Skip to main content

BSA106 D.W Griffiths - The birth of a Nation.

Image result for birth of a nation




Based on the book "The Clansman: A historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan" that was written by a North Carolina baptist minister named Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr. who was a bigoted racist.
The 'hero' of the film, Ben Cameron, is a southerner who falls in love with a Northerner. However, following outbreak of the civil war and the assassination of President Lincoln, their romance is cut short. Ben Cameron doesn't like the way black people and white people are told to be treated as equals by the north, but one day after seeing some small black children afraid of white children dressed up as ghosts using sheets, he gets enough inspiration to set up the Ku Klux Klan.
The film ends with Ben and Elsie, the northerner, reunited after Elsie almost marries a black man.

Image result for birth of a nation

In "The Birth of a Nation", the Ku Klux Klan are portrayed as the heroes that save the white people from the black people who are taking over the South. This could be one of the reasons that the Ku Klux Klan still use this movie as a recruitment tool to this day.
White supremacy is one of the main ideas in "The birth of a Nation", with the black people portrayed as being happy and carefree as slaves but as soon as they begin to get their freedom they are shown as being dangerous. Black men in the film are portrayed as being rapists and lascivious creeps. One pursues Ben's daughter who ends up falling from a cliff, while another tries to force Elsie to marry him.
Image result for within our gates

"Within our Gates" (1919) was made in response to "Birth of a Nation" by filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. In "Within our Gates" Micheaux tries to show the audience that racism stems from ignorance and hinders any hope of national unity.
The film shows black people as more rounded characters than how they are portrayed by Griffiths. "Birth of a Nation" shows them as either being bestial or subservient, whereas "Within our Gates" gives more in-depth characters that are more that just a flat character with no real human emotion past animalistic traits. Micheaux shows that the lynching of blacks was not justified as it was portrayed to be in "Birth of a Nation", where it was depicted as a form of self-defense and vengeance. Micheaux's film is set during the same period as "Birth of a Nation" and is seen from the point of view of the protagonist, an African-American who has European ancestry. This combats the 'hero' of "Birth of a Nation" who, being a white male, isn't in anyway a minority. Micheaux's protagonist shows us what is essentially entirely the opposite of what "Birth of a Nation" tells us to be true.

Image result for intolerance griffith

Griffiths next movie was named, "Intolerance" (1916). However, it was not made to be as an apology for "Birth of a Nation" as people think, it was actually named as a response to people who had been intolerant towards him in condemning "Birth of a Nation".


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BSA126 Gump walks.

Gump Side Walk The side walk for Gump. I tried to make him seem as if he is a bit of a sloucher-almost as if he drags himself along the ground a bit. He's a bit of a lonely sad guy so I didn't want him looking too perky and happy.  Gump three quarter walk I tried to do the same slouchy, sad walk for the 3/4 walk animation, his head is bowed and I hope he doesn't look too happy. Gump front walk I tried to experiment a bit more with the front walk. My initial idea for Gump would be that although he walks upright, he resorts to a four legged walk at times because he is ment to be a bit primitive in his actions and appearance. I wasn't entirely happy with how the walk turned out and it could definitely do with a few tweaks but I'm happy in the sense that his four-legged walking style gives him a bit of personality.  I'm still not fully satisfied with the character design of Gump but I am getting closer to figuring out what I want and what ...
Post a Comment
Read more

BSA126 Bird, Cat, Dog, Horse.

Exporting in quicktime stopped working again because the videos export with a black background for some reason and this ment that you couldn't see the animations as they are drawn in black.  Bird My bird flight featured a flying seal, I'm not sure why. I enjoyed making the bird fly, although I had to do it twice because the first time I animated him flying backwards-or something weird.  Dog I used a reference to animate the dog walk before adding hair which made him look more homeless and mongrel-like. Then I felt a bit bad for the poor dog, it's probably a good thing that uploading it as an animation didn't work out, it's too sad.  Horse The Horse was fun to do because I like horses. I animated the walk first and then added in a cart because I had some extra time. The man on the cart was done a bit lazily and he sort of shrinks and grows with each frame, but it's not really about him anyway so I don't mind. The horse himself...
Post a Comment
Read more

BSA106 German Expressionism.

German Expressionism in film came about after WW1, after Germany lost the war. Germany wanted to revitalise the film industry and to create a better impression for the country. The German government subsidised the UFA (Universum-film AG), whose studios were the largest and best equipped in Europe. This became Germans golden age of cinema. German Expressionist film lasted from 1919 to 1933 when Adolf Hitler came into power. Unlike other Western films of that period that focused more so on creating realism, German Expressionism distorts reality to create an emotional effect. Expressionism films employed stylised set design, elaborate costuming, shadowy lighting that emphasises bold contrasts of dark and bright highlights and unnatural make-up. The settings are typically distorted and exaggerated, with key themes being madness, criminality and fracturing of identity. German Expressionism was a huge influence in developing the horror genre. They began to tell the story ...
Post a Comment
Read more