Most horribly classist and Racist D.W.Griffith film.

[UdoKier]

Most horribly classist and Racist D.W.Griffith film.




(Just to put things into perspective.)

[DS1]

1. I've only seen Broken Blossoms

My film teacher excused it as "well, that's just the way it was back then". Make of that what you will.

[dryan]

2. Have seen all these films.....

[Destroy_All_Monsters]

5. Broken Blossoms

Broken Blossoms is a plea for tolerance, and should be respected as such. It's a love story about a Chinese man's redemptive love for a white girl, and the movie's anger is solely directed at the girl's violently intolerant father. Unfortunately, the movie is weakened by Griffith's refusal to even imagine the possibility of healthy sexual attraction between the races. He keeps the love affair platonic, almost mystical. Nevertheless, it's a huge step forward from the almost unwatchable racism of Birth of a Nation.

There's a lost movie by Griffith called The Greatest Thing in Life that supposedly contains a very sympathetic portrait of a black soldier in WWI.

[Zuni]

3. I have only seen 'Birth of a Nation'

and since it was based on a novel called 'The Klansman', potraying the 1860s-1870s KKK, which was a terrorist organization, as heroes, I would say that is pretty bad.

[UdoKier]

7. I actually own a 100 year old copy of that book.

It belonged to my great grandfather, who was a Klan supporter of sorts...

[terrya]

4. "Birth of a Nation" fucking glorified the KKK, for Christ's sake.

Horribly, horribly racist film. A low point in cinema history.

[mcscajun]

6. From D.W. Griffith -- son of a Confederate Colonel and War Hero...

...what could you expect? The man was born in 1875 and was a product of his time and place.

Still, he pretty much invented American cinema as an art form, pioneering techniques that would be commonplace not too long after. This was the first major length feature film made...so it keeps a place in film history, the overt racist content notwithstanding.