Parallel Editing In D. W. Griffith's Birth Of A Nation

Parallel Editing within Birth of a Nation Birth of a Nation is a silent film which made by D.W. Griffith in 1915. This film basically chronicles the story of the Northern Stoneman family and the Southern Cameron family who are both experiencing the Civil War and Reconstruction. One of the most famous and important scenes in this film is the last-minute-recuse(Griffith, 180:18 – 189:06): the Ku Klux Klan charge to ride between the town to save Eliza and the countryside cabin for the Cameron family, and eventually they heroically protect people in trouble and naturally become the redeemer of the story. In this film, Griffith simply divides the world into two parts: the colored are bad, animal-like being, and the white are gentle and nice. Consequently, this wildly exaggerated portrayal of African Americans is historically offensive and inaccurate and the hyperbolic representation of white supremacy. Parallel editing is one of most significant technique that Griffith applies in the film, which is
By rendering audiences cuts of scenes, the different feeling of the characters simply passes through images. Putting parallel editing within scenarios, the quick shots offer audiences more necessary details of the ongoing events as they can verify own guesses about the relationship among events. The hopeless face of Margaret Cameron, the obscene smile of the black soldiers, and stone-face of Klansmen, all these images keeps warning audiences the conflicts among these people. The transition of these faces simply shows the upgrade of the conflict. The suspense naturally becomes the clue of story development, since there are the evil black soldiers, the existence of the Ku Klux Klan as the defender is necessary and worthwhile. In this case, shorten the time of each shot ultimately expend time for Klansmen to recuse the victims successfully and reaches the climax of the