How is this movie not in the top 250

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The problem with the film is not that it makes Klansmen as heroes. History shows that at times Klansmen did bring a vigilante justice against abuses by ignorant and tyrannical blacks. History also shows that they brought vigilante injustice against innocent blacks. Griffith only showed the first and that is the problem. Unfortunately the standard today is to show minorities only in a positive light. As any person that is part of a minority will tell you, there are both heroes and villains in any group, and blacks are no exception. The problem with BoaN is not that is showed false things, - by in large the things shown did happen - but it only showed one side.

It should be noted that Griffith was not a racist in the usual sense that we think of - by that I mean - he was not a conscious racist. In fact he was surprised and deeply wounded when the racist charge was leveled at BoaN. He didn't see it, and felt that he had showed many "good" blacks and that the villain of the piece was a white man. That Griffith had an exceptionally strong and deep humanity is apparent to anyone who has seen the opus of his films. but Griffith was a Southerner and he had taken on attitudes that he was not even aware of. In this way he is like many Americans who sincerely want to bring about equality and love to condemn others for racism while not noticing that they have many prejudices themselves.

I agree with everything you said.

But I say leave The Usual Suspects out of it. I do not like the Lord of the Rings for the reason you described because they really shouldn't be put above so many better films. But for me The Usual Suspects is a brilliant film and my favourite at that. I loved it when I first saw it as a 14 year old and still love it.

I believe that Nosferatu is in the Top 250 as well. Metropolis was fantastic too yet I fail to see why Birth didn't make it. Just an incredibly well-made film and historic at that.

<<It's not its racist content alone that's keeping Birth out of the top 250. Older movies (especially silent ones) are generally **not watched enough to get the votes required** to place them in the top 250.>> (Emphasis mine.)


Precisely. God knows there are a lot of knowledgeable movie buffs here who have made it their business to learn about and watch movies from all times and places, but they constitute maybe 1% of the IMDb membership.



It's an interesting psychological phenomenon.

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You people need to get over yourselves. Yes the film is racist, yes it portrays the KKK as the good guys and all whites as being nolbe. GET OVER IT.

This film CREATED film as we know it today. Although the content is terrible; we use the same structure in Hollywood TODAY. We cannot discard a piece of history just because it doesn't agree with present day politics, grow a backbone people!

Imagine how Arabs feel about current day films like United 93 and you're bitching about 1915! Hypocrites!

"When there is any doubt, there is no doubt; that's the first thing they teach you"

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"Griffith was an improver rather than a pioneer."

Not really true, if you check out some of his biograph work, you'll see him using techniques which hadn't even been thought of at the time. The film is an absolute showcase for early narration, I've never seen an earlier film which uses cross cutting so effectively.

The reason the film is not in the IMDB top 250 however is because it is not an intellectual source, it is a commercial outlet.

Racism is an ugly thing, and whilst the message of BOAN is irrefutably wrong, the film is a technical master piece.

Besides so many films (whilst slightly less overtly racist) are consider landmarks in film making; the searchers, the iron horse, gone with the wind etc. Even modern films display ignorance and racism, just look at the rush hour series.

I've just read through this tread, and I noticed a few things. There is a lot of misinformation about the film, Griffith and history in general. That is pretty much par for the course on this site, but there is something that sets this thread apart from the usual IMDB thread.

The really interesting thing I noticed is how much emotion and controversy this 90+ year old film has stirred up in us modern folks. I think the reason for this is not that the film is racist, but that it is UNCONSCIOUSLY racist. Griffith didn't think he was a racist and didn't see that the film might be so. He was genuinely hurt and puzzled when the racist charge was leveled at the film.

If the film had been a conscious racist tract, it would have vanished and been forgotten by now. Because it is UNCONSCIOUSLY racist, it tends to reflect the racism and prejudice of America in a very American way. We are a people who act on our instincts. It is one of our greatest virtues and one of our greatest curses. Griffith, like many artists, was acting on his instincts when he made this film and it reflects what so many people posting here are doing. Like Griffith they moralize but are blind to their own prejudices. They point to the truth being a certain way but neglect other truths that are the opposite way. Strong in their convictions they fail to see that their passion blinds them to a balanced reality. We are a country that has white racists and black racists. We like to take sides and condemn the other side as being evil, in politics, in art and in life. We seek for an ideal world where all will live in harmony as we curse anyone who does not agree with our way of getting there.

It is also interesting to see how many people in this thread are saying the film is a technical achievement, or important historically but it is not a good movie. Ignorance on this movie is deep. Most people have seen very little source material from the early days of movies, and so many opinions here are based on no or false information.

The reality is that there are very few to no technical breakthroughs in this movie. The things that people think are technical breakthroughs were introduced by others or by Griffith himself in earlier films. If you watch Griffith's Biograph shorts and, if you watch one of the many available collections of early short films (The Movies Begin is a good one) you will find nearly all the technical breakthroughs that are supposed to have happened with this movie.

It is also not the first feature film or first film over 100 min. That honor (as far as anyone can tell) goes to the Italians who made several films of that length in the years between 1912 and 1914. “Quo Vadis?” and “Cabiria” are two that come to mind.

Simply by reading this thread, you can see the reason this film is still around. It moves people. It may move you positively or negatively or both, but say what you will, it is a powerful film. There are simple yet deeply felt scenes in this film that resonated in the American psyche for decades after it was issued - and many are still moving - most of them have nothing to do with race.

There is the scene where the Little Coronal is welcomed home. It is a heart-breaker. The scene where he throws that flag into the cannon's mouth which became the icon for battle scenes and taught nearly everyone how to do it. The scenes of carnage after the battle hold nothing back and make “Saving Sgt. Ryan” look like child's play. The scene where Lillian visits the hospital is filled with humanity. All and all, this film contains many great moments that will stand next to any film ever made - but then, there are those other moments – the moments of racial bias.

People here tend fall into one of two groups. There are those that are blinded by the racially biased scenes into not seeing the rest of the movie and others who are blinded by the other humanly powerful scenes into brushing off the racially biased scenes. You can see it over and over again in the comments on in this thread. We Americans have a very difficult time with this film because it is so like the way we are, and it is so hard to look at yourself.

The great achievement of this film is that it took all the film innovations that had developed over the previous 20 or so years - took them out of the realm of tricks and novelties put them to use as ARTISTIC TOOLS an epic story covering more themes and subjects than any other film ever made before or since (except, perhaps, Intolerance). War, poverty, family, race, politics, brotherhood, history, North and South cultural differences, the individual against society, all of these are attempted and some of them - quite successfully. No one had ever done that in a film for such a sustained length of time. The innovations of film, with a few exceptions, had always been used as tricks or novelties. Griffith, on the other hand, was clearly trying to compose a work of art that would stand beside a great novel. He had the vision so see these former novelties as tools that could be used to create art. You may disagree that this is art, but it is clear to any unprejudiced mind (and every film critic admits it) that Griffith was going for an artistic masterpiece. In some ways he succeeded, but in one very important way, he didn’t.

Difficult to watch, even without the race issues, the film could have succeeded in its goal if Griffith had not had a racial blind spot. Even when it was released, many people viewed it as racist, but Griffith didn't see it. He truly and sincerely felt that he was not racist. In one sense he wasn't, for at that time a racist was someone who hated blacks and worked consciously to keep them down. Griffith had unconscious racial bias, and even though both can be socially damaging, there is a difference. I don't think he ever really saw it in himself. He was as blind to his own prejudices, just as most of the people writing in this thread are blind to theirs. And just as racial bias runs like a polluted river through the film, it is prejudice that we see running through this thread. Not racial prejudice, but prejudice against anyone who doesn't share our view. There is no tolerance or forgiveness in many of these posts.

The things that Griffith showed about reconstruction are in most (but not all) true. At that time the freed slaves, being uneducated and easily manipulated were used to further the greed and ambitions of Northern whites. The problem is that Griffith only showed the negative, and that gives an unfairly negative impression of the blacks. Given that most people today have no idea what happened during reconstruction, they assume that any negative depiction of blacks must be false. There is a very good post in this thread on May 3, 2006 that gives some historical perspective.

Griffith does show some blacks in a kindly and even noble light, but you get the feeling that they are always assumed to be inferior to the whites. There is also a clear fear of miscegenation that runs through the film but is never overtly stated. We see it in the rape scene. There were several historical instances of rape by blacks on whites during this period, and vice versa. The point is we see no scene of whites raping blacks. We also never see an instance of a happy black-white couple - also is part of history. In a movie of this length and scope, it is a glaring omission. Griffith himself said, the camera will expose the unconscious character of the actors. For this reason, Griffith only worked with actors who kept a certain moral standard. What he didn’t realize was that the camera would also expose the unconscious character of the director.

But mark this well - regardless of your personal opinion - this is an important film - because it is a powerful and artistic film. One of the most powerful ever made - as witness the amount of passion it brings about from the people writing in this thread. It is important because it showed the world how to use the tricks of filmmaking as artistic and persuasive tools. It also created a great many fortunes for distributors and financers (not for Griffith, however), which essentially provided the money to create Hollywood. When film historians say that Griffith created Hollywood they mean it in a very literal way.

An interesting word that keeps coming up in the thread is the word "disgusted." Many people are disgusted by the racism in the film. That emotion says so much about America and its inability to really face the race issue. Think about that word. When is it usually used? People are often disgusted by the discharge of fluids from the body - vomit, waste fluids, etc. Do these things disgust a doctor? No, doctors are not disgusted because they see such things scientifically and see them for what they are. Other people are disgusted because they associate things like sickness, lack of bodily control, death and other fearful things with the discharge of bodily fluids. Fear and disgust are very close brothers. As Americans we are disgusted and we fear racism. We fear its affects on society but our greater fear is that we might have some unconscious racism within us or that someone might think we do. This fear blinds us to effectively dealing with racism. When Americans can look at racism and not be disgusted, but understand it, then perhaps something will really be done about it.

But while the film reflects American prejudice and racism it also reflects some of our best qualities. Our desire for a better world, our deep caring and humanity, and our struggle to deal with slavery and all the evils that it has caused - yes these too are in the film, and in this thread.

There is a lot that can be learned about America by reading this thread and watching this movie.

Try screening this to a group of adults both liberal and conservative and then get them (if you can) to talk about it. You will see that it is far from just a film that had historical impact. Tell me a film in the last 20 years that covered half the topics that this film does - most of them still very relevant. This film moves people who watch it in many ways - some comfortable and many that are not.

well i give this piece of crap a 0/10 a films greatness should be measured y its content ad its quality not for what it invented if "pluto nash" or "Gili" created the basis for which we make films today even thought the movies sucked would we hold it in such high regards? hell no. so why should we hold this racist piece of crab that was responicible for the deaths and hangings of many men to such high regards. we shouldent. Any idiot could see that. and just cause your not black dosent mean you should be blind the the racism. if this film was about killing jews and glorifying the nazis and how great they were. would anyone be saying i found my self rutting for the nazis in this film? no. so please dont be ignorant and support hatred and racism, cause to pretend like this film isent racist is to be racist yourself even if you dont know you are being it.