Review

Incredibly frustrating. The racism was not subtle and I don't understand why we have this on the list if Birth of a Nation is the more famous and, I would presume, more cinematographically interesting, film. I mean I know the that one is horrifically racist but this one very clearly is as well. Griffith directly made it in response to people saying Birth of a Nation was no good. And throughout this film, the internal logic is completely bizarre. I can feel the victim complex screaming through the director out from the film. People are just being persecuted left and right but for completely illogical reasons. If you didn't know who the filmmaker was, I would imagine the movie's logic seems very strange. As it was, I knew who Griffith was and the super racism and so I could see very easily the A to B. But that's all one thing. Racism is everywhere.

I think the most frustrating thing is that there were some really excellent shots and camera work going on. The Babylon sequences being the obvious standout. (Why are they our friends though?) But the good filmmaking is just brought down over and over by the completely insane parallels being made. I can see that when we are crucifying Jesus, that is obviously exactly the same as how people mocked his Birth of a Nation for being fantastically racist...I started holding my head in my hands and wanting it to be over...like an hour and a half into the nearly 3 hour tale.