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Amateurishly written and published "book" in which Aitken tells the story of how the Birth of a Nation was made, how much money it made and an appeal to anyone to help him re-make it as a sound film in 1965!!!!!!!!
It contains 111 black-an-white photographs, 18 of them scenes from The Birth of a Nation. Photos include Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin, Hedda Hopper, Miriam Cooper, Fatty Arbuckle, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Wallace Reed, and a host of others from the silent era whether or not they were involved with the production of The Birth of a Nation.
The Birth of a Nation Story's Foreword has some interesting commentary.
"The Civil War and Reconstruction period film with its stirring battle scenes and portrayal of the confused, tragic postwar years, has been seen by 100,000,000 Americans. The picture has been acclaimed for its stirring, panoramic sweep, its artistry and the introduction of many new movie techniques.
"Some persons and groups bemoan the continued exhibition of the picture due to the racial problems in the story, which is adapted from [Rev.] Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman. The co-authors of the Birth of a Nation story, especially Roy E. Aitken, who owns controlling interest in the Birth of a Nation film, have clung tenaciously to the facts in relating the dramatic events surrounding the producing of this American epic, and its exhibition over a period of almost fifty years.
"The record reveals that many minority groups have persistently and vigorously boycotted the showing of this motion picture. claiming that it creates racial problems. Perhaps it is the misfortune of the Negro race that certain members of it are shown to disadvantage in The Birth of a Nation film. History has shown that the minority of the liberated Negroes who were involved politically in the turbulent Reconstruction period were usually spurred to action and dominated by unscrupulous white carpetbaggers.
"The white man, the red man, the yellow man, and the brown man have no monopoly on cruelty, hate greed, rape or any other human failing. This has often been demonstrated in newspaper and magazine articles, in plays, short stories and novels. When factual or fictional spotlight turns upon the Negro, as it does in some measure in The Birth of a Nation movie, he has no choice but to bear the scrutiny and the ignominy of it. In company with his white, red, yellow, and brown brothers, he can only hang his head in shame. From such universal shame, perhaps Man will identify and study his family racial problem and begin to try to solve it.
"This is said to be the age of inquiry and scientific approach. We ask readers of this book to regard this reportorial account of The Birth of a Nation story as an account of the impact of a great motion picture upon three generations of Americans. If the Birth of a nation movie has a little dust on its garments and mud on its feet, these have inevitably been gathered by following realistic characters who almost always have feet of clay.
"That The Birth of a Nation evidences much historical accuracy, and also dramatic truth, is attested by the many requests that come annually from colleges, universities, museums, private art and film groups, and others to show the picture. Recently, parts of this historic film were shown on the British
Broadcasting system and the National Broadcasting System.
"In a lengthy opinion on the Birth of a Nation in 1915 the National Board of Censorship said, in part, 'If the picture tends to aggravate serious social questions and should therefore be wholly forbidden, that is a matter for the action of those who act on similar tendencies when they are expressed in books, newspapers or on the stage/. On what basis of reasoning should a film play be repressed whose subject matter has already been allowed the freest circulation both in a novel and in a play?'"
Comment:
Wow! Talk about poorly written. Perhaps it is written this way to cover its real racist message.
First off, Rev. Dixon's novel was fiction not history. Secondly, the release of this "book" in 1965 seems intended to benefit from white backlash at the Civil Rights struggle of the time and the struggle for voting rights for African Americans in the South. It seems intended to capitalize on racial violence as a solution to the "problem." Perhaps this is why the book is amateurish.
The argument that "white carpetbaggers" "dominated" and "spurred" Negroes to action is loaded language. Newly freed from slavery, Negroes could not depend on former slave owners to give them their rights as free and equal citizens. This did not happen during Reconstruction and for over 100 years more due to Jim Crow, white superiority, segregationist politicians like Orville Faubus in Arkansas, Ross Bartlett in Mississippi, and the dreaded George C. Wallace in Alabama.
Racist senators from all these states worked with the racist governors to delay civil rights legislation and maintain a segregationist South. They were an imposing block of senior lawmakers (Jim Eastland, John Stennis, John Sparkman, Lister Hill, Herman Talmidge, and other) who refused to go along with President Johnson's leadership on civil rights. Johnson put together a Congressional majority of non-South Democrats and Republicans to pass civil rights legislation that finally ended segregation and brought freedoms to the South.
Acknowledgments include: Actresses Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Hedda Hopper, Enid Markey, Mae Marsh, Anita Loos, Gloria Swanson, and many others.
The authors conveniently include President Woodrow Wilson's quote after seeing the film at the White House; "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." Director D. W. Griffith did get a great quote from the president, but the book the film was based on was FICTION! The authors tell us Wilson wept over the film. Really!
In 1950 journalist Max Lerner (1902-1992) wrote in the New York Post
"If you want to see an elaborate excuse for racist hate, presented in the guise of a movie classic, you will find it in David Wark Griffith's Birth of a Nation.
"I saw it the other night for the first time. Once is more than enough. I could have lived out the rest of my days in perfect serenity and presented myself in due course before the Angel Gabriel with complete assurance that the gates would not be swung closed against me merely because I had failed to pay obeisance to a classic of racist passion, rape and lynch-law.
"Having seen it, I want to tell you about it so that you may save your time for something better, and spare yourselves the ordeal.
"The picture has been called an epic. It is just that--an epic of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, with a justification of its birth and violence. I suppose the movie historians are enamored of its handling of big crowds, and its battle and mob scenes, in the grandiose tradition which Cecil B. De Mille has dubiously carried on. But even on this score it has little that has not been done far better since in many Grade B Westerns ..."
The Birth of a Nation Story ends with the authors hoping against hope to re-make Birth of a Nation. It is testimony to a more civil society, it has not been re-made. Griffith did get an honorary Academy Award in 1936, he was photographed with two stars from Birth of a Nation Donald Crisp and Henry B. Walthall, for his films but he could not get financing for a re-make of Birth of a Nation. It is amazing anyone seriously thought they could finance a re-make of this film in the mid-1960's. The authors must have been blind to the changing times.
The authors of The Birth of a Nation Story make some amazing statements. From a chapter titled "Defense of the Picture," the authors tell us, "Anyone who has read Thomas Dixon's Clansman knows that Griffith's script treats the Negro much more sympathetically than did Dixon's novel."
Griffith did not have a formal written script for Birth of a Nation. I've read the two Dixon novels, The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots, on which Birth of a Nation is based and they are brutally racist novels. In a 1937 article, Miss Gish wrote D.W. sensationalized racism far beyond the books.
Baptist Minister Thomas Dixon feared cities would ban the film and he would lose revenue. He took a religious approach to defending screenings of Birth of a Nation. He penned a treatise entitled, "The Action of the Negro Inter-Marriage Society Against the Play." He argued anyone who wanted to ban screening of the film was a member/supporter of this society.
In 1930 Birth of a Nation was re-released with a soundtrack and an opening "conversation" between Griffith and actor Walter Houston. You can find it on YouTube. It is about 6 minutes. Griffith tells Houston the Birth of a Nation was true and the Klan was needed at that time, meaning Reconstruction.
A newspaper article included inside the book follows:
'Birth of a Nation' Stopped April 1978 Riverside UPI
Blacks should not be offended by D. W. Griffith's classic 1915 film "Birth of a Nation," which admittedly is a racist movie, but should view it in historical perspective for the strides blacks have made since the early part of the twentieth century, museum officials said Thursday.
Ron Pidot, curator of education for the Riverside Municipal Museum, thus reacted with disappointment to a vote of the City Council to cancel a showing of "Birth of a Nation," which was screened for the first time in Riverside Jan. 1, 1915
The council voted 4 to 1 to stop the showing scheduled for Thursday night after hearing complaints that the film was racist and offensive to blacks.
The movie is to be screened at the museum again April 20 and Pidot said the museum will try to convince blacks and city officials that the film should be seen because it is "singularly the greatest cinematic achievement in the history of the cinema."
"The movie is racist," said Pidot, "but you have to remember that Griffith was the son of a southern confederate officer who had strong feelings against blacks.
"If anything, it is important for the black community to view the movie in historical perspective to see where the stereotypes of blacks came from. To see the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and the atrocities it committed is just totally unacceptable to today's awareness."
Historical note: Rioting stopped the film's screening in San Francisco.
Final Note: Obviously Miss Gish should not have helped publicize this trash book in Hopper's column. I found no direct quotes from her or any desire to be associated with a remake of the film. Neither Mary Pickford or Charlie Chaplin would finance a remake. No studio would finance.
Jim Patterson, Editor
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