The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Who needs Adolf Hitler when you've got D.W. Griffith? After 20 odd years of suspicious curiosity, I finally put three hours aside to watch America's very own Nazi propaganda film, "The Birth of a Nation." It is sickening to hear this piece of filth described as a touchstone of American cinema.

The story is told in two parts: The Civil War and Reconstruction. In the first part, the movie sides with the South, but it doesn't demonize the North. In fact, President Lincoln is presented in a rather rosy hue. His murder, which is staged in the movie, is presented as a tragedy.

But in the second part, the agents of Reconstruction are demonized the way the Nazis portrayed Jews. Black men are portrayed as "crazed negroes" (to quote a term used on one of the title cards) and lust-mad rapists terrorizing white women and girls. In one of about 100 jaw-droppingly disgusting sequences, a black man is depicted as chasing a white teenage girl through the woods. The terrified girl throws herself off a cliff rather than allow herself to be captured and raped by the man. Griffith actually films the girl plummeting to her death, her body slamming into the rocks below, just for maximum effect.

Lillian Gish plays one of the major characters, a woman who must be rescued by the Klan when a mixed-race political leader kidnaps her, attempting to force her to marry him.

The central message of the film is to celebrate the formation of Ku Klux Klan and the return of black Americans to second-class status after the brief period of Reconstruction. In one of the final scenes, a line of Klansmen on horseback stands outside a polling place, preventing black men from entering. This is presented as a good thing, keeping black men from voting.

Part of me thinks that all copies of this film should be destroyed just as a purification ritual. But another part believes the film should be seen, if only to expose how much sickness there was in American society in the early 20th century. America likes to think of itself as largely responsible for ridding the world of Nazism. But a substantial portion of the white men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War 2 had a Nazi mentality themselves. If they were German, they would have loved Hitler.

Let's not forget that "Birth of a Nation" was a gigantic hit. It not only played throughout 1915, it was also revived in most areas of the country (not just the South) annually for special return engagements. White America loved "Birth" more than any other movie of its time. It was their "Wizard of Oz," to be watched over and over.

I will never look at D.W. Griffith the same way again. In my view, he should be described as America's very own Hitler.