The Year After Year Blogathon – The Birth of a Nation (1915)

This is the second of three posts for The Year After Year Blogathon being hosted by Steve of the Movie Movie Blog Blog.

Tnx for letting me participate!

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“If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain.” – Intertitle

Number of Times Seen – Twice (24 Apr 2009 and 3 Jan 2019)

Brief Synopsis – Two families during the outbreak of the Civil War must find their way to peace as each are opposite sides of the conflict.

My Take on it – This is a film that I saw once almost a decade ago out of curiosity and didn’t recall much of it.

It fits really well into the scope of this blogathon since the story takes place over the period of numerous years.

Even after more than a Century, this film remains one of the most controversial films ever made and rightfully so since it depicts characters and events that have been proven to be historically inaccurate but back when it was made, that was much harder to prove.

The story itself leaves much to be desired since it dives deeply into racist areas and even helped reignite the cause of the KKK upon this film’s release.

It is quite easy tho to see how much of a film making genius D.W. Griffith was because he uses so many techniques that were never used prior to him using them and he is still known as one of the pioneers of making epic films that look more realistic.

The plot moves along in a strange was and at some points moves quite slowly.

They present many inaccurate facts that look and feel quite racist, yet many people (including Griffith himself) still claim that there was no racism involved in the storyline of this film.

The run time of the film is a bit too long and at over three hours is a bit of a chore to get through, but given the epic nature of the film, it’s still quite understandable.

Bottom Line – This is a very controversial film and leaves much to be desired by the way that most of the story unfolds but it’s still easy to see how this was a film making wonder unlike anything else of its day since Griffith was truly a pioneer of epic film making. The story itself meanders along too much and presents a very abbreviated and incorrect look at history that is easily disputed today, but over a century ago was much more difficult to prove as inconsistent. A bit too long, but it does manage to tell a story that spans numerous years, so it’s somewhat warranted due to the epic scope that Griffith tried to evoke.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Among the many film techniques that this movie pioneered were panoramic long shots, iris effects, still shots, night photography, panning shots and the careful staging of battle scenes where hundreds of extras were made to look like thousands. It also employed color tinting for dramatic purposes and creating drama through its own musical score. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)

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