D. W. Griffith's The Birth Of A Nation

D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” is considered to be one of the most paramount films of all time. This film set a new standard for editing techniques, while elaborating the production quality, and accommodating the narrative with music. “The Birth of Nation” is central to the development of narrative film, however, it also serves as an extreme and enduring legacy of racism in film. This paper argues that “The Birth of a Nation” can be interpreted as having a mythical component of the American Civil religion. Also, the film gives a quintessential story of American origins entrenched in white supremacy. Explicitly, Birth of a Nation reveals the story of two families: the Stonemans of the North, and the Camerons of the South before,

I will section who accepts the allegations made in “Birth of a Nation” on the grounds that has more to do with whether the film was effective as a myth than whether it attempts to be presented as one. Due to the films controversial nature, and strong diametrically opposed views from diverse social groups, it is impractical to know for whom it succeeded and the reasons behind that without detailed critical and historical studies. Then again, reality allegations shaped by the director and by the film stay striking to the inquiry of how the film endeavours to act as myth. At first glance Griffith and the marketing team of the film appear to mistake claims for the film's chronicled precision (historical truth) with cases for its ontological truth and significance (mythic truth). Anyhow Griffith was mindful of these ambiguities in the idea of truth. At any rate he got to be mindful of controversies that encompassed the film. In a 1930 recorded meeting of Griffith, Walter Huston gets some information about Birth, "Do you feel as if it were genuine?" Griffith reacts by both affirming and problematizing Birth's truth: "Yes, I think its actual," he says, "However as Pontius Pilate said, 'Truth? What is

In this respect, film enables the American civil religion. “Birth of a Nation” shows a constrained vision of American inceptions as the paradigmatic truth of American character. However, Charles Long (1974, 212) has expounded on this inclination in the setting of common religion all the more extensively: "The religion of the American individuals revolves around the telling and retelling of the relentless deeds of the white victors." He proceeds with, "Surely this methodology to American religion has rendered the religious reality of non-Europeans to a condition of imperceptibility, and accordingly the intangibility of the non-Europeans in America emerges as a key issue of American religious history at this point." American common religion is not white supremacist by nature; by statement of faith (e.g., the Declaration of Independence) American common religion is populist and universalist. Yet, in the event that we analyze the creation of the American civil religion we discover an alternate story, one that cherry picks events, and reconstructs others to go along with the white American civil religion. “The Birth of a Nation” was among the most powerful myths of American civil religion that Hollywood