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'Writing history with lightning'

'Writing history with lightning' image 'Writing history with lightning' image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
July
Year
1987
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

'Writing history with lightning'

"We do demand, as a rigfit, the liberty
i show the dark side of wrong, that we
-iay illuminate the bright side of virtue."

- D.W. Griffith in his preface
to "The Birth of a Nation"

"It is like writing history with lightning

— President WoodrowWilson,
speaking of the film

"It distressed xception-
al ability of orgaiurciuou uu i-m-d into the
wrong channels."

— George Foster Peabody

" "The Birth of a Nation' was cinematic
revolution — it was rpKonnsihie for revo-
lutions in ever', y motion
pictures. Riots nans were
livii' - ; if the power of the film. No
we; person could allow himself
to ignore it."

- Kevin Brownlow in
"The Parade's Gone By"

By CHRISTOPHER POTTER

liat moiion picture ever niaue
also remains Hollywood's mast
morally damnable? Such is the eternal
fate of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Na-
tion," whose presentation Sunday (at 7
p.m., Me.-1—- T —"--—- P!"W-'" A"'1'-
torium';

sponsetii; ' • •;•' '•' < ;i""'i) a post-film panel discussion, partly as a
kind of safety valve to assuage the kind of
passionate feelings "Birth of a Nation"
almost invariably evokes.

"It's ironic," muses University of
Michigan literature professor Ralph D.
Story (who will be a panel member),
"that you can't really talk about how ad-
vanced and technically sophisticated the
film was without also dealing with its
moral side. It's kind of a yin-yang situa-
tion."

Indeed. As artistically v -" "•'•••• 's it
was ethically scurrilous, U' ied
"Birth of a Nation" marked iiu icss itian
the birth of the modern motion picture:

Hailed by film historian Kevin Brownlow
as "the first feature to be made in th
same fluid way as pictures are made t
day," '"Wf'ii'?- lirpf-hour film of the
Ci' ih so stunningly
bic 'ii 'lii • 'echnique with its
-naker's quintessentially American sense
:.f epic that it rendered virtually all pre-
vious cinema to the artistic status of
drawings on a cave wall.

Sadly, this 1i!--"iric,ir, wrfe b""- "
weighty albatr
Griffith from the Hs 'i
novel and subsequent play "The Clans-

htnine'

knowing 'Birth of a Nation,' says Cinema
Guild's Ed Weber, "even though the rea-
sons that people have used to protest
against it, from the very beginning, are
strong. But . i;y I think it was
shown every re's no such thing
as banning 'Bi» i., u.« nation.' It's too im-
portant a part of film history."

Even so, "We m: ' ' " ';; ;

to hold a panel ••
adds Cinema Guild - ,-:i:i- ..i-rL.:- Caatu,
"to let people air their feelings. Cinema
Guild is very sensitive to (racial) events
th;ii.'!';lvi••o".:l !•)•,•'' "."; Ann Arbor area,

,'• in the last

,-_r-^ - -i'-i-i— ':•-<- -. -- showing this
film with the intent either to create new
rage, or capitalize on existing anger. As a
-.—••"• ' 'ant to
n the

man," "The Birth of a Nation" - for all
,»<- t;t-it,,n kmiiionno r^rr-qins the most

race a big-
Purporting to tell the "true story" of
the wartime defeat and subsequent subju-
gation of Griffith's belo"f< ^—th by
Northern Reconstruction] h" is
so rancidly bigoted in it on of
"maro "roes" running riot
throur t the movie has pro-

protested "Birth's

were brought, while outraged mobs in
Boston and elsewhere attempted to forci-
bly prevent the film's being shown. So
passionate was the protest that President
Wilson (himself a Southerner) - whose
initial praise for the film Griffith had
milked for a" its wnrth — eventually dis-
avowed his c '-

Now as th< i of a Nation" re-
mains a thorny paradox for civil libertar-
ians, whose revulsion over the film's rac-

T an
s Grif-
w history without

Certainly Sunday's screening is no rou-
tine event. Once sh- — ——'arly on cam-
pus, "Birth of a -s turned up
with ever decreasi; i.i.ncy in recent
years; when last screened a few years
back (at the Michigan Theater), the
event was met with organized protest
from black groups on campus. "It is a
very, very racist movie," concedes Story,
and adds that he has "no problem at all"
with the film being shown.

"I would recommend it to anyone. I'm
very anti-censorship, and I think racism,
even in its most virulent forms, at least
should be witnessed. It's rooted in Ameri-
can history."

Certainly the "yin-yang" element not-
ed by Story is wrenchingly prevalent
throughout "The Birth of a Nation's"
nearly three-hour running time (although
a complete print o'"'- *"~ no longer ex-
ists) . Watching C of war and
Reconstruction, or > 'cd by the di-
rector's mastery of epic scale (his burn-
ing of Atlanta is more spectacular than
"Gone With the Wind's);'- "' " 'dity in
chronicling war in all p ; rang-
ing from a tar-off moun i . o nose-
hair-close hand-to-hand combat (all done
with a single camera!); with his storytel-
ler's ability - one that c1' -T—-" "-,e mov-
ies forever — to bleed ;sping
ounce of excitement out second
rescue.

Yet what is one to make of a film cele-
brating the rise of "a great Ku Klux
Klan" uniting former enemies "in com-
mon defense of their aryan birthright?"
Or one that parodies black speech the
likes of "D'em free-niggers turn dc N'orf
am she . • '" What is one to make of
a fiin nary raison d'etre is less
politicm n.mi .rf-xual, boasting scenes of
drunken black unionists running wild in

See NATION, B2

NAP^N JULioisg?

CONT1NULDFRO^< Ri

South Carolina while white women
cower in their attics and cellars?
Of a black-dominated South Caroli-
na ' ^-lature passing a bill "pro-
v- or the intermarriage of
a closeup of black politicians
ihig homily? Of virtuous Lil-
ian Gish being chased 'round and
round a room by mulatto arch-vil-
lain Silas Lynch (George Sieg-
mann), who yelps < marry a white woman?" Or of ul-
tra-virtuous Mae Marsh willfully
plunging herself nountain
r'tff r-ther than subimi io the fate-
an-death advances of a
p

.ni caters
ne black-brute stereotype fea" .
-m^d in Klan literature sincp the |

Emancipation Proclamation. This
'retrogression' belief was very
popular -1? i revert
to barbaric ,, were
freed." Though Griffith subse-
quently spoke out vigorously
against Klan violence, "the very

'he film was r^c^sed (1915),"
> Jantu, "th "as reborn.
To this day yo»: t white su-
premacist organs 3i»ons to offer
you cheap versions of the turn."

Even so, Cantu vigorously as-
serts "Birth's" right to be shown.
"What disturbs me is that people
feel so threatened by a form of ar-
tistic expression, regardless of
message, that they will nw any
means to condemn I son
taking place. It's not to say ihat
any artist should have license to

defame, libel r" ^'"-'-rnr-te
against another p ip
of individuals. But yc g,
for better or worse, w. iie
greatest and most important films
in history, one that doesn't get
shown much anymore."

Which makes Sunday's screen-
ing all the more intriguing to peo-
ple like Cinema Guild's Teresa
Herzog: "It's such an important
film, but I've nev an oppor-
tunity to see it, t»,,u mAfs why I
voted for it (to be shown). I have
f ~ - -J - who also want the chance to
vatchit."

r -itu, Sunday's
£1- .„ ymate educa-
tional p e're dealing
with very uiipoiiant issues ...
Education is not an easy process."

-c\P\r

, ^•:»f'^if't't!e•'*i'-^*^'"'VF *"''