relaxedanderson
I am not Abe Kabbible
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Fucking hell!
I'd always assumed that this film received its controversial status by depicting the Ku Klux Klan but not explicitly condemning them. I couldn't have been more wrong if I'd assumed that Raging Bull was about intergalactic aliens harnessing the power of black holes in an ultimately futile attempt to enslave 17th Century human beings.
It starts off well, you empathise with the characters and the anti-war angle is well played and convincing; and, of course, Lillian Gish looks fucking amazing as always.
Then it turns into a parody of itself. Silas Lynch is the cartoon Darth Vader to Stoneman's Emperor; the ludicrously blacked-up whites are the only ones who get to interact with the white women and the hero is the boring voiced priest from Father Ted...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=beN7FftWNCM#t=104s
All in all the second half of the film is stomach churning. The bias and misrepresentation of history manages to be both hilarious and sickening at the same time.
I've watched Triumph of the Will a few times and I can honestly say that Birth of a Nation disturbed me more. At least with Triumph of the Will you can just about put yourself in 1935 and remember that the Nazis haven't done anything (relatively) yet and through those eyes you can see both Riefenstahl's excellent cinematography and the power of pre-emptive propaganda. If you put yourself in the place of a post-Versailles Aryan German in 1935 then you to would think that Hitler is the way forward for your people. The only person who says anything vaguely 'Nazi-ish' in the whole movie is Julius Streicher, and everyone knows he was an odious cunt well before the war started.
Birth of a Nation on the other hand was 50 years after the fact. I try to imagine myself watching this film in 1915 and I can still picture myself throwing rotten vegetables at the screen just as clearly as I can imagine myself cheering on Hitler in 1935 (as a theoretical everyman obviously, not as a hardcore lefty and wannabe intellectual).
It's a shame because I enjoyed the first half of the movie. The climactic battlefield scene with the water and the flag was a bit overdone but not particularly objectionable but the rest of the film just kept getting worse and worse. I kept expecting Lynch to grow a long moustache and a sharp goatee, put on a top hat and cape, tie Lillian Gish to a railroad and the go "Mwahhahahah!!!" while running off tapping his fingers together.
Still, it serves as a great parallel to the irrational fear-mongering that exists in the media today. You could remarket it today as "The Daily Mail: The Movie" and nobody would bat an eyelid.
My brother walked in shitfaced about 30 minutes from the end of the film and he reckons it's the most uncomfortable thing he's ever seen...and earlier in the day he watched Swansea City squander a two goal lead to Wolves in the last four minutes of the game.
Fucking awful film.
Watch it.
Fucking hell!
I'd always assumed that this film received its controversial status by depicting the Ku Klux Klan but not explicitly condemning them. I couldn't have been more wrong if I'd assumed that Raging Bull was about intergalactic aliens harnessing the power of black holes in an ultimately futile attempt to enslave 17th Century human beings.
It starts off well, you empathise with the characters and the anti-war angle is well played and convincing; and, of course, Lillian Gish looks fucking amazing as always.
Then it turns into a parody of itself. Silas Lynch is the cartoon Darth Vader to Stoneman's Emperor; the ludicrously blacked-up whites are the only ones who get to interact with the white women and the hero is the boring voiced priest from Father Ted...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=beN7FftWNCM#t=104s
All in all the second half of the film is stomach churning. The bias and misrepresentation of history manages to be both hilarious and sickening at the same time.
I've watched Triumph of the Will a few times and I can honestly say that Birth of a Nation disturbed me more. At least with Triumph of the Will you can just about put yourself in 1935 and remember that the Nazis haven't done anything (relatively) yet and through those eyes you can see both Riefenstahl's excellent cinematography and the power of pre-emptive propaganda. If you put yourself in the place of a post-Versailles Aryan German in 1935 then you to would think that Hitler is the way forward for your people. The only person who says anything vaguely 'Nazi-ish' in the whole movie is Julius Streicher, and everyone knows he was an odious cunt well before the war started.
Birth of a Nation on the other hand was 50 years after the fact. I try to imagine myself watching this film in 1915 and I can still picture myself throwing rotten vegetables at the screen just as clearly as I can imagine myself cheering on Hitler in 1935 (as a theoretical everyman obviously, not as a hardcore lefty and wannabe intellectual).
It's a shame because I enjoyed the first half of the movie. The climactic battlefield scene with the water and the flag was a bit overdone but not particularly objectionable but the rest of the film just kept getting worse and worse. I kept expecting Lynch to grow a long moustache and a sharp goatee, put on a top hat and cape, tie Lillian Gish to a railroad and the go "Mwahhahahah!!!" while running off tapping his fingers together.
Still, it serves as a great parallel to the irrational fear-mongering that exists in the media today. You could remarket it today as "The Daily Mail: The Movie" and nobody would bat an eyelid.
My brother walked in shitfaced about 30 minutes from the end of the film and he reckons it's the most uncomfortable thing he's ever seen...and earlier in the day he watched Swansea City squander a two goal lead to Wolves in the last four minutes of the game.
Fucking awful film.
Watch it.
