< 100 Years Later, What's The Legacy Of 'Birth Of A Nation'?

ARUN RATH, HOST:

One hundred years ago today, a budding film industry premiered what would become its first blockbuster.

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RATH: As the house lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the score, a message from director D.W. Griffith flickered on the screen. This is an historical presentation of the Civil War and Reconstruction Period, and is not meant to reflect on any race or people of today.

But its effects on race relations were devastating, and the reverberations are still felt to this day - "Birth Of A Nation."

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RATH: For the uninitiated, "Birth Of A Nation" is three hours of sickening, racist propaganda ending with - spoiler alert - the Ku Klux Klan riding in to save the South from black rule. In a more enlightened world, this movie would have flopped and been forgotten long ago. Instead, D.W. Griffith was responsible for the birth of Hollywood.

DICK LEHR: He was ambitious, and he was an artist. And he wanted to do something very big.

RATH: That's Dick Lehr. He recently wrote a book about Griffith and "Birth Of A Nation."

LEHR: He was a man of the South from Kentucky. His father had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. What bigger story to tell as a breakout, epic film than the story of America's Civil War and its aftermath?

RATH: But Griffith's understanding of history was based on a twisted account.

LEHR: The second act - part two - was devoted to reconstruction. And that's what appalled and alarmed black America at the time, because he portrayed the emancipated slaves as heathens, as unworthy of being free, as uncivilized, as primarily concerned with passing a law so they could marry white women and prey on them.

RATH: And people have seen or can see easily clips on YouTube. The portrayals are just grotesque.

LEHR: They are indeed. And at the time, however, this was, you know, a runaway success. You know, in 1915, in the winter, in the spring and throughout the year, I mean, this was that year's "Star Wars" or "Avatar."

RATH: And in spite of what we know now, our own historical sense when we're watching this film, at the time, a lot of the storyline though was accepted as history of the reconstruction, back when this came out 100 years ago.

LEHR: You're right. Griffith thought he was, in a way, reporting history about the Civil War and Reconstruction. And it was widely accepted at the time - which has been completely debunked since - that Reconstruction was a disaster, that the North, the radical Republican reconstructionists were, you know, were trying to punish the South, and that former slaves were some kind of lower form of life. That was the embedded, bigoted, racist state of mind of the time. And shockingly, many Americans didn't get that.

RATH: The film premiered in Los Angeles on this day 100 years ago. What was the reception?

LEHR: You know, thumbs up. The critics were raving. People were on their feet cheering at the climax of the film when the Klan is seen as a healing force, restoring order to the chaos of the South during Reconstruction. They were in awe of seeing for the first time a feature film of this length. You know, there's one critic - said the worst thing about "The Birth Of A Nation" is how good it is.

RATH: The film's initial success drowned out the voices of those who tried to protest. The civil rights movement was still quite young at the time. The NAACP had just incorporated a few years earlier. So the Los Angeles screenings were successful in spite of the outrage, as were New York City's. It even became the first movie ever to be screened at the White House. Woodrow Wilson reportedly called it history written in lightning.

But a better organized resistance caught up with "Birth Of A Nation" in Boston.

LEHR: And there was this radical newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter at the forefront of a protest that involved the Boston branch of the NAACP. It's a drama that played out in the streets. It played out in the courts. It involved mass demonstrations where Trotter rallied several thousand mostly black protesters, who turned out to say this is not accurate.

Trotter got arrested at a demonstration in front of the Tremont Theater where the movie was playing. And for me as an author and a researcher, you know, reconstructing this great drama, you know, I kept scratching my head going what year is this? This is 1915, but it's so 1960-ish in terms of its protest strategy.

RATH: Despite the unrest, the Boston screenings did go on as scheduled, but the protesters set a template there other cities would follow. After Boston, theater owners in other towns demanded significant edits to the film before they'd screen it. And in other places, it was banned outright.

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RATH: Now, it'd be easy to say that "Birth Of A Nation" is ancient history. It's a century-old silent film. Let it go already. But it's never stopped finding new audiences.

Immediately after the film's release, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a surge in membership, and they continued to use it as a recruiting tool for decades after that. As a young journalist in the late 1970s, Dick Lehr infiltrated the local Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for a story. And he met their leader at the time, David Duke.

LEHR: And his idea of a meeting was to show this film, in which he stood there narrating it and adding his own, you know, very racist spin on events. And that's when it hit me - the real propaganda value for the Klan, not only way back when but here it was, you know, like, six, seven decades later.

RATH: And "Birth Of A Nation" is still taught in film schools. New generations of filmmakers view it every semester, because for all of its repulsive imagery, it stands as a massive leap in cinema. Griffith shot scenes with multiple cameras and fresh editing techniques that brought film alive in a new way.

TODD BOYD: Racist propaganda meets new technology in 1915.

RATH: That's Todd Boyd. He's a professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts.

BOYD: You know, it's really the sort of foundation of modern cinema, I think, in every sense. So historically it's important in that regard, but you can't separate - at least, you know, I don't agree to separate - the technological prowess from the political baggage.

RATH: Boyd says he rarely brings up the film in his classes, and he won't screen it. But he's not calling on other educators to ban the film as well.

BOYD: We're talking about a college education when people should be exposed to all sorts of information, whether it makes them comfortable or not. So I don't have a problem with it being taught. I just think the way it's taught is more important than the fact that it's taught. If you talk about it only as technological achievement and the brilliance of D.W. Griffith, then I think this is unfortunate. If you talk about it as representative of racism and white supremacy and America's history in this regard, then I think that's very different.

RATH: But no matter how responsibly the film is taught, Boyd has a provocative theory about the film's legacy, even a century after its first screening.

BOYD: If you plant seeds, what grows from those seeds is going to be based on what you planted. "Birth Of A Nation" is a film that represents racism. It is at the foundation of what would become Hollywood. So if this is at the root, then it shouldn't be a surprise when in the last few weeks, there have been discussions about the lack of people of color being nominated for the Oscars. In my mind, this is very much a branch that grew out of the tree that was "Birth Of A Nation."

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RATH: My guests were Todd Boyd of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Dick Lehr, author of "The Birth Of A Nation: How A Legendary Filmmaker And A Crusading Editor Reignited America's Civil War."

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