Fifty Before '50: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)

<p>&nbsp;<i>by JB</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTuCsdD3KzzB5WzGFLwHyUzbIdmsk7ARke2rOMaRsonSmscOrFAMa_fi5gWEMtI0ntGtdqur29AO6A1TPhmZhsa3Co50RMl4psfEKBV-V9sLViN6l7nZhU_vicaQ8GzBf4ClloKtX9X7VMqAJKiWArjal4viiSK88rPqLUCJkBgrNundAutctYxRPkuQ/s3718/BOANHeader.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2751" data-original-width="3718" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTuCsdD3KzzB5WzGFLwHyUzbIdmsk7ARke2rOMaRsonSmscOrFAMa_fi5gWEMtI0ntGtdqur29AO6A1TPhmZhsa3Co50RMl4psfEKBV-V9sLViN6l7nZhU_vicaQ8GzBf4ClloKtX9X7VMqAJKiWArjal4viiSK88rPqLUCJkBgrNundAutctYxRPkuQ/w400-h296/BOANHeader.jpeg" width="400" /></a></i></div>Film critic Dave Kehr labeled it, “the film you cannot show without apology,” and it sometimes seems that modern film history just wants us to forget all about it.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br />

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For the first few years of my teaching career in the mid-1980s, I screened D.W. Griffith’s seminal tale of the Deep South and the Confederacy, <i>The Birth of a Nation</i>, in my Film Studies class because I wanted my students to see firsthand where most film grammar had come from. I remember screening <i>The Birth of a Nation</i> one August day when the temperature in my unairconditioned classroom rose to 102 degrees. Clearly, this violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in our Constitution. Maybe I was engaging in “method teaching,” trying to capture for my students the oppressive heat of a real Carolina plantation. <br />

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Between the film’s cumbersome length and its reprehensible, racist message, I soon found other ways to teach the same material.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLUZ8E4BfPyNQzYWsU-tHWhYV2QNG7tOrWmPH7eRJdT4PuFKSNNPIJIixpUHHwkDNYb4MirO1wDXtOC5Y5a4OmDH3WjwxduSl345-Mo-zmcy55WTjp440MQeLFT48BGzI6bylY4eutl079efzoq9pCXDVOA0MKcqz3LzdmP10zT5C_j-VYqGSiltInQg/s771/BOANPoster.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="771" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLUZ8E4BfPyNQzYWsU-tHWhYV2QNG7tOrWmPH7eRJdT4PuFKSNNPIJIixpUHHwkDNYb4MirO1wDXtOC5Y5a4OmDH3WjwxduSl345-Mo-zmcy55WTjp440MQeLFT48BGzI6bylY4eutl079efzoq9pCXDVOA0MKcqz3LzdmP10zT5C_j-VYqGSiltInQg/w260-h400/BOANPoster.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><b>THE PLOT IN BRIEF:</b> <b>Part One: The War</b>

Phil Stoneman (Elmer Clifton) visits family friends The Camerons in South Carolina and falls in love with their daughter Margaret (Miriam Cooper). Phil shows Margaret’s brother Ben (Henry Walthall) a picture of his sister Elsie (Lillian Gish). Ben is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, all of this love business must take a back seat to the Civil War, which inconveniently starts during Phil’s visit. Both young men enlist in their respective armies. Both men see their younger brothers killed in combat. <br />

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Ben Cameron leads the final charge at the Siege of Petersburg and acquires the nickname "the Little Colonel." Ben is wounded, captured, and taken to a Union military hospital in Washington, D.C. There, he learns that he will be hanged. Ben’s mother (Josephine Crowell) arranges a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) and pleads for her son’s life. Lincoln pardons Ben, but is soon assassinated at Ford’s Theater. Phil and Elsie Stoneman are in the audience that night and witness the horrible event. In the wake of Lincoln’s death, Elsie’s father, US Representative Austin Stoneman (Ralph Lewis) and other radical Republicans vow to punish the South.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDDEhKa3FCFUIlLeteZ4rTIkAynio9Mi7JgWhy8VIE0iap5j4iuqGeNxI