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| A jury of his peers? |
For those who don't know, Birth is considered a crowning technical achievement in film, while also being amongst the most racist frames of celluloid ever produced. I do not think you can separate the cinematic achievements from the story it serves. Others feel differently.
Much critical attention is focused on the depiction of blacks in the latter half of the film. However, Griffith begins building his argument much earlier in the film.
The narrative of the film follows two families, representing the North and South. The Northern family (The Stonemans, led by a congressman from Pennsylvania) visits their Southern friends (the Camerons) in Piedmont, South Carolina prior to the start of the Civil War. Early in the film, Griffith depicts the slaves here as generally satisfied with their lot in life, even spontaneously breaking into a dance for the amusement of the guests. The seeds of a romance between the eldest sons and daughters of the respective families.
Then the war comes. Griffith sets his principal argument in a simple title card: "The power of the sovereign states, established when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the individual colonies in 1781, is threatened by the new administration." Everything would be okay if President Abraham Lincoln did not want to infringe on states' rights.
Both families' sons join their respective armies. Even here, great care is taken to lionize the South. The troops have a ball to celebrate their early victories in the war. They even carry in the Confederate flag from Bull Run and honor it. The troops assemble with pomp and circumstance not shown in the North.
The youngest sons of each family meet on the battlefield and are killed. The Camerons are selling every one of their possessions in order to support the war effort and the eldest Stoneman daughter Elsie is working in a military hospital for the North. Sherman's march to Atlanta is depicted in red tint as though a literal hell on earth. Women and children cower in fright. The Cameron's Piedmont home is overrun by black Union troops.
The eldest boys from the families meet in battle. Ben Cameron (known for the rest of the film as the "little Colonel") leads his men over three Northern encampments before being wounded and captured. Ben is shown as the courageous leader, overcoming the odds and even stopping to tend to an enemy soldier to the rousing approval of the enemy troops. Ben is a leader. He is honorable. Contrast that with Phil Stoneman who sits in his trench attacking from a distance.
The North wins the war. Griffith takes great care to point out he is attempting a historically accurate reenactment of the surrender. This is critical to the film's arguments later. Ben is to be tried as a war criminal, but a subtle change happens with President Lincoln as a character. Ben's mother pleads with the President to spare his life. He acquiesces and Ben is saved, showing Lincoln's compassion for the South. The man earlier described as the destroyer of state sovereignty is now cast as its greatest hope.
Representative Stoneman wants to grind the South under the North's boot heel. Lincoln wants to take a more conciliatory approach, to Stoneman's dismay.
Lincoln is killed in what was my favorite sequence in the movie. There is real drama as the moment approaches in Ford's theater. Griffith again takes care in a title card to point out the historic accuracy he is attempting in his portrayal of the event.
The contrast in reactions from the Cameron and Stoneman clans is striking. The South laments the loss of their friend and worries for the future. Stoneman sees only his own ascension into power.
Stoneman uses the opportunity to anoint a mulatto named Silas Lynch as his political protege. Any time Lynch is in a room with Elsie Stoneman, his lustful gaze becomes fixed on her. He can't help himself; he's a half breed after all. His lust gets the better of him.
Stoneman conspires to make Lynch the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. The racism of the movie picks up tremendous steam here. The blacks are seen on election day stuffing the ballot box and preventing the honorable white men like Dr. Cameron from casting a vote.
Then, in the most ridiculous scene in the whole move, Griffith introduces us to the newly elected state legislure through a title card that imbues the same historical accuracy on the scene as he did for the South's surrender and Lincoln's assassination. If those were true accounts, so too must his portrayal of a black legislature.
And what does this portrayal of the legislature in session look like? One of the black legislators sneaks a drink from a flask hidden in his desk. Another kicks off his shoes and props his bare feet on his desk as a colleague eating fried chicken looks on. The legislature decides that its members should wear shoes so the barefoot man places his shoes back on his feet. the legislature then passes a law allowing interracial marriage. Immediately after that, they all look lustfully at the white women in the gallery. Griffith has torn away any subtlety and revealed his true agenda: dehumanizing blacks and sowing fear amongst whites.
The Little Colonel is lost and frustrated. Then, he sees some black children frightened by white children dressed as ghosts. An idea hatches in Ben's head and the KKK is born.
After some scenes depicting the conflict between Lynch and the KKK, the next critical scene in the film unspools. Gus, a lustful black man, follows the young Flora Cameron as she goes off to get water. She runs from him and is chased to the top of a mountain. Rather than succumb to Gus, she leaps to her death, her honor and innocence intact. The Little Colonel witnesses the tragedy and cradles his sister as she lay dying.
The Klan rallies to find Gus and they try him (i.e., they drag him into a field and Ben identifies him as the killer. Gus is killed and deposited on Lynch's doorstep.
Now, as we head toward the climax, two different storylines proceed to solidify Griffith's conclusions. First, the Cameron's are fleeing the black soldiers loyal to Lynch. They seek refuge in a cabin owned by two former Union soldiers. The soldiers protect the Camerons and even fight the black oppressors. No subtlety here. The Union soldiers act as proxies for the North, implying the apparent mistake they made in freeing the blacks.
Second, Lynch ends up alone with Elsie under his power. He proposes to her and she reacts in horror. He vows to wed her anyway. Then Elsie's father shows up. The eldest Stoneman at first approves Lynch's desire to marry a white woman, but the reaction turns to disgust when Lynch reveals he wishes to marry Elsie. Of course, the Klan shows up to save the Stonemans after the leader of the emancipation movement realizes the error of his ways.
The final frames provide an icing on this cake of racist propaganda. The blacks leave their homes to vote in the next election and the KKK is there on horseback, threatening them. In a moment played for laughs, the blacks retreat back into their homes. Then we see the marriage of the eldest sons of each family to the daughter in the other family. Ultimately, Jesus shows up to bless the entire affair. Seriously. I am not making this up. Jesus Christ is shown on film giving this all a big thumbs up.
So, the movie is basically this: Southern shown as honorable men and war heroes, blacks shown as threatening their way of life and killing innocence in the South (represented by Flora), the Klan is formed and saves the country. At every turn, Griffith makes a choice to glorify the actions of the South and demonize those of the North and the blacks. A simple example: as Ben courts Elsie, she immediately becomes smitten. Phil on the other hand, is met with distrust by Margaret Cameron until the Klan triumphs at the end. Even in the little details, Griffith is making the argument.
This is a propaganda film sold as entertainment at the time. Yes, this sentiment existed then and sadly does today, but it was not the only viewpoint. This movie was banned in several cities and severely edited in others. To simply dismiss it as a product of its time is wrong.
If you are interested in propaganda film-making, here's a great example. If you are interested in movies as entertainment? Move along, nothing to see here.
Picture from Old School Reviews
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