Billy Bob Ironically, it’s probably better understood, at least among those of us who are white and have been taught the “Myth of the Lost Cause”. Blacks have understood the systemic racism far better. They don’t need to see a vile film such as this - many experience it on a daily basis, unfortunately. This movie is about as subtle as a barbed wire enema. But how many of us who are white are aware of the far more subtle racism in a film like “Gone With The Wind”? It’s far more subtle, and perhaps not even the film makers were aware of it. But GWTW DOES romanticize the planter culture of the antebellum South, and laments its passing. One has to be aware of just how pervasive the Myth of the Lost Cause is. Resistance to the falsehoods of this created myth (largely perpetrated by the Daughters of the Confederacy - who came from that planter class elite) is finally growing in awareness on the part of many whites in America, which is cause for hope. This film makes no attempt at subtlety. It’s so overtly racist, that even leading black roles are played by white people wearing blackface.
not really films back then were a modern day spectacle they had nothing better to do besides plow the fields and chop firewood so people flocked to cinemas around them to be entertained for a long time and double features were also a lot more common
I disagree. I have heard the claim "you cannot erase history" before. Of course, you can erase history. It has happened many times. History is based on perception and perception can easily be altered.
Not sure I agree. Many ancestors of black American's history of their original homeland and language have been erased as far as direct lineages, but I understand what you mean by this quote.
Pretty fucking hilarious how they canonically decided to make the origin story of the KKK some guy watching some kids play a game of “Boo I’m a Spooky Ghost” with some bed sheets and thought to himself “that’s a marvellous idea”.
Ironically The Origin of The KKK White Robes is This Movie. The Historical Klan did not Wear the Robes. The Second Klan did. But The Second Clan got Started due to This Movie Inspiring it.
@@skwills1629 Correct and if I’m correct as well, I believe the Klan burning the cross was also originated in this movie and adopted by the second Klan which originally wasn’t even a thought in the original klan.
I watched clips of "Gone with the Wind" all because of this comment, and you weren't kidding. Truly a night-and-day difference in the cinematic quality of the two. Gone with the Wind actually seems like you're watching a real professional movie (though it still does show its age) whereas this crap is really unwatchable (I'm mainly talking about the cinematic quality and not just the racial message, though that is very wrong too). I feel like the progress of this movie to Gone with the Wind seems much much greater than the progress we see in movies from 1998 to now.
racist as hell and clumsy in its storytelling, nevertheless some scenes are about as EPIC in size and scale as ever done in film. And all actual people.
To be fair back then anything moving was interesting I can’t stop thinking about how long it took for them to make one Scene with all the camera cuts, and have the movie be 3 hours
Thought this was a poorly executed joke. After seeing your channel, it's no surprise that you can't stand something that doesn't give immediate dopamine hits and forces you to focus on the bigger picture.
Im pretty sure the kkk are burning in hell fire by the most high God in heaven ! Vengeance is mine say the lord I will repay . God laugh at the wicked cause he knows vengeance will be put on those devils!!
You are wrong.During 1920's so many immingrant came USA from different countries like italy and russia.(especially jews.)First KKK attacked just blacks.But second KKK also attacked catholic,Jews...
It's a horrible message, but the existence of this movie should still be known and available. A piece of history no matter how terrible it was. The more we forget..the more we repeat ourselves. It's actually kind of impressive that their hatred for black people was so high that they made a 3 hour movie about it. Not even 20 mins. but 3 hours. That's some crazy dedication.
@@justinholland6132 no. I'm complimenting them for documenting their racism so now it can never be denied that it happened..basically calling them stupid while also saying the fact that they made a 3hr movie based on their racism was impressive because it takes some dedication to do that. But at the same time I don't think this movie should he available for purchase in stores or online. I don't think any one company should benefit from making money off of this movies racism, but I still think access to it is important from a historical stand point.
okay then let's make a movie about the true history of the brutilization of negroes by the Caucasian folks and how about including the fact they dwelled in caves as neanderthals and the original europeans were black and taught them structure
I have the day off from work today, Sunday, and decided to finally watch this. Thanks for uploading the entire movie instead of a playlist full of clips. That was the only way I could watch it in the past and couldn't get through it.
There's more to it than skin color... America had a caste system that put people of certain ethnic backgrounds below others. They did it to insure the dominance or supremacy of their race. It wasn't just out of hate of skin color. I think that's something that a lot of people lose sight of. When you understand what was really going on then, you get a better idea of what's going on today.
@@somethingsomething9008 Those immigrants were able to fully assimilate. Many of them changed their names, adopted American culture, changed their accents and or learned English to become "white". Because they look the same as other Western Europeans, race wasn't a distinguishing characteristic for them. So they could truly assimilate into whiteness. Black, Native and Asian people could never assimilate the in same way.
@@incubus_the_manwell white man, thanks for white-splaining, but the ‘caste system’ it’s just an excuse for a good old fashion racism. You have no right to explain “what it’s like“ to those who are on the receiving end of that racism.
Funny thing, the director of this movie went on to make "Intolerance" which explored themes of intolerance in response to this movie, I recommend giving it a watch
The only segment worth watching in "Intolerance", is the Babylonian one. Rest is a total bore. The film as a whole, was a total bomb, leaving Griffith in debt for years. He cut out the Babylonian part and released it as a separate film...something he should have done from the start. It can be downloaded here on youtube.
Check this one off my bucket list. For years I have wanted to watch the silent film, "Birth of a Nation." Finding time to focus on a silent movie for nearly three and one-half hours was beyond difficult. I broke it into segments and got through it over about a week. It is a true cinematic masterpiece. With none of the special effects technology in the ensuing decades and certainly no CGI we see today, it is a marvel. The elaborate sets, costumes, and smoky battle scenes are amazing if you think of the resources producer DW Griffith had to work with. A cinematic masterpiece, yes, but also intense racist gaslighting. The movie is basically broken into two chapters: Civil War and post-war Reconstruction. While the war story culminating with the Lincoln assassination is Confederate-slanted, the story of Reconstruction is flat-out racist. Blacks are represented as corrupt and oppressive to whites. The heroes? The Ku Klux Klan. They organized, took up arms, and rose up to beat back the black menace. This was heralded throughout America as good and just. The goal was to restore America - especially the South - to its greatness, its old way of life. Keep in mind this film is distinguished as the first movie to have a White House viewing. This came under the administration of Woodrow Wilson who hosted an elaborate dinner party with choice political leaders and influencers across the country. In addition to that premiere showing at the White House in 1915, the movie was re-released 15 years later at the end of the silent film era in 1930. I mention this because the film continues to echo a bigoted message today. This is not because a significant number of Americans are watching it, but because the ugly message it carries is a narrative that was passed down through generations. Tens of millions of Americans look at our cultural past through the gauzy lens of nostalgic remembrance of American life. This was true in the 1870s, 1915, 1930, and today. They just deny any attempt to bring our society to face its terrible practices. This amazing artifact of American media culture should be folded into the lesson plans of university and high school history classes. Break it into segments for homework and then use that to fuel classroom discussion. It should be dissected to understand its historical context and how it contributed to today's behavior. The past never leaves us, it informs us and lives within us. The good, the bad, and the disturbingly hateful.
Everyone in this film is dead... Edit: I know it's obvious they're dead and that D.W. Griffith was racist, my point was that it's crazy watching a real film where all the actors are dead. This is watching real history. I just think that's cool.
@@jakebradford4272 confederacy still exists? LMAO keep dreaming, that’s probably the funniest sentence ive ever heard coming from a comment on yt😂😂
How is this film 3 and a quarter hours long? The first feature-length film was made in 1906. This must have been one of the longest films made at the time.
I honestly think the way it was made and the equipment used - it turned out absolutely gorgeous. Notwithstanding the horribly racist aspect. I’m just interested in silent era films
I saw a great version of Metropolis on VHS back in the 80s, but otherwise have never been a big fan of Silents. Watched Nosferatu six months ago and have been a huge fan of Silents ever since.
The first half of the movie is relatively benign -- there are scenes of families and friendships torn apart by war that are quite moving and powerful. It's the film's second half that has all the controversial stuff showing wholesale endorsement of white supremacy, and scenes that reflect paranoid fantasy of racist whites that have no bearing on real history. 2015 was the film's centenary, and the occasion came and went with little fanfare.
@@JoseFerreira-vj3lq Those scenes, though unflattering, are relatively benign, as I said; tons of movies in the period and later have such depiction (poor speech, foolish, etc.) Far more incendiary are scenes such as a black man attempting to rape a white woman and she jumping to her death, followed by a title card saying something to the effect of "she upheld her honor." These scenes are what set Birth of a Nation apart, depicting an utterly negrophobic attitude and, as I said, a sweeping "validation" of white supremacy. Many films have depicted blacks poorly, but few have actually called for the destruction of their race and literally showed it.
That the first part comes across as "benign" is the whole point - it "normalizes" this family and, oh, by the way, the slaves who worked in the fields, danced for the master, served in the home and, in general, who remain in the background until needed. Yes, benign. 100%.
1:31:27 Woodrow Wilson 1:21:09 Abraham Lincoln 1:32:56 Horace Stoneman and his secretary 1:38:35 Silas Lynch and other African Americans' portrayal 1:59:29 South Carolina legislature 2:02:30 Ku Klux Klan origin story and portrayal 3:10:45 Double honeymoon/end of the film
@@joewhitehead3 That movie is another defense of a hate filled lynch mob that judged its victims purely on the color of their skin, but they were slaves so apparently it okay. Also Nat Turner was a coward who was depicted as a brave hero, like the cowardly hyenas of the Ku Klux Klan in this film.
The first half of this is actually a more or less decent Civil War film with less than subtle pro-Southern bias. The final battle scene at The Siege of Petersburg is truly impressive for it's time. Unfortunately the second half showing Reconstruction, etc. is complete, unhinged nonsense. Too bad it wasn't cut at the 90 min. mark.
It's pretty bizarre how they describe the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in such a bad light.. obviously i can't be surprised considering the type of movie this is, but it's just so strange to see
@@vibesanm nah man don’t get too upset . I’m black and how we portray ourselves in the media today is no worse than this and blacks don’t have a problem with that
The first half is meant to normalise the slave owning family and show how happy it was for everyone, even the slaves who dance and generally just stay in the background until they’re needed. The second half is meant to make you nostalgic for that lifestyle that was supposedly lost when black people got equal rights, so that you support the kkk who are trying to bring it back
Walked in back in good old '15 to watch this film and I'm still watching it in the theatre at this very moment. I'm writing this comment while watching the film
There's so much hype about this movie that I decided to watch it. After watching it, all I can say is that it's so wrong in so many levels that I wouldn't know where to begin. I pity the people that would buy into this.
@@doomeStringsstopp me too!! i started the 1001 movies to watch and this one is soo long- I’m in 2x and i’ve been trying to finish it, it’s been 3 days haha
When I see the way the slavers rewrote History as soon as they lost the war to the point of this movie being the accepted national myth by 1900, I remember a quote from Ararat. "Young man, do you know what still causes so much pain? It's not the people we lost, or the land. It's to know that we could be so hated. Who are these people, who could hate us so much? How can they still deny their hatred? And so hate us... hate us even more?"
In summary, There are two families, one of Austin Stoneman, a powerful figure in the abolitionist north, and the Cameron's, a slave owning cotton family in the racist south. The two families have connections, but as the civil war broke out, they ended up fighting each other and causing conflict. At the end of the war, only one son from both families remained, "little colonel". He was en route to get hanged for using Guerilla tactics but because of the begging of his mother and his love at first sight, Abraham Lincoln excused his crimes. Stoneman gets in an argument with Lincoln about Lincolns leniency to the south. Once Lincoln is assassinated, Stoneman becomes the center of power in the north, and decides to organize the black vote in the south, enacting policies to make both white and black people equals under the law. The Cameron family notices black people walking on the sidewalk and gets fussy. Elections happen and the house and Senate end up with a large black majority. Chaos ensues with black congressmen eating fried chicken and drinking on the house floor. They vote for radical race egalitarian policies (like having to *gasp* salute black officers on the street, the same as white officers). In a fit of tragedy, Little Colonel sits on a hill, and sees children playing. He sees two white children hide under a blanket and scare off their black friends. A stroke of genius hits him, and he invents the KKK. The last bit of the movie is the extremely racist part, showing black people as violent rapists and the KKK as the saviour of the white South.
Jack Osland they are some actual black People in this . The blackface actors are the ones who have role in the movie, the real black People are in the background
@@normahamilton2985 ive seen way better films shorter then this shit for starters shawshank redemption, Mississippi Burning, Winchester, Balto, Lion king, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private ryan, The Longest Day(and that had a all star cast of near 50 or more A-list actors like John Wayne, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum just to name a few) Raid on Entebbe, Mulan, hell even the Paranormal Activity movies were shorter then this.
I’ve been wondering how just a century ago, still within living memory, entire societies accepted and partook in racism, segregation, lynching and so on. It conflicts with what I think I know about humanity and how people naturally love and feel sympathy for one another. Which beliefs that society accepts today will be horrific in the future? Do I hold any of those beliefs? These questions have been troubling me for a while and I hope watching this movie will help me answer some of them
Human beings have been violent for as long as we existed. Unfortunately, we are naturally xenophobic and tribalistic that is why we tend to go against those who look and think differently from us. People are capable of loving and sympathy but they are also capable of cruelty and hatred. This is just one of the facts of life we have to accept just like death. We can be better and have a peaceful civilization but that is a process that must be fought with effort and a process that everyone must consent to.
@@ilikepancakes2368 'Human beings have been violent for as long as we existed.' It's easy to say that, but eveyone I know is generally nice and polite. It's hard to imagine a naturally violent or hateful person, much less a whole society of such people. That's why this aspect of history confuses me
Have you ever considered the idea that the "evil" "racist" beliefs your ancestors held were humanity's natural state, and that this "tolerance" is merely an anomaly? Integration literally had to be implemented at gunpoint, and 60 years later racial tensions are still incredibly high.
Because it's influential in terms of technical aspects (new camera angles, use of flashbacks, etc) and being the first film to tell an epic story despite the portrayal of the KKK as a heroic force
this may sound unrelated, but I wouldn't recommend listening to rotten tomatoes when it comes to seeing how well-received a movie is. The algorithm praises safe mediocrity and actually profound and innovative movies get pushed to the side. For example, if every critic on the site gave a movie a 6/10, it's RT score would be listed as 100%.
Fun fact: D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ is the third most commercially successful box office film in United States History, trailing ‘Avatar’ and ‘Titanic.’
@j-graze3898 - Good grief - NO IT IS NOT !! The movie Birth of a Nation is not even top 50 in all-time gross box office adjusted for inflation. Amazing that 72 people gave this incorrect comment a thumbs up. I guess those same people would all march in unison right off a cliff.
@@lrvracer3515 In a 2015 Time article, Richard Corliss estimated the film had earned the equivalent of $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation, a milestone that at the time had only been surpassed by Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) in nominal earnings
Finally able to watch D.W. Griffith's masterpiece of the Civil War and its aftermath and despite attempts today by a certain segment, our countries past cannot be erased or rewritten. Enjoy these old black and white movies. Thanks for the posting. Joe S
Remember this coming on afternoon television in the eighties here in Britain as a kid. Knew nothing about the clan but couldn’t tear myself away from the insane imagery,
“Never really ended” he said in 2021 about a movie in the 1910’s. The civil war ended in the 1860’s the civil rights movement ended in the 1960’s and 70’s.
@@eliaskjrbo8142 I don't think the Civil War that got 620,000-750,000 American soldiers killed (plus the undetermined civilian casualties) will get the people to stop talking. Let's be honest, that war has haunt the US ever since.
Bullets were fired for different reasons and not at one another for a while, sure. Call this an end of war if you wish, I won't argue with you. The more important question is what went on in the mind of Conservatives during the civil war. And the psychopathology that they utilise to this day.
Its more an example of how a war history could be written by the losers of a war. What i do wonder is... why arent there any northern historians? To compare it. Makes you wonder
I teach college history, and discuss films quite a lot. I think it's important, as so many people get their concepts of history from films. Of course I address Birth of a Nation. Cinematically it's fantastic. The panoramic battle scenes, editing techniques, the music. . . all very innovative at a time when the cinema was still in its infancy. Its message is what's reprehensible. Even then it has a value, to illustrate what people were thinking at the time. As a historian I lose patience when people insist that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. Certainly, there were very few in 1860 who would have said "Slavery is a problem, let's have a war!" (except maybe John Brown and Nat Turner). But of all the causes of the war. . . questions over westward expansion, economic differences between North and South, the place of the federal government compared to the states. . . all of these issues connect back to slavery. We may debate the degree of which slavery was a cause (it was quite large), but you can't insist that it had nothing to do with the war. We may well ask, if slavery had never existed, would the war have happened anyway?
I hope people dont make this movies dissapear, its like the nonsense of cancelling songs of the south... history did happen, like it or not; You cant cancel 80s movies just because people had mullet hairstyle.... it happened, as horrible as it was. THESE ARE MANKIND DOCUMENTS
That's not the point my guy. This is historical meaning there would be no reason to cancel it but for people to try and say things like the confederate flag only represents heritage and not racism is pure ignorance. This movie was created by someone who was clearly from the south and depicted the KKK as the hero of the movie. How are you gonna see this and still try to defend that flag.
@@iwanttoswimintheswanepoel racism & pure terrorism. If serial killers and al qaida terrorists are not tolerated then the KKK should be treated likewise. They were & are nothing more than Racist Serial killing Terrorist pieces of shit. Special place in hell for them.
@@Emily-fm7pt plot shouldn't have anything to do with the writing itself. A premise can never be bad, but a screenplay can. In this case, the movie is written very well, but it contains controversial themes.
Lillian Gish was also in The Muskateers of Pig Alley(1912). That movie also contains importance because it was one of the very first gangster movies ever to be released and shown to the public.
Like the kkk being influenced into burning crosses after seeing this flick,Tupac wanted to do gangster shit for real,Snoop had to turn him down,thanks Lion ✊🏽✊🏿✊🏾✊🏻
I've heard about this movie for decades. Thanks so much for posting the entire thing. I agree with the comments. Brilliant camerawork and effects but a ridiculous story. And remember this footage is a century old; the original 1915 celluloid prints must've been dazzling to see. It is a little long: DWG shot 36 hours of footage and could've edited it down even more.
My Great Grandfather wrote a few books and one was an autobiography about himself, he was born in and grew up a little bit in Michigan, but then after lending their farm to a friend they moved to Alabama and he said that this was the first “movie” movie that he watched, after a few years they moved back to Michigan
@@NateXVII No, and they also moved down to Alabama to work a general store owned by his step sisters husband, they moved back because the friend that was using the farm kinda let it fall apart so they moved back and rebuilt it
Wow, I did not know that a 3 hour long silent film existed. I wax expecting it to drag on because if the length of the film, but the pacing was actually not bad. But from what I’ve read, some of those original projectors were hand cranked. I would hate to have to crank one of those for three hours. Damn.
The battle scenes are incredible, probably to what the actual battle in Petersburg looked like. No special effects, no AI, more realistic than what you'll see on the glitzy screen today.
As a minority who served this country I will say that the Confederate flag does NOT evoke fear in me WHATSOEVER. wrong word choice .unless he is speaking of a past tense scenario. but to this date I think it promotes more anger than fear.
The first thing I noticed when watching this film is that all the people look normal and evenly proportioned. No one is suffering from obesity, but there's also none of the perfectly sculpted gym rat bodies that you see in the Hollywood movies today. They look like basic normal body sizes that any plain Jane or average Joe can achieve.
Let’s think about this. There have always been corpulent people in history. Perhaps those people don’t appeal to many human beings and that’s why they’re not in the film.... yes obesity is more prevalent now. Also there have always been brawny men throughout history. We all have a variation in phenotype.
this was time before McDonalds. Imagine an angry Ronald Macdonald chasing them with an axe, asking "WHY DIDNT YOU TRY THE BIG MAC!" Now that would be a movie
it's really quite fascinating how the first 2 hours of the film goes from a relatively unbiased civil war film to full blown white supremacy propaganda on the last hour, I mean the scene where the friends from oposite sides of the conflict only to die next to each other is a really powerful scene it shows how really was brother against brother...then they start to portray the klan as an unsung hero organization.
i have to watch it for my class to understand how it created a centruy of racism and the stereotypes within it. i hate it tho 19 minutes in and it feels like a year has passed.
Today is Christmas 2024. This movie was made and shown about 49 and 50 years after the Civil War ended. The fall of Saigon which was the end of the Vietnam War was about 49 and 50 years ago. The 50th anniversary will be on April 30th in a few months. So we are as far from the end of the Vietnam war as the people in the movie were from the end of the Civil War.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation was the very first motion picture to be screened in the White House. But the movie went on to become most famous for all the wrong reasons. Its aggressive racist propaganda had long lasting effects and became the foundation of the hate directed at the Black community.
It became famous because One, it was the first major Hollywood film. Almost every movie prior ran 20 minutes or so. Two, groundbreaking effects. Epic battle scenes, close-ups, cross-cutting, fade-outs. Nobody had seen that before. Yes, it's a shame the second half was ridiculous even in 1915. Look on the bright side: nobody is going to remake this.
This movie from 1915 is about the civil war which ended 50 years prior. If a movie about a similar time gap came out this year it would it be set in 1974
The KKK had pretty much been dead, this romanticized the klan, as white knights defending Southern womanhood, which led to the Klan adopting the knight imagery. which was obviously horse shit as one of the higher up's in the klan hierarchy, drugged and brutally raped one of the organizations secretaries.
@@King-fo3kj Hillary and Biden were best friends with Robert Byrd, Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. The Democratic party still has ties to the KKK. You saw the picture of Virginia's Governor, Northam, right?
@@aeddinlewis5713 the times have not changed one bit we as black ae still struggling we don't own anything of importance no media stations, we are working just help white people the white man already has economic security already first class citizenship, so we wasting our time talking to the white man
This is such a fascinating film. Its almost like civil war photos that can move, it's so incredible. Also fun fact: This was Woodrow Wilsons favorite film.
I know. He screened it at the White House and praised it effusively, That's because he was a racist (trick with the first letter replaced by a p." Also, this was the first feature film in the history of American cinema so there weren't that many choices in picking your "favorite."
Just finished reading "A Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan. It is a great way to "understand" 1915 in the USA. I'm watching this movie in increments, wondering if the audience talked while they were watching.
I’m dark skinned and I respect that people seem to be shamed for being white like this is literally a white country before us immigrants came the least we could have is some respect for y’all but y’all seem to be getting so much hate instead. I’m here for you, I’d be weirded out if I saw white people in my homeland so I understand I know most don’t
@@Dhhebwit literally isn't a white country though, by your logic white people shouldn't be here in the US either, because Indigenous Americans lived here first. You didn't specify what country you are from (it sounds like you say ya'll pretty frequently though which seems particularly American to me, curious) so I can't speak on that specifically but when you say "I'd be weirded out if I saw white people in my homeland" you do realize that many countries whose indigenous population is of a darker skin such as countries in Africa and the Caribbean do currently have a bunch of white people in them because of European colonization American Imperialism and the tourism industry. You're talking about white people occupying predominantly black and brown countries like it's a hypothetical bad thing that you hope would never happen, when it's a very real thing that is happening and has already been happening for a few hundred years, and it wasn't done by immigrating legally or illegally, but by literally invading and colonizing through military force, and it was done with the same kind of racist rationalizations that this movie makes. This movie doesn't just want white people and black people to live separately, this movie doesn't just "get weirded out" by black people's presence, it is violently alarmed by the co-existence of black people, it openly views black people as subhuman and deserving of the violence inflicted upon them. If you instead said something like "yes I also believe that whites should stay out of my country because they are more prone to violence and less intelligent than us and we should kill them if we must to protect our darker skinned heritage being robbed from us through race mixing" then you would actually be accurately describing the inverse view of this movie, which would also actually make you the real anti-white person in this scenario that doesn't "have some respect for ya'll"
Those who wish to learn and understand history without bias and fair perspective should watch this movie not necessarily to enjoy but to understand .This is not the historical account of what happened, but definitely a perspective of some people in the post war south and Southern sympathizer historically accurate or not. History students must understand that society today is very different from 1850s,or 1914s. Every historical events must be analyzed with fair consideration of how people thought and believed within the society that formed by the the very people that bounded by the era. Excluding everything you don't agree or you don't want to see will give you a crippling effect on understanding the history.
I have been assaulted or faced violent/criminal incidents 4 times in public places, in my life (I am 67). Now, the noteworthy thing was that in ALL these 4 violent assaults, the perpetrators were always from the same community/race (not whites nor Asians). I wonder why. In the worst criminal assault I faced (in London), I ended up being in hospital with a pelvic fracture, because the thug mowed me down to steal my backpack. Consequently, notwithstanding all my good intentions, when I now come across people from that community/race, I am always a little bit extra careful. By the way, in case anybody thinks I am 'racist', I can assure you I am not, because I am not white myself. I also grew up being taught and believing racism is extremely evil and bad. I still mostly hold on to those beliefs, but bitter experience has taught me to now be a bit extra careful around certain people. I guess that's how prejudice and stereotypes start forming. Also, I live in the UK, not the US.
Yes you are still racist. Generalisations are for the weak no matter your experience, falling to generalisations is pathetic and shows a clear lack of critical thinking ability. Grow up
You are racist because you are prejudging people based on their race, that's called prejudice, correlation does not equal causation, and to prejudge that it does equal causation at the expense of an entire group of people with a history and culture that you have no regard for just means you're not a very good person either probably because the implicit view is that you matter so much that you shouldn't have to bother to understand or learn why things are the way they are before judging others and spreading ignorant hateful ideas on the internet
So black people should Always be Afraid to be around White people because of All the Evil, Wicked , horrible atrocities that Black people have endured by these people!!! Every thing that could be done to a person has been done by White people. Even using little black children as Alligator Bait, and they were Still Alive!!! A person cannot get any more Evil and Wicked than this!!!!!
Boring, Overrated. Morally obsolete. It's actually hilarious how many people think Griffith "re-invented" film making, while most of directing techniques he used were invented in early 1900s.
Let's see. A man lets a woman know that he is interested in her. Which opening scenario is creepier? A. They have already known each other for a while and there haven't been any problems between the two of them so far. B. She has never seen him before in her life, and this complete stranger starts out by telling her how "I've carried you about with me for a long, long time," and proves it by showing her a photo of her that he's got with him.
As an African American who loves silent films, King of kings, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, , The Tramp.Nosferatu, The Passion of St. Joan, Metropolis… I had to force my to get through this one. I tried aesthetically view the film. I admit.. I failed. But, even Griffith gave U.S. “Intolerance” immediately after.
Yah it's rough, I get that technically it's supposed to be a landmark in cinema and some of the shots are really impressive but god is it slow and poorly acted and written, and besides all that obviously it's just a bigoted movie that actively exploited black people at the time for the movie's production, it's quite sickening
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Only 1910s kids will understand
Billy Bob Ironically, it’s probably better understood, at least among those of us who are white and have been taught the “Myth of the Lost Cause”. Blacks have understood the systemic racism far better. They don’t need to see a vile film such as this - many experience it on a daily basis, unfortunately.
This movie is about as subtle as a barbed wire enema. But how many of us who are white are aware of the far more subtle racism in a film like “Gone With The Wind”? It’s far more subtle, and perhaps not even the film makers were aware of it. But GWTW DOES romanticize the planter culture of the antebellum South, and laments its passing. One has to be aware of just how pervasive the Myth of the Lost Cause is.
Resistance to the falsehoods of this created myth (largely perpetrated by the Daughters of the Confederacy - who came from that planter class elite) is finally growing in awareness on the part of many whites in America, which is cause for hope.
This film makes no attempt at subtlety. It’s so overtly racist, that even leading black roles are played by white people wearing blackface.
Also only racist kids like the ones reading your comment Billy Bob will understand you repugnant
It’s a tiktok joke, y’all taking this way too seriously.
@@michaelclark7706 You’re white
@@areunholland552 I’m half-white
Say what you want, but to watch a black and white silent film in 1915 for 3 hours, that’s some dedication
not true this was not that hard I used no food but I did need a break 1 break .
not really films back then were a modern day spectacle they had nothing better to do besides plow the fields and chop firewood so people flocked to cinemas around them to be entertained for a long time and double features were also a lot more common
Yeah especially one that’s racist as heck.
To be fair tf else you gonna do? Go till thr land?
@@estebanvazquez1524 well damn beat me to the comment lol
You can not erase history, for it has already been written, but if one refuses to learn from it, sadly one if not all is doomed to repeat it.
Partiality is causality,the correct way of saying it is "health history"
@@michellehouse-hq7mh aw. Look who wants to feel important. Man STFU 😂😂😂
But we're not the ones making decisions. Are we? Or is it just corporations throwing in candidates and buying them?
I disagree. I have heard the claim "you cannot erase history" before. Of course, you can erase history. It has happened many times. History is based on perception and perception can easily be altered.
Not sure I agree. Many ancestors of black American's history of their original homeland and language have been erased as far as direct lineages, but I understand what you mean by this quote.
Grabbing my popcorn... hoping to see a family friendly movie which shares the message of love and tolerance for the next 3 hours .
12 mins in and I'm struggling to get through this GD 3 hour PowerPoint slide show
lol
@Huwhite Death Based
Trust me bro it’s fun for the whole family just like Air bud 2: the golden receiver
@@JS-qc1xs 😂
19 minutes in and i've already graduated college, moved to LA, attended my first movie premiere, got married, and received an Oscar.
How much time passes if you watch the whole film?
@@SuperBigshot99 I’ve watched the whole film, don’t do it. I started watching decades ago. After the first 45 minutes, i was an old bag of bones
@@underdoggy404 good thing I haven't. But honestly the film was pretty good. Took some artistic risks.
@@mladengrozdanovic5515
… *Are you sure about that?*
@@mladengrozdanovic5515 Define human...?
I swear they’ve been leaving for war for 40 minutes now
Fast-paced it's not!
@Eric Lee You’re literally a man
I literally choked reading this comment😂😂😂😂😂😂
🤣😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂
Pretty fucking hilarious how they canonically decided to make the origin story of the KKK some guy watching some kids play a game of “Boo I’m a Spooky Ghost” with some bed sheets and thought to himself “that’s a marvellous idea”.
That’s the funniest part of the movie. That clip needs to be some sort of meme.
Ironically The Origin of The KKK White Robes is This Movie. The Historical Klan did not Wear the Robes. The Second Klan did. But The Second Clan got Started due to This Movie Inspiring it.
@@skwills1629 Correct and if I’m correct as well, I believe the Klan burning the cross was also originated in this movie and adopted by the second Klan which originally wasn’t even a thought in the original klan.
@Purple Emerald - Basically, Yes.
@@Wadiyatalkinabeet_ pretty Satanic
It’s pretty insane to think that we went from this to Gone With the Wind in just 24 years.
I watched clips of "Gone with the Wind" all because of this comment, and you weren't kidding. Truly a night-and-day difference in the cinematic quality of the two. Gone with the Wind actually seems like you're watching a real professional movie (though it still does show its age) whereas this crap is really unwatchable (I'm mainly talking about the cinematic quality and not just the racial message, though that is very wrong too).
I feel like the progress of this movie to Gone with the Wind seems much much greater than the progress we see in movies from 1998 to now.
There's an endless supply of white men and a limited supply of humans
Chief George
Little Big Man
@@maciekmrakowski wow your comment betrays a stunning ignorance.
racist as hell and clumsy in its storytelling, nevertheless some scenes are about as EPIC in size and scale as ever done in film. And all actual people.
@@maciekmrakowski Gone With The WInd is " actually like a real movie?" LOL!!!
104 years old.
104 years old and the same shit
That’s awsome
Mike Carter not really
109 and counting...
Javier, it’s 2019, not 2024.
Imagine how boring 1915 was to sit through 3 hours of this and call it entertainment.
To be fair back then anything moving was interesting
I can’t stop thinking about how long it took for them to make one Scene with all the camera cuts, and have the movie be 3 hours
kids today have 10 second attention spans. in the future people will look back and question how people sat through 5 minute youtube videos
To be fair, movies were a new thing back then, espesually ones like this. This wouldn't have been that boring back then.
@@GS-md3hr And that's the truth...
Thought this was a poorly executed joke. After seeing your channel, it's no surprise that you can't stand something that doesn't give immediate dopamine hits and forces you to focus on the bigger picture.
This film was one of the main reasons the KKK came back.
And KFC
@OK DUDE! You're hilarious and so cool I bet you get so much pussy.
Im pretty sure the kkk are burning in hell fire by the most high God in heaven ! Vengeance is mine say the lord I will repay . God laugh at the wicked cause he knows vengeance will be put on those devils!!
You are wrong.During 1920's so many immingrant came USA from different countries like italy and russia.(especially jews.)First KKK attacked just blacks.But second KKK also attacked catholic,Jews...
That’s because Rutherford Hayes had vacated the south of the last federal troops. Leaving the southern states to discriminate at will.
It's a horrible message, but the existence of this movie should still be known and available. A piece of history no matter how terrible it was. The more we forget..the more we repeat ourselves.
It's actually kind of impressive that their hatred for black people was so high that they made a 3 hour movie about it. Not even 20 mins. but 3 hours. That's some crazy dedication.
Your complimenting racists for their dedication to racism? Nice
@@justinholland6132 no. I'm complimenting them for documenting their racism so now it can never be denied that it happened..basically calling them stupid while also saying the fact that they made a 3hr movie based on their racism was impressive because it takes some dedication to do that. But at the same time I don't think this movie should he available for purchase in stores or online. I don't think any one company should benefit from making money off of this movies racism, but I still think access to it is important from a historical stand point.
@@justinholland6132 it's actually nice
okay then let's make a movie about the true history of the brutilization of negroes by the Caucasian folks and how about including the fact they dwelled in caves as neanderthals and the original europeans were black and taught them structure
I've been hating them for well over 20 years. 3 hours is nothing.
I have the day off from work today, Sunday, and decided to finally watch this. Thanks for uploading the entire movie instead of a playlist full of clips. That was the only way I could watch it in the past and couldn't get through it.
Was it worth it?
@@NateXVII yeah because now i have knowledge about the shit you would see in the 1910's and the contents of this film
I enjoy the vision of someone who worked hard all week and by Sunday finally said “I’m gonna watch that 1915 film”
This movie ain’t for yer kind
H
It’s so crazy to believe how strongly people can hate another person purely on their skin color, smh
There's more to it than skin color... America had a caste system that put people of certain ethnic backgrounds below others. They did it to insure the dominance or supremacy of their race. It wasn't just out of hate of skin color. I think that's something that a lot of people lose sight of. When you understand what was really going on then, you get a better idea of what's going on today.
They hated the irish and Italians immigrants, too
@@somethingsomething9008 Those immigrants were able to fully assimilate. Many of them changed their names, adopted American culture, changed their accents and or learned English to become "white". Because they look the same as other Western Europeans, race wasn't a distinguishing characteristic for them. So they could truly assimilate into whiteness. Black, Native and Asian people could never assimilate the in same way.
@@somethingsomething9008I hear the Irish argument alot but there was really no real comparison.
@@incubus_the_manwell white man, thanks for white-splaining, but the ‘caste system’ it’s just an excuse for a good old fashion racism.
You have no right to explain “what it’s like“ to those who are on the receiving end of that racism.
Well...the puppies in the beginning are cute.
What pups
And the kitty too. Around 8:38
Well can’t wait to see great great great great great grandchildren
Those puppies are older than us
That is literally my exact same thought
Love how they use black face actors next to real black people and they act like it doesn't look fucking stupid
Guessing its a thing about not getting enough black actors.
Trudeau is a great actor
BLACK PEOPLE ARE REAL??!!
You can't look black and not look stupid.
@@Cheesy_33 unfortunately
Funny thing, the director of this movie went on to make "Intolerance" which explored themes of intolerance in response to this movie, I recommend giving it a watch
"Intolerance" was basically a response to the criticism of this film.
The only segment worth watching in "Intolerance", is the Babylonian one. Rest is a total bore. The film as a whole, was a total bomb, leaving Griffith in debt for years. He cut out the Babylonian part and released it as a separate film...something he should have done from the start. It can be downloaded here on youtube.
We are the first generations to be able to watch film from 100 years ago
Can you believe that this story was written by a church minister ?? What part of Jesus' message of love did he not understand ?
As a Christian, agreed. Sad how some "Christians" act towards their fellow human
@Cardboard Cape lol
@Cardboard Cape gee, I wonder what those people might've done to provoke attacks against them
@Cardboard Cape wow, not like white people had blacks in shackles not too long before this film came out
White American Protestantism preaches bigotry consumerism and prosperity gospel this isn’t a suprise
Check this one off my bucket list. For years I have wanted to watch the silent film, "Birth of a Nation." Finding time to focus on a silent movie for nearly three and one-half hours was beyond difficult. I broke it into segments and got through it over about a week. It is a true cinematic masterpiece. With none of the special effects technology in the ensuing decades and certainly no CGI we see today, it is a marvel. The elaborate sets, costumes, and smoky battle scenes are amazing if you think of the resources producer DW Griffith had to work with.
A cinematic masterpiece, yes, but also intense racist gaslighting. The movie is basically broken into two chapters: Civil War and post-war Reconstruction. While the war story culminating with the Lincoln assassination is Confederate-slanted, the story of Reconstruction is flat-out racist. Blacks are represented as corrupt and oppressive to whites.
The heroes? The Ku Klux Klan. They organized, took up arms, and rose up to beat back the black menace. This was heralded throughout America as good and just. The goal was to restore America - especially the South - to its greatness, its old way of life.
Keep in mind this film is distinguished as the first movie to have a White House viewing. This came under the administration of Woodrow Wilson who hosted an elaborate dinner party with choice political leaders and influencers across the country. In addition to that premiere showing at the White House in 1915, the movie was re-released 15 years later at the end of the silent film era in 1930.
I mention this because the film continues to echo a bigoted message today. This is not because a significant number of Americans are watching it, but because the ugly message it carries is a narrative that was passed down through generations. Tens of millions of Americans look at our cultural past through the gauzy lens of nostalgic remembrance of American life. This was true in the 1870s, 1915, 1930, and today. They just deny any attempt to bring our society to face its terrible practices.
This amazing artifact of American media culture should be folded into the lesson plans of university and high school history classes. Break it into segments for homework and then use that to fuel classroom discussion. It should be dissected to understand its historical context and how it contributed to today's behavior. The past never leaves us, it informs us and lives within us. The good, the bad, and the disturbingly hateful.
This film was great even with his greater ideas
Not reading allat
We do learn about it in history class, at least at my high school we did.
@@kommando5562 Do you support the KKK?
@@llidkram Do you?
Mom said it’s my turn to choose the movie for family movie night.
Great choice🤣🤣
Everyone in this film is dead...
Edit: I know it's obvious they're dead and that D.W. Griffith was racist, my point was that it's crazy watching a real film where all the actors are dead. This is watching real history. I just think that's cool.
Dead!? I didn't even know they were sick.
Ohhhhh. I never knew that ... SUCH A SHOCK OMG I THOUGHT THEY WERE STILL ALIVE AFTER 108 YEARS 😱😱😱.
Long passed away but today their legacy are still felt.
Nick Minadeo oh really? I didn't know that.
The only good thing about this movie
This movie is longer than the confederacy lasted.
🤣🤣😂🤣😂
Lol confederacy still exist toda. Laugh more😂
@@jakebradford4272 confederacy still exists? LMAO keep dreaming, that’s probably the funniest sentence ive ever heard coming from a comment on yt😂😂
even the annoyinh orange outlived it
"it lives on inside of us!!!" ass comment 😂😂😂
Man, I think the thing which shocked people the most back then was the runtime, ain't nobody ever heard of a movie three hours long in 1915.
How is this film 3 and a quarter hours long? The first feature-length film was made in 1906. This must have been one of the longest films made at the time.
It was, which is also why it was so popular
THE longest. First 12-reel film ever made.
It was the longest film buddy; which would make people doze
off whilst watching. Great way to manipulate the 'Subconscious'.👍
@jaredjams4267 The Story of the Kelly Gang premiered on Boxing Day, 1906 in Melbourne, Australia
"Feature Length" is a very subjective term. There is no single definition accepted in the industry.
Remember this is a huge factor of history of racism in the 20th century and now.
It’s influence on racism isn’t what it once was. It stopped being used by the Klan for recruitment in the 1970s.
LOL
Bullshit.
Getting wasted while watching this movie: drink a shot every time you see a white in blackface
😂😂😂
lol drink a shot of moonshine every time you see the word carpetbagger
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Your poor liver
ur gonna get alcohol poisoning in the first 10 minutes lol
I honestly think the way it was made and the equipment used - it turned out absolutely gorgeous. Notwithstanding the horribly racist aspect. I’m just interested in silent era films
For me when researching my family-i realized that civil war vets were still live around this time. It didn't help with gone with the wind.
What exactly is racist about it? It’s an accurate telling of the tyranny of Reconstruction and backlash it sparked.
The technical feats of this movie are something that deserves admiration. The subject matter excluded.
I saw a great version of Metropolis on VHS back in the 80s, but otherwise have never been a big fan of Silents. Watched Nosferatu six months ago and have been a huge fan of Silents ever since.
@@raycarter8070The last civil war veterans passed in the 1950s.
All black faced
Art
@@Alexander-dd4rg art? No just racism
@@starwarshater8178 who cares
@@starwarshater8178 Yep. Good that that was the past and not anymore!
Of course. No black person in the right mind would want to take part of this trash
The first half of the movie is relatively benign -- there are scenes of families and friendships torn apart by war that are quite moving and powerful. It's the film's second half that has all the controversial stuff showing wholesale endorsement of white supremacy, and scenes that reflect paranoid fantasy of racist whites that have no bearing on real history. 2015 was the film's centenary, and the occasion came and went with little fanfare.
No. The first scenes depict the slaves as stupid people and the whites as superior. This is racist from the beggining till the end!
@@JoseFerreira-vj3lq Those scenes, though unflattering, are relatively benign, as I said; tons of movies in the period and later have such depiction (poor speech, foolish, etc.) Far more incendiary are scenes such as a black man attempting to rape a white woman and she jumping to her death, followed by a title card saying something to the effect of "she upheld her honor." These scenes are what set Birth of a Nation apart, depicting an utterly negrophobic attitude and, as I said, a sweeping "validation" of white supremacy. Many films have depicted blacks poorly, but few have actually called for the destruction of their race and literally showed it.
Because they want this part of American History erased. The President premiered this in the White House so a lot of Americans thought like this.
The amount of cope you had to seethe... damn
That the first part comes across as "benign" is the whole point - it "normalizes" this family and, oh, by the way, the slaves who worked in the fields, danced for the master, served in the home and, in general, who remain in the background until needed. Yes, benign. 100%.
The film ends with "Liberty and union, one and inseparable now and forever" without a hint of irony. It's sickening to watch this nowadays
Maybe don't judge films with 2022 lenses if they were made a hundred years ago. Maybe don't look for racism in every thing
@@henrybierman8431 🤣🤣🤣
@@henrybierman8431 Bruh
@@henrybierman8431 Yikes
@@henrybierman8431 even for its time this movie was pretty shocking
This movie was meant as a warning but yall didn't care to listen. Now, more than 100 years later, just look around...
1:31:27 Woodrow Wilson
1:21:09 Abraham Lincoln
1:32:56 Horace Stoneman and his secretary
1:38:35 Silas Lynch and other African Americans' portrayal
1:59:29 South Carolina legislature
2:02:30 Ku Klux Klan origin story and portrayal
3:10:45 Double honeymoon/end of the film
Mvp
tysm i needed this for film class 😭
I think it's safe tot say that this movie won't get a remake.
It’ll definitely get a remake with a twist one day.
It’ll never be an exact remake of course though
Maybe as a parody.
There was another movie with the same title a few years back
@@joewhitehead3 That movie is another defense of a hate filled lynch mob that judged its victims purely on the color of their skin, but they were slaves so apparently it okay. Also Nat Turner was a coward who was depicted as a brave hero, like the cowardly hyenas of the Ku Klux Klan in this film.
@@akirasuzami9847 Didn’t that movie show a more positive outlook on black history?
The first half of this is actually a more or less decent Civil War film with less than subtle pro-Southern bias. The final battle scene at The Siege of Petersburg is truly impressive for it's time. Unfortunately the second half showing Reconstruction, etc. is complete, unhinged nonsense. Too bad it wasn't cut at the 90 min. mark.
what are some of the most glaring inaccuracies? im not too well-read on the reconstruction period of our history
@@VashTheDamnFiend a big one that permeates this movie is how the kkk is shown to be the heroes. Absolutely ridiculous.
It's pretty bizarre how they describe the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in such a bad light.. obviously i can't be surprised considering the type of movie this is, but it's just so strange to see
@@vibesanm nah man don’t get too upset . I’m black and how we portray ourselves in the media today is no worse than this and blacks don’t have a problem with that
The first half is meant to normalise the slave owning family and show how happy it was for everyone, even the slaves who dance and generally just stay in the background until they’re needed. The second half is meant to make you nostalgic for that lifestyle that was supposedly lost when black people got equal rights, so that you support the kkk who are trying to bring it back
Walked in back in good old '15 to watch this film and I'm still watching it in the theatre at this very moment. I'm writing this comment while watching the film
Enjoy it. It must have been nice living in a white culture.
My kind of humour. Let’s be friends!
There's so much hype about this movie that I decided to watch it.
After watching it, all I can say is that it's so wrong in so many levels that I wouldn't know where to begin. I pity the people that would buy into this.
The whole nation bought into it in 1915. White supremacy had a hold on America.
Kkk was formed
Yeah it’s a KKK propaganda film
Wrong in so many levels? Please explain. What levels? production? direction? historical accuracy?
@@tonyscott1658 it’s a kkk propaganda film
The quality is better than early 2000s videos….
Why the hell am I watching this??
Attraction to dumpster fires?
@@KhalbraeReal No offense to your video at all, I just don't know how I ended up here ;-;
@@bvnny1379 RUclips recommendations? I mean, the film is historically relevant even if it's vile.
@@KhalbraeReal NoPe
XRose Gold just a piece of cinema history, that’s all .🙏🙋♀️
Watching this at 2x speed because its so damn long. This might be hardest movie to sit through during my 1001 movies to see before you die journey.
this took me 3 days to watch
@@doomeStringsstopp me too!! i started the 1001 movies to watch and this one is soo long- I’m in 2x and i’ve been trying to finish it, it’s been 3 days haha
No consideration for us in a 100 years having to watch this shit
@@doomeStringsi know right!!
@@doomeStrings I want to see that list.
When I see the way the slavers rewrote History as soon as they lost the war to the point of this movie being the accepted national myth by 1900, I remember a quote from Ararat.
"Young man, do you know what still causes so much pain? It's not the people we lost, or the land. It's to know that we could be so hated. Who are these people, who could hate us so much? How can they still deny their hatred? And so hate us... hate us even more?"
Who are you?
Good questions.
2:26:29 me when my Mom doesn’t get me 20 chicken Mcnuggies from McDonald’s
I love the my local McCalorie McBurger joint
Lol
I got bored so i decided to just look up the plot on Wikipedia, it turns out that no one has watched this whole thing to do a summary
In summary,
There are two families, one of Austin Stoneman, a powerful figure in the abolitionist north, and the Cameron's, a slave owning cotton family in the racist south. The two families have connections, but as the civil war broke out, they ended up fighting each other and causing conflict. At the end of the war, only one son from both families remained, "little colonel". He was en route to get hanged for using Guerilla tactics but because of the begging of his mother and his love at first sight, Abraham Lincoln excused his crimes. Stoneman gets in an argument with Lincoln about Lincolns leniency to the south. Once Lincoln is assassinated, Stoneman becomes the center of power in the north, and decides to organize the black vote in the south, enacting policies to make both white and black people equals under the law. The Cameron family notices black people walking on the sidewalk and gets fussy. Elections happen and the house and Senate end up with a large black majority. Chaos ensues with black congressmen eating fried chicken and drinking on the house floor. They vote for radical race egalitarian policies (like having to *gasp* salute black officers on the street, the same as white officers). In a fit of tragedy, Little Colonel sits on a hill, and sees children playing. He sees two white children hide under a blanket and scare off their black friends. A stroke of genius hits him, and he invents the KKK. The last bit of the movie is the extremely racist part, showing black people as violent rapists and the KKK as the saviour of the white South.
@@blackmage1276 I couldn't fully understand the Stoneman and Cameron families part, so thank you for the summary
I hope this doesn't mess up my recommendations
Your feed is about to be full of the "gone woke" society
the first half was going alright- perhaps with about as much racism as gone with the wind- but OH MY GOD did the second half go downhill real fast
People seriously overhype Gone With The Wind’s racism especially with the second half of this being way worse.
They should make a movie about John Brown, thats the question. Why hasnt Hollywood made that movie yet? He is awesome!
Have you ever been around live actual black people, go to any major city and tell me what a lovely culture they have. 😂
@@homesteadlife6854 There's no fucking way I just read this 😧
@@homesteadlife6854Yep. Chicago is nice this time of the year. 😅
That blacks who starred in this film must've regretted it. They had no idea what this caused.
The blacks? Also it was all black face
@@jackosland8256 I think there are some actual black people in this in very minor roles like the kids who were playing slaves in the beginning
Jack Osland they are some actual black People in this . The blackface actors are the ones who have role in the movie, the real black People are in the background
What did it cause? Plz answer
@@Axshxaaa lynching
I could grow a beard watching this
Me too & I'm a woman.😆😆
I see this meme everywhere
@@normahamilton2985 ive seen way better films shorter then this shit for starters shawshank redemption, Mississippi Burning, Winchester, Balto, Lion king, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private ryan, The Longest Day(and that had a all star cast of near 50 or more A-list actors like John Wayne, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum just to name a few) Raid on Entebbe, Mulan, hell even the Paranormal Activity movies were shorter then this.
😂😂😂😂
i did grow a beard watching this.. whew!
I’ve been wondering how just a century ago, still within living memory, entire societies accepted and partook in racism, segregation, lynching and so on. It conflicts with what I think I know about humanity and how people naturally love and feel sympathy for one another. Which beliefs that society accepts today will be horrific in the future? Do I hold any of those beliefs? These questions have been troubling me for a while and I hope watching this movie will help me answer some of them
Still happening in many parts of the world. Not even under the radar just under different names and jurisdictions.
Because we are a people with a history and spirit that is distinct from others. If you love your family, you can love your race
Human beings have been violent for as long as we existed. Unfortunately, we are naturally xenophobic and tribalistic that is why we tend to go against those who look and think differently from us. People are capable of loving and sympathy but they are also capable of cruelty and hatred. This is just one of the facts of life we have to accept just like death. We can be better and have a peaceful civilization but that is a process that must be fought with effort and a process that everyone must consent to.
@@ilikepancakes2368 'Human beings have been violent for as long as we existed.' It's easy to say that, but eveyone I know is generally nice and polite. It's hard to imagine a naturally violent or hateful person, much less a whole society of such people. That's why this aspect of history confuses me
Have you ever considered the idea that the "evil" "racist" beliefs your ancestors held were humanity's natural state, and that this "tolerance" is merely an anomaly? Integration literally had to be implemented at gunpoint, and 60 years later racial tensions are still incredibly high.
Why does this film have almost a 100% score on rotten tomatoes.
Because it's influential in terms of technical aspects (new camera angles, use of flashbacks, etc) and being the first film to tell an epic story despite the portrayal of the KKK as a heroic force
Technically sound and at the time revolutionary.
bunch of dweebs trying to look intellectual
Bc people can be racist af
this may sound unrelated, but I wouldn't recommend listening to rotten tomatoes when it comes to seeing how well-received a movie is. The algorithm praises safe mediocrity and actually profound and innovative movies get pushed to the side. For example, if every critic on the site gave a movie a 6/10, it's RT score would be listed as 100%.
3 hours long. Even if I was a die hard racist, i wouldn't watch this movie
That’s exactly what a die hard racist would say
I would
🤣
so you just a regular racist?
@@сенкай-ц6яYeah cause you have no life you stupid weeb
Fun fact: D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ is the third most commercially successful box office film in United States History, trailing ‘Avatar’ and ‘Titanic.’
Psycho.
that's Gone with the Wind
@j-graze3898 -
Good grief - NO IT IS NOT !! The movie Birth of a Nation is not even top 50 in all-time gross box office adjusted for inflation. Amazing that 72 people gave this incorrect comment a thumbs up. I guess those same people would all march in unison right off a cliff.
Are we adjusting for inflation?
@@lrvracer3515 In a 2015 Time article, Richard Corliss estimated the film had earned the equivalent of $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation, a milestone that at the time had only been surpassed by Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) in nominal earnings
Finally able to watch D.W. Griffith's masterpiece of the Civil War and its aftermath and despite attempts today by a certain segment, our countries past cannot be erased or rewritten. Enjoy these old black and white movies. Thanks for the posting. Joe S
Remember this coming on afternoon television in the eighties here in Britain as a kid. Knew nothing about the clan but couldn’t tear myself away from the insane imagery,
That is fascinating
And one of the most informative on how the Civil War has never really ended, sadly.
“Never really ended” he said in 2021 about a movie in the 1910’s. The civil war ended in the 1860’s the civil rights movement ended in the 1960’s and 70’s.
@@eliaskjrbo8142 still holds up considering how many lies are still believed today about the civil war.
@@eliaskjrbo8142 I don't think the Civil War that got 620,000-750,000 American soldiers killed (plus the undetermined civilian casualties) will get the people to stop talking.
Let's be honest, that war has haunt the US ever since.
Bullets were fired for different reasons and not at one another for a while, sure. Call this an end of war if you wish, I won't argue with you.
The more important question is what went on in the mind of Conservatives during the civil war. And the psychopathology that they utilise to this day.
Its more an example of how a war history could be written by the losers of a war. What i do wonder is... why arent there any northern historians? To compare it. Makes you wonder
I teach college history, and discuss films quite a lot. I think it's important, as so many people get their concepts of history from films. Of course I address Birth of a Nation.
Cinematically it's fantastic. The panoramic battle scenes, editing techniques, the music. . . all very innovative at a time when the cinema was still in its infancy.
Its message is what's reprehensible. Even then it has a value, to illustrate what people were thinking at the time.
As a historian I lose patience when people insist that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. Certainly, there were very few in 1860 who would have said "Slavery is a problem, let's have a war!" (except maybe John Brown and Nat Turner).
But of all the causes of the war. . . questions over westward expansion, economic differences between North and South, the place of the federal government compared to the states. . . all of these issues connect back to slavery. We may debate the degree of which slavery was a cause (it was quite large), but you can't insist that it had nothing to do with the war.
We may well ask, if slavery had never existed, would the war have happened anyway?
I hope people dont make this movies dissapear, its like the nonsense of cancelling songs of the south... history did happen, like it or not; You cant cancel 80s movies just because people had mullet hairstyle.... it happened, as horrible as it was. THESE ARE MANKIND DOCUMENTS
That's not the point my guy. This is historical meaning there would be no reason to cancel it but for people to try and say things like the confederate flag only represents heritage and not racism is pure ignorance. This movie was created by someone who was clearly from the south and depicted the KKK as the hero of the movie. How are you gonna see this and still try to defend that flag.
NeverForget so are you up to destroy this film?
Yasgm 77 I literally just said there would be no reason to cancel it
we comparing a mullet to hundreds of years of racism now???
@@iwanttoswimintheswanepoel racism & pure terrorism. If serial killers and al qaida terrorists are not tolerated then the KKK should be treated likewise. They were & are nothing more than Racist Serial killing Terrorist pieces of shit. Special place in hell for them.
For the time, especially since this was before the "silent" era and filmmaking was still a very new thing, this is an extremely well done film.
He had disgusting views about the world but he was a cinematic genius
I agree!
@@itscat7723 I don't see how racism has anything to do with the quality of the film
@@mr.orange8211 I mean, we do judge a lot of films based on their plots and screen writing, so it does kinda make sense
@@Emily-fm7pt plot shouldn't have anything to do with the writing itself. A premise can never be bad, but a screenplay can. In this case, the movie is written very well, but it contains controversial themes.
Lillian Gish was also in The Muskateers of Pig Alley(1912). That movie also contains importance because it was one of the very first gangster movies ever to be released and shown to the public.
Like the kkk being influenced into burning crosses after seeing this flick,Tupac wanted to do gangster shit for real,Snoop had to turn him down,thanks Lion ✊🏽✊🏿✊🏾✊🏻
Thanks! I love love love! Lilian Gish.
Well, she was also playing some stupid mediocre role on The Love Boat, so that should give us some prespective of how long she lived, lol
She had such a long life. Died in 1993 at the age of 99. Her last film appearance was in 1987.
I've heard about this movie for decades. Thanks so much for posting the entire thing.
I agree with the comments. Brilliant camerawork and effects but a ridiculous story. And remember this footage is a century old; the original 1915 celluloid prints must've been dazzling to see. It is a little long: DWG shot 36 hours of footage and could've edited it down even more.
109 years old now. This is even like time traveling back to the civil war itself.
My Great Grandfather wrote a few books and one was an autobiography about himself, he was born in and grew up a little bit in Michigan, but then after lending their farm to a friend they moved to Alabama and he said that this was the first “movie” movie that he watched, after a few years they moved back to Michigan
Ok??? Did they move cuz they disliked the racism or..?
@@NateXVII No, and they also moved down to Alabama to work a general store owned by his step sisters husband, they moved back because the friend that was using the farm kinda let it fall apart so they moved back and rebuilt it
What was the book called
@@kilgoretrout4491 The book company unfortunately rejected his book, but I can tell you more about him if you’d like
@@krypticstone5666 Did he like the movie?
Wow, I did not know that a 3 hour long silent film existed.
I wax expecting it to drag on because if the length of the film, but the pacing was actually not bad.
But from what I’ve read, some of those original projectors were hand cranked. I would hate to have to crank one of those for three hours. Damn.
The battle scenes are incredible, probably to what the actual battle in Petersburg looked like. No special effects, no AI, more realistic than what you'll see on the glitzy screen today.
The only thing that really surprises me in this film is that they didn't do any anti catholic or anti jew messages as well
Why would they put anti catholic messages? There was no offensive atheism back then, people were either religious or respected religion.
@@igors1234 because the clan also hanged Jews and Catholics
@@igors1234 the Klan hates Catholics but maybe thats a more recent thing
@@igors1234because the KKK hate Catholics
As a minority who served this country I will say that the Confederate flag does NOT evoke fear in me WHATSOEVER. wrong word choice .unless he is speaking of a past tense scenario. but to this date I think it promotes more anger than fear.
This is kind of boring for silent film from 1915, when A Trip to the Moon in 1902 is so much more enjoyable.
Kind of? This is probably the most boring film from that era, and I’ve watched a few
Fun fact: this movie was showed and studied in cinema classes in the 1980 in my Italian university.
The first thing I noticed when watching this film is that all the people look normal and evenly proportioned. No one is suffering from obesity, but there's also none of the perfectly sculpted gym rat bodies that you see in the Hollywood movies today. They look like basic normal body sizes that any plain Jane or average Joe can achieve.
Did you miss the dude carrying the anvil and beat everyone up in the gin bar?
Let’s think about this. There have always been corpulent people in history. Perhaps those people don’t appeal to many human beings and that’s why they’re not in the film.... yes obesity is more prevalent now. Also there have always been brawny men throughout history. We all have a variation in phenotype.
this was time before McDonalds. Imagine an angry Ronald Macdonald chasing them with an axe, asking "WHY DIDNT YOU TRY THE BIG MAC!" Now that would be a movie
yeah cornstarch poisons us, most of the bigger and muscular people were the one who boxed in the ring
European women in 2024 watching the spring scene: 💀
it's really quite fascinating how the first 2 hours of the film goes from a relatively unbiased civil war film to full blown white supremacy propaganda on the last hour, I mean the scene where the friends from oposite sides of the conflict only to die next to each other is a really powerful scene it shows how really was brother against brother...then they start to portray the klan as an unsung hero organization.
Wow. Can’t believe I saw the whole thing in one sitting. This film is… interesting to say the least. There’s a lot to unpack.
After about seven minutes of skipping through this film I was asking myself, “who TF can watch this nonsense?”
@@deleteduser1877 whatever ur goin thru i hope it gets better
@@TheTriniMamba what do you mean? It's important to understand past propoganda so we can discern current propoganda.
i have to watch it for my class to understand how it created a centruy of racism and the stereotypes within it. i hate it tho 19 minutes in and it feels like a year has passed.
I know right. Even for 1915, this is so boring.
After watching this feature film it's time for Django unchained.
Another masterpiece from the 60s
This is way better!
2 Times😑
@@priehowell8825Django unchained is from the 2000s man
@@blackmage1276 yes you're right.
I was referring to the original Django series of films
Thank you for sharing. Kept me up all night. Truly amazing and fascinating
Racist scum
America is still paying the cost for this film.
Today is Christmas 2024. This movie was made and shown about 49 and 50 years after the Civil War ended. The fall of Saigon which was the end of the Vietnam War was about 49 and 50 years ago. The 50th anniversary will be on April 30th in a few months. So we are as far from the end of the Vietnam war as the people in the movie were from the end of the Civil War.
One of the greatest movies of American cinema. As a Black man, I say this in a non biased way.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation was the very first motion picture to be screened in the White House. But the movie went on to become most famous for all the wrong reasons. Its aggressive racist propaganda had long lasting effects and became the foundation of the hate directed at the Black community.
Why was slavery bad? Do explain.
@@arminius1670why was it not? Do explain and your answer can’t just be that you don’t like black people.
It became famous because One, it was the first major Hollywood film. Almost every movie prior ran 20 minutes or so.
Two, groundbreaking effects. Epic battle scenes, close-ups, cross-cutting, fade-outs. Nobody had seen that before.
Yes, it's a shame the second half was ridiculous even in 1915. Look on the bright side: nobody is going to remake this.
@@codyswingle5222youtube keeps deleting my comments so I cant explain it
3:09:33 The fact that this is supposed to be a happy scene.
this is a really happy scene
@@gatsby1962 not really
@@Guywithabadenglishit really is
This movie from 1915 is about the civil war which ended 50 years prior. If a movie about a similar time gap came out this year it would it be set in 1974
This was the KKK recruiting film
The KKK had pretty much been dead, this romanticized the klan, as white knights defending Southern womanhood, which led to the Klan adopting the knight imagery. which was obviously horse shit as one of the higher up's in the klan hierarchy, drugged and brutally raped one of the organizations secretaries.
Endorsed by President Woodrow Willson after his screening in the White House
@@CheekyPseudonym A Democrat, of course. All KKK members were Democrats. The first Black senators were all Republicans.
@@eldesgraciado6690 Yes but they swapped on pretty much every issue. Old democrats are basically modern day republicans.
@@King-fo3kj Hillary and Biden were best friends with Robert Byrd, Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. The Democratic party still has ties to the KKK. You saw the picture of Virginia's Governor, Northam, right?
Fun fact : only 9 people in this film are still alive
These people must be really old
Nope, all gone. Last person alive died in 2001.
@@Osvie01-uc8go it was probably a little little kid in this movie
Where are you getting your sources? There’s no way anyone’s alive from this movie. It was 109 YEARS AGO.
The most racist movie I have ever seen!
You should try The Notebook
Gotta remember this movie came out over 100 years ago. Times were definitely different
Well then I guess you haven’t seen Shrek 2!
@@aeddinlewis5713 the times have not changed one bit we as black ae still struggling we don't own anything of importance no media stations, we are working just help white people the white man already has economic security already first class citizenship, so we wasting our time talking to the white man
@@moalston4203 black men refuse to build protect and provide so ofc you’ll be the white mans buck for good 😐
This is such a fascinating film. Its almost like civil war photos that can move, it's so incredible.
Also fun fact: This was Woodrow Wilsons favorite film.
I know. He screened it at the White House and praised it effusively, That's because he was a racist (trick with the first letter replaced by a p." Also, this was the first feature film in the history of American cinema so there weren't that many choices in picking your "favorite."
Just finished reading "A Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan. It is a great way to "understand" 1915 in the USA. I'm watching this movie in increments, wondering if the audience talked while they were watching.
They succeed. There were well over 200k Klans in America by the time the grand dragon commited his crimes.
crazy to think that we are twice as further in time to them (2023-1915=108) than they are to the civil war itself (1915-1865=50)
Civil War veterans actually attended the premiere of this movie.
I am racist and i like my race and my color
I’m dark skinned and I respect that people seem to be shamed for being white like this is literally a white country before us immigrants came the least we could have is some respect for y’all but y’all seem to be getting so much hate instead. I’m here for you, I’d be weirded out if I saw white people in my homeland so I understand I know most don’t
@@DhhebwAmerica was for the Red skins and Indians not the whites.
@@Dhhebwit literally isn't a white country though, by your logic white people shouldn't be here in the US either, because Indigenous Americans lived here first.
You didn't specify what country you are from (it sounds like you say ya'll pretty frequently though which seems particularly American to me, curious) so I can't speak on that specifically but when you say "I'd be weirded out if I saw white people in my homeland" you do realize that many countries whose indigenous population is of a darker skin such as countries in Africa and the Caribbean do currently have a bunch of white people in them because of European colonization American Imperialism and the tourism industry.
You're talking about white people occupying predominantly black and brown countries like it's a hypothetical bad thing that you hope would never happen, when it's a very real thing that is happening and has already been happening for a few hundred years, and it wasn't done by immigrating legally or illegally, but by literally invading and colonizing through military force, and it was done with the same kind of racist rationalizations that this movie makes.
This movie doesn't just want white people and black people to live separately, this movie doesn't just "get weirded out" by black people's presence, it is violently alarmed by the co-existence of black people, it openly views black people as subhuman and deserving of the violence inflicted upon them. If you instead said something like "yes I also believe that whites should stay out of my country because they are more prone to violence and less intelligent than us and we should kill them if we must to protect our darker skinned heritage being robbed from us through race mixing" then you would actually be accurately describing the inverse view of this movie, which would also actually make you the real anti-white person in this scenario that doesn't "have some respect for ya'll"
Why tho
Whats your reason for being racist😂
Those who wish to learn and understand history without bias and fair perspective should watch this movie not necessarily to enjoy but to understand .This is not the historical account of what happened, but definitely a perspective of some people in the post war south and Southern sympathizer historically accurate or not. History students must understand that society today is very different from 1850s,or 1914s. Every historical events must be analyzed with fair consideration of how people thought and believed within the society that formed by the the very people that bounded by the era. Excluding everything you don't agree or you don't want to see will give you a crippling effect on understanding the history.
I don't know if it's because of the dated CGI or what, but this movie did not aged well at all
I think the custom design and the makeup in this movie aged like milk to me and I don't know why.
surely it couldnt be the fact it glorifies the Klan also CGI didnt exist back then so like what
it's sad to know everyone on screen no matter the role they had if any they aren't amongst us anymore
@@304gorilla yeah ... kinda sad
Better than any modern day film from Hollywood
I am a biology major and had to watch this for a history assignment. I cant wait to data dump this immediately after I complete my assignment.
But why? I understand filmography or arts, but why were guys watching this for biology?
Woodrow Wilson played this in the white house.
who is he ?
Internet Troll the first rockstar
The US president from 1913 to 1921.
@@VeryProPlayerYesSir1122 Democratic President during the time
@@VeryProPlayerYesSir1122 the devil
I have been assaulted or faced violent/criminal incidents 4 times in public places, in my life (I am 67). Now, the noteworthy thing was that in ALL these 4 violent assaults, the perpetrators were always from the same community/race (not whites nor Asians). I wonder why. In the worst criminal assault I faced (in London), I ended up being in hospital with a pelvic fracture, because the thug mowed me down to steal my backpack. Consequently, notwithstanding all my good intentions, when I now come across people from that community/race, I am always a little bit extra careful.
By the way, in case anybody thinks I am 'racist', I can assure you I am not, because I am not white myself. I also grew up being taught and believing racism is extremely evil and bad. I still mostly hold on to those beliefs, but bitter experience has taught me to now be a bit extra careful around certain people. I guess that's how prejudice and stereotypes start forming. Also, I live in the UK, not the US.
Yes you are still racist. Generalisations are for the weak no matter your experience, falling to generalisations is pathetic and shows a clear lack of critical thinking ability. Grow up
Stay safe man, pray to God.
You are racist because you are prejudging people based on their race, that's called prejudice, correlation does not equal causation, and to prejudge that it does equal causation at the expense of an entire group of people with a history and culture that you have no regard for just means you're not a very good person either probably because the implicit view is that you matter so much that you shouldn't have to bother to understand or learn why things are the way they are before judging others and spreading ignorant hateful ideas on the internet
ok stop generalizing tho its cringe
So black people should Always be Afraid to be around White people because of All the Evil, Wicked , horrible atrocities that Black people have endured by these people!!! Every thing that could be done to a person has been done by White people. Even using little black children as Alligator Bait, and they were Still Alive!!! A person cannot get any more Evil and Wicked than this!!!!!
Boring, Overrated. Morally obsolete.
It's actually hilarious how many people think Griffith "re-invented" film making, while most of directing techniques he used were invented in early 1900s.
Please remember who founded and supported the KKK throughout its existence. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a member.
and then he somehow totally flipped his policies and supported Obama.T grandmother has similar politics in this regard
And at the end of this true historical film, jesus came down and praised his children 😂
This might be a racist piece of trash but the soundtrack slaps
Lol
Lincoln looken like he ain't had sleep in four score and seven years
Let's see. A man lets a woman know that he is interested in her. Which opening scenario is creepier?
A. They have already known each other for a while and there haven't been any problems between the two of them so far.
B. She has never seen him before in her life, and this complete stranger starts out by telling her how "I've carried you about with me for a long, long time," and proves it by showing her a photo of her that he's got with him.
As an African American who loves silent films, King of kings, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, , The Tramp.Nosferatu, The Passion of St. Joan, Metropolis… I had to force my to get through this one. I tried aesthetically view the film. I admit.. I failed. But, even Griffith gave U.S. “Intolerance” immediately after.
Yah it's rough, I get that technically it's supposed to be a landmark in cinema and some of the shots are really impressive but god is it slow and poorly acted and written, and besides all that obviously it's just a bigoted movie that actively exploited black people at the time for the movie's production, it's quite sickening