disunion when black people were brought over here....ummm whose fault was that? The production follows the lives of the southern Cameron family living in Piedmont, South Carolina and the Stoneman family of Pennsylvania. Two of the men met while at a boarding school, afterwards becoming pen pals and eventually falling in love with each other's sister. When war breaks out they find themselves in battle against each other at Gettysburg. Later the Stonemans go south after the war and must join with the Klan to regain their "Aryan Birthright" against carpetbaggers, mulattoes, and Yankee blacks who dare to want equality and interracial marriage.Many of the stages were historical recreations and D.W. Griffith made sure you knew that with a sign. There was actually very little in dialogue. It would show you people talking, but you never knew what they said, rather the sign would explain the scene. The second half of the film was like watching my friend Sean Hannity, race baiting and outright lies. Only the Klan could have saved Piedmont from the incursion of the black man. Southern blacks fought with the Klan which contradicted their aims in the legislature where black law makers have their shoes off and feet on the desk, drinking from bottles. They passed laws to disenfranchise white people, make white people salute them, and legalized interracial marriage...about as factual as a Trump tweet.On the plus side Lillian Gish and Miriam Cooper were screen gems.The film is iconic including quotes from then President Wilson. Historically it re-energized the Klan membership because "truthiness" matters more than truth to some people.

To_Review_A_Film How can one properly review this film? It single handedly changed the world, something you can't say for many movies, but in some very negative ways as well as positive ones. It features some amazing set pieces, and totally altered the standard to how films should be made. It also featured a re-writing of history and appropriated extreme racism. The Birth of a Nation is a silent film, and if unaccustomed to it, it can be extremely tedious and confusing. This film suffered from this, even for more seasoned viewers of silent movies, perhaps because of its three hour runtime, or maybe because of its complex story that was impaired by the lack of any dialogue and clear editing. The acting was surprisingly more natural then most from this time era, but this also may have affected the overall film, because with no dialogue, it felt sometimes felt slow with little reason. D. W. Griffith directed this historical triumph, which changed Hollywood, the film industry and, along with some issues in the South involving violent black people and wrongly executed white people, brought back the Klu Klux Klan, which continues to have lasting effects to this day. Although portrayed as a historical film, the 'history' is completely fake, even though some people try to use this as an example of truth. So how do you review this film? It is best to average it out. In terms of actual filmmaking and historical relevance in the film history canon, this is a ten star movie. In terms of the problems this movie caused due to its unabashed racism, it's a solid zero. The film in terms of quality is about a five anyway, so it evens out. It is an interesting and rewarding watch, but not entirely entertaining. But no matter your favourite film, it has this one to thank.2.5 / 5

calvinnme ...yet I still give it an 8/10 for all of the ground that it broke. When it was released in 1915, the Hollywood movie industry was still in its infancy as movie makers such as DeMille had only been there about a year or so. Most movies were made on the East coast and used artificial lighting which often gave the films a very flat look.Most filmmakers would film outside until the late afternoon and then close up shop. Griffith however liked to use lighting just as the sun was going down as it gave everything a soft glow. These scenes looked better than anything you could have achieved in a set with artificial lighting in those days. The battles scenes also looked very good, like a lot of care was taken to set them up and make them as realistic as possible. This kind of an epic was rare for the times and must have surprised most movie goes who were more used to short films that were often shot on sets with artificial lighting. Some of the innovations of BOAN (it should be noted that while Griffith didn't originate all of the techniques used in BOAN, he was the first to integrate them all so seamlessly in a feature-length film) included night-time photography-Billy Bitzer achieved by firing magnesium flares into the night for the split-screen sequence of the sacking of Atlanta, being the first film to have an original score, the first film to employ hundreds of extras for the battle scenes, flashbacks and parallel editing, and extensive use of close-ups, long shots, dissolves, etc. to heighten the impact of the story.It's not fair to other films and filmmakers to say this film and this film alone changed movie history but it's definitely on the short list of films that did along with DeMille's "Squaw Man" released the previous year which is remembered as Hollywood's first feature length film, even though it is not. That honor goes to Helen Gardner's "Cleopatra" made in 1912.Then there are the features of the story that give this film a well-deserved bad rap for having revived the KKK. ' There is the Austin Stoneman character who is biracial and wants to rule the South with an iron fist. He sets himself up as some kind of alternate President during reconstruction. Where was the real president, Andrew Johnson? Locked in a broom closet? This character was supposed to be a thinly veiled caricature of Thaddeus Stevens. Since white Confederates have their civil rights suspended during this time, the state houses of the south are shown packed with the absolutely worst stereotypes of black men, with them eating, drinking liquor, and taking their shoes off and putting their feet on their desks during the chaotic legislative sessions. They are also shown as sex-mad for Caucasian females, the biracial Austin Stoneman included. Let's just say that the story is as subtle as a sledge hammer, but when you realize that its contemporaries considered a guy in a cape with a long mustache tying virgins to railroad tracks to be high drama, the actual message of BOAN may be hogwash, but the complexity of the story telling and the sophistication of the acting is to be admired. That's why I recommend it in spite of the point of view of the script. Sorry for the long review, but a long film often requires one.

Jamie Ward It is often said that there are two sides to every story and The Birth of a Nation is certainly one of the most extreme examples that can be pointed to in evidence of this case. The film is split into two parts, the first of which covers the brief lead up to, effective dramatisation and culmination of the American Civil War. This part showcases all of Griffith's strongest capabilities as a director for the time in which he served American film-going audiences so early on. Although he tends to use special camera effects more for portraying vast scenes of action rather than intimate, reflective moments of beauty, the director nevertheless draws on works like Dante's Inferno and Calibria for inspiration in this regard. And while not quite as revolutionary as you may be lead to believe by other critics, his style and choice of editing amongst other aspects was at least revolutionary when shown in 1915 on American silver screens. There's no doubt about it, The Birth of a Nation is a well-made film.But then, there's the second part which deals in the aftermath of the Civil War and serves less as a historically-inclined action blockbuster and more of a narrow-minded piece of American culture that unfortunately wasn't just the viewpoint of one man. Indeed, although titled "Birth of a Nation", one could argue that the film rather serves as the birth of film-based propaganda, purely because of this act. Rather fittingly, the film's second act opens with a disclaimer of sorts that vaguely echoes the now all-too-familiar refrain uttered by closet-bigots of "I'm not racist, but…" before moving on swiftly to do nothing but demonise one skin colour and anglicise the other. But still, it's not as if Griffith suddenly stops making a good film. He just stops making a morally-sound one, and this is where things get tricky.On a personal level, I thought the film was distasteful, but mostly engaging. One could argue that maybe such levels of engagement might not have been present if not for the eye-popping, jaw-dropping content and points of view, but Griffith's skills as a film-maker are nevertheless undoubted. The problem is, as a reviewer, who do you recommend this film to? I'd love to say film enthusiasts, but to be honest, I'm probably never going to watch this film again and feel that all things considered, wouldn't have missed out on that much had I gave it a pass. Also, what is it that makes a film "good" or "worth watching" in the first place? This depends upon the individual. For some it's about the stars, others the acting or the plot or the special effects or something else. Many people wonder why The Birth of a Nation is as widely-available and openly praised as an all-time great when at the same time it is as deeply flawed at its moral core as it is. The thing is that critics tend to favour aesthetic and a film being well-made is merely enough to make it worth seeing. That's fine and works for many modern works, but for something as out-of-time as this, it can lead to some problems. Namely that they in-turn end up recommending something vulgar and hateful, racist and bigoted.So while I can appreciate and understand what makes Giffith's work here such a classic and well-made piece of cinema history, I also find it impossible to sit back and merely ignore everything that's wrong with it, which is a hell of a lot. The Birth of a Nation is surely a spectacle and does plenty of things right, but its naivety and narrow- mindedness about its central views trouble it to the point of bringing down the structure that props it up so loftily. Which is a shame, because at its core is a brilliantly executed tour de force that does what American cinema had never done before, and in some regards, thankfully never did again quite so heedlessly.