Birth Of A Nation analysis

Birth Of A Nation Analysis

Or: You Would've Thought By Now That Everyone Decided That This Movie Was A Morally Reprehensible Piece Of Garbage, But You'd Be Wrong Apparently! Thanks 2017, You Morally-Challenged Social Garbage Fire Of A Year!

D.W. Griffith was arguably one of the most influential pioneers in the art of filmmaking, with his heavy emphasis on realism and his work in helping to establish the Classic Hollywood Style that is still in use today. He was also a colossal twit, as illustrated in the pro-KKK propaganda "epic", Birth Of A Nation. From that description alone, you know that this movie's going to be trash. Not only that, but some people claim this was the first full-length motion film in Hollywood!

Ha. Ha. Uh, no? That was actually an adaption of Les Miserables. But let's put that little misconception aside for the moment.

While I'm technically not here to give D.W. Griffith's work the relentless bashing it deserves, I'm probably going to wind up doing that anyway. But my task here's to dissect the incredibly stupid, outdated and kind of viscerally disgusting message that one scene attempts to convey, which comes across as laughable initially until you realise that people actually bought this garbage and paid money to see it. Well, at least I'm emotionally invested in something for once. Quite frankly, I probably shouldn't be showing so much visceral emotion in this, so it's probably going to wind up being way longer than it should be, but hey- D.W. Griffith's mise-en-scene deliberately tried to portray the KKK (the KU KLUX GODDAMN KLAN) as heroes in Birth Of A Nation, so. Yeah. I can say what I want so long as I'm technically analysing the film.

So, the scene I'm going to be tearing apart is the scene wherein Gus- a black man portrayed by a white actor in blackface, because of course, this is a film where the KKK are seen as the good guys as well as being made in 1915, why am I surprised- tries to propose to Flora, who then promptly kills herself. We're introduced to Gus with an intertitle, so we're immediately presented with an opinion before we even see him:

So, uh. Yeah. Before we even see Gus, we're told that he's the bad guy. So much for subtlety, D.W. Griffith. I suppose that if you're trying to get a bunch of racist people from the 1910s to hate a character, then you can do worse than to flat-out tell them using inter-titles. So long as you don't, I don't know, dress someone up in blackface and have them mooch ominously around the set, spying on two young girls-

OH WAIT THEY DID THAT. 

In this shot, the cinematography is attempting to get us to see Gus as a looming threat, by placing him in the background while the two sisters are in the foreground, ominously watching the girls as they play unaware, followed by a close-up of Gus' face...

... which, combined with the dark lighting lit in a reverse key, is meant to portray a sense of brooding ugliness. Key word is 'meant'- the effect kinda just comes out as awkward and goofy, and I doubt that was intentional. But the intention matters more than the actual execution, right? Right.

We're shown another titlecard, which transitions us to... what I think was supposed to be an argument between the young Flora and... her... mother? Despite being warned against it? Well, okay.

The lighting in this shot is somewhat dim, portraying the coldness of the indoors when compared to the earlier shot of the sisters outside. It serves to try and give the audience a sense of foreboding. This, mixed with the music, is meant to portray the opinion that hey, maybe this isn't a good idea! Considering how Flora's about to kill herself because she's so racist she'd literally jump off a cliff than be like 2 feet away from a black guy, then yeah, that makes sense.

We switch to warmer lighting as Flora majestically gallops to the... woods? Are those woods? Is that just a park? Anyway, it helps convey the fact we're outside now, and Flora seems to be in a pretty good mood, what with how her actor portrays her flittering about like a young, xenophobic fairy child. 

This goes on for a while, as we see Flora wandering into the woods/park/whatever it's meant to be. For the most part, she's in the middle of the shot, so the audience's eyes are centered on her. Also, she always moves from the left to the right, signifying her movement from her house to the woods. 

Oh boy, here comes Gus again.

For some reason, he's portrayed sneaking around under the fence and picking up a leaf that Flora presumably left behind? Obviously, the way the actor is portraying him and the way he's intercut with Flora's movement is meant to make the audience not trust him, as well as the fact that the lighting seems to be casting him in shadow. 

If this is starting to get tiring, we're 1/3 of the way through. Just... hold on with me. Please.

So we're shown a shot with Flora, intercut with a squirrel, where I think she throws a nut at the squirrel? The natural light helps establish the setting of the woods, and the emptiness of the shot with Flora sitting on a log is meant to give her a sense of vulnerability- being all alone in the big, bad, scary woods, or something. The squirrel-nut-throwing thing is probably meant to portray her kindness and innocence as well? 

Anyway, Gus comes back again. 

Again, the lighting here is dark, almost camouflaging Gus in his captain uniform. This is meant to kind of transparently give off the impression of distrust and darkness. In case you can't tell by now, Gus is framed in shadow a lot.

We kind of see this contrast again as Gus tries to propose to Flora, to the exact kind of result you'd expect in a Pro-KKK film. The lighting shines more strongly upon Flora, while Gus remains shaded in darkness- and, in this medium shot, we get a closer look at both character's expressions; Flora is obviously nervous, while Gus' expression is... uh. Um. It's an expression that I think was meant to be creepy and malicious? It's basically just meant to portray Flora as the virtuous virgin lady and Gus as the creepy evil person.

The close-ups reveal more of this, and linger for a moment- Flora's nervous expression contrasting with Gus' seemingly almost... hungry one? So, this is going to turn out as well as you'd expect.

Flora freaks out, punches Gus in the face and starts running. Gus starts running after her, after tripping over that log and falling flat on his face. I'm pretty sure this is meant to strictly show Flora as the heroine while Gus is seen as the villainous pursuer. All I feel is bad for Gus in this scene. Poor Gus.

So this chase sequence goes on for a while. The quick, intercut shots of Gus chasing Flora is meant to give a sense of danger and suspense for the audience. And then, Gus finds Flora, hiding in the underbrush:

You get the idea here. Flora's terrified expression makes the audience sympathetic, eye-line match shows us Gus, still darkly lit to give of an air of mystery and mistrust, showing us what Flora sees, and Flora gets chased off towards a cliff, where the climax of the scene happens:

Oh yeah. It's that part. 

We see Flora's terrified expression (again), and we also get a shot from the perspective of the bottom of the cliff. We can see that Flora and Gus are very high up at this point. The music portrays another sense of foreboding. So we can deduce from this that Gus is going to get closer, and Flora's going to make a very stupid decision.

There she goes!

We see Flora jump off the cliff when Gus gets closer, the music turning melancholic and the shot composition giving us a good look at Flora's descent and death. The movie is obviously trying to make us feel sad about Flora.

And the scene ends on a cut to Gus, looming over the cliff, a lingering shot of Flora's motionless body, and Gus running away. The way this is set up implies that we should be blaming Gus for Flora's death, and that we, as an audience, should be angry at Gus.

Yeah. Nice try, movie.