Hearing the title of the film at first, I had the notion in my mind that it would have a plot wherein stereotypical politics would be the major or focal ideology used in the film. But in my surprise, it turned out differently from what I have perceived. It’s a film full of controversial and intriguing interpretations of history. It showed a different view on how a nation reconstructs itself, and in my understanding the film clearly conforms to the idea that reconstruction to build a nation was disastrous. It created different personas; black people could never be integrated into a society populated by white people, in other words it depicts the inequality of black people as citizens, the rise of the masses to end slavery, it also displayed violent actions from nuisance entities and self interested politicians that bent sadistic events in the move to reestablish honest government.
People may think that the film is very demeaning or derogatory for black people; some may say that the film is racist, a nightmare of interracial brutality, rape and castigation, or simply pure evil. At first, I somehow agreed. But as I write this paper and as I dissect the film in a deeper scale, I realized and recognized the idea that a film is created to impart a lesson to its viewers. With this, I do believe that the director and writer of the film really projected a dark theme or film aura for the viewers. Why? Because it will create a hype and with this people will then make a lot of assumptions regarding the film; they will dig deeper and deeper until they themselves will be the one to see the “real” message of the film. And what is it? For me, “The Birth of a Nation” despite its controversial story is not a bad film because it argues for evil; it makes us understand how it does to learn a great deal about a film and even something about evil. Given that it deems to be culturally, historically and aesthetically significant, I suppose that this is the reason why this film is considered to be one of the best films in history.
To sum all the things that I have stated earlier; I’d rather give suggestions and ideas to those people who seem to attack the films’ proponents based on their belief that to appreciate a film is to get entertained by it. For me, this should not be the case because if cinema could only be entertaining, it could never have become the remarkable art form it is. "The Birth of a Nation," is not just a silent film but also a remarkable art that is and will be significant through time.
