I'm an American living in Germany & don't have access to many American films but we may get this one in a few months. I researched the original Birth of a Nation which depicts freed black slaves as rapists & the KKK as heroes (granted I never met a Klansman but I've heard their speeches... I call them Adolph babies). I was curious as to how that film has a higher rating on IMDB than this one? Isn't this one based on true events?
shareboth are based on true events, but both also have fiction, 1915 movie considered the first masterpiece of film making technique, so has high rating even with bad subject matter, based on book called "the klansman" and movie had that title at first,
shareI have viewed the original Birth of a Nation twice. Although obviously a film of dubious morality, it is indeed a technical masterpiece that helped establish many of the techniques that would become cinematic conventions—the cross-cutting to enhance action is especially notable. D.W. Griffith's film is also wondrously creepy and eerily atmospheric. And despite its historical propaganda, the movie's concluding message—that white Unionists and Confederates ultimately buried the hatchet and reunited the nation (or birthed the American nation in the post-slavery age) by agreeing to subjugate blacks and affirm their common whiteness—is doubtlessly and scarily accurate. As you may have indicated, one can see a precedent for how Hitler and the Nazis united Germans in the 1930s, in the aftermath of war, by demonizing and scapegoating the Jewish minority (among other minorities, such as gays and gypsies). Of course, The Birth of a Nation celebrates and glorifies this development rather than critiquing it, which is part of what makes the film morally problematic, to say the least.
If one sees The Birth of a Nation for the first time, especially at a young age, one will probably find it repellent on a certain level. If one sees it again and is more hardened by life, one is less likely to be taken aback by the movie—because the bigoted attitudes will not be as surprising. I first viewed the film as a nineteen-year old sophomore in college, and then I saw it in April 2015 at the age of thirty-four for a one-hundredth anniversary screening.
I just viewed the new Birth of a Nation tonight, and while I consider it a "good" film, well worth seeing, it is certainly not a classic, even if it is essentially accurate historically. After all, the quality of a feature film is not determined by its historical accuracy per se.
That said, I would not place much stock in IMDb ratings. First, evaluating films by numbers represents a ridiculous means of analysis. Second, the ratings do not reflect the opinions of, say, well-respected film critics and scholars (not that their opinions would be infallible). The ratings represent popular taste in a very unscientific way and can be skewed by ulterior motives. For instance, the rating for the new Birth of a Nation has most certainly been driven down by bigoted trolls and White Nationalists who loathe any "black" movie (this happens time after time for films with African-American subjects or subject matter, especially ones with a political or historical dimension) and will give the movie a very low score in order to fit their agenda, often without even seeing the film. Conversely, some bigots out there have probably given the original Birth of a Nation a very high rating just because they agree with the racial depictions. But regardless, as I have said, D.W. Griffith's film is historically remarkable, even if it is odious in certain manners.
Hey, so in Germany, are you not able to see many Hollywood films? And how many are screened in English?
Appreciate the reply. Yes, they have American films in Germany depending on how big the film is. I've seen all superhero films like BvS, Civil war, & deadpool. Smaller films like birth of a nation are harder to find unless I watch it online.
Smaller films like birth of a nation are harder to find unless I watch it online.