Comparing The Film And David Cook's In The Birth Of A Nation

The Civil War was the great rationale of literary production. An example of pastoral idealism of Griffith’s portrayal of antebellum plantation life is the “romance of slavery.” The “romance” of owning a human person, of holding them in bondage, is like having this God-like power over them. The South’s race-based institution of slavery was one of the driving forces behind this production. Birth of a Nation portrays race in two extremely different ways. Griffith refers to what he calls “bad blacks” as “renegades” and “good blacks” as what he calls “faithful souls.” The renegades were the rebels; they took over the town and raided and looted houses. These once-slaves went around destroying property and raping white women. In the film and in David Cook’s, “A History of Narrative Film,” we heard about Gus
Woodrow Wilson is quoted saying “it is like writing history with lightning; my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” I personally don’t think anyone should ever consider a film to be a “document.” Whether or not the subject matter is fiction or not, a film is someone telling a story. Documentaries are bits and pieces of historical events; the director/producer can decide what to edit, what to add, take away, and can decide what to show and what not to show. Very often, especially around this time era, if something didn’t fit in with the editor’s point of view, then they would choose not to show it. Griffith received a lot of backlash for his famous In the Birth of a Nation; his point of view was actually defending the South, the slave owners, and even the KKK. He always portrayed many of the men of color as rapists and monsters. He was actually forced to cut scenes before letting audiences view the film for the bigoted racism he had