The Birth of the Feature Film: Crash Course Film History #6
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Date: 2022-04-04
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Comments and reviews: 10
Ben
In general, this series is an ok overview. But this Birth Of A Nation episode reveals the problems of Crash Course Film's approach as a series, and general academic narratives of film history overall.
If race enters into the conversation for the first time with BOAN, then the racism integral to U. S. film-s development is obscured. This makes it harder to grapple with BOAN in context. If race enters the conversation for the first time here, then critiques of the film can only be shallow, can only be a -it-s good but it-s racist, what are you going to do! - level of engagement, or a misleading -art vs the artist-.
BOAN is not just an exceptionally racist work, but it is a film built on the existing form and technology that was marketed and developed through anti-blackness. Discussion of Porter & Edison is purely formal - but their developments in form (technology and narrative as well) was built on anti-blackness. Early film narratives and jokes were developed through racist discourse. Cinematic technology was sold through film-s ability to racialize and display racial difference and white supremacist ideologies. All of this leads into BOAN and Griffith - his -emotionally effective- melodrama and editing is built on lynching narratives present in the very beginnings of photography and cinema. His blackface caricatures, his eugenics and facism displayed in BOAN-s -anti war- melodramatic message, his formal achievements built on anti-black racism are not just a -double edged sword- through which to interpret him. Griffith is not a -pioneer and hate group revivalist- - his pioneering is inherently connected to this racism, his form and technology are a part of an anti-black discourse that is U. S. cinema, a cinema developed through this racism, this spectacle, this violence. To faithfully and ethically engage with U. S. film history, we must view it as an art form built through racism.
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In general, this series is an ok overview. But this Birth Of A Nation episode reveals the problems of Crash Course Film's approach as a series, and general academic narratives of film history overall.
If race enters into the conversation for the first time with BOAN, then the racism integral to U. S. film-s development is obscured. This makes it harder to grapple with BOAN in context. If race enters the conversation for the first time here, then critiques of the film can only be shallow, can only be a -it-s good but it-s racist, what are you going to do! - level of engagement, or a misleading -art vs the artist-.
BOAN is not just an exceptionally racist work, but it is a film built on the existing form and technology that was marketed and developed through anti-blackness. Discussion of Porter & Edison is purely formal - but their developments in form (technology and narrative as well) was built on anti-blackness. Early film narratives and jokes were developed through racist discourse. Cinematic technology was sold through film-s ability to racialize and display racial difference and white supremacist ideologies. All of this leads into BOAN and Griffith - his -emotionally effective- melodrama and editing is built on lynching narratives present in the very beginnings of photography and cinema. His blackface caricatures, his eugenics and facism displayed in BOAN-s -anti war- melodramatic message, his formal achievements built on anti-black racism are not just a -double edged sword- through which to interpret him. Griffith is not a -pioneer and hate group revivalist- - his pioneering is inherently connected to this racism, his form and technology are a part of an anti-black discourse that is U. S. cinema, a cinema developed through this racism, this spectacle, this violence. To faithfully and ethically engage with U. S. film history, we must view it as an art form built through racism.
reply
Fred
I don't know if DW Griffith was racist. I do know that in -Birth of a Nation, - he was telling the story about racist views in the United States after the Civil War. At that point in our history, the Southern half of the country enacted -Black Codes, - in direct violation of the Reconstruction Acts. Segregation was the way of the day until the Supreme Court ruled in 1954, -Brown v. Board of Education, - that segregated schools are not equal schools, therefore paving the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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I don't know if DW Griffith was racist. I do know that in -Birth of a Nation, - he was telling the story about racist views in the United States after the Civil War. At that point in our history, the Southern half of the country enacted -Black Codes, - in direct violation of the Reconstruction Acts. Segregation was the way of the day until the Supreme Court ruled in 1954, -Brown v. Board of Education, - that segregated schools are not equal schools, therefore paving the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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Am-e
I just wanna take a moment to thank CrashCourse for also highlighting the African American filmindustry and their answer to D. W Griffith's Birth of a Nation, my uni never talked about this, so without this video I'd never know. Learning this made me really happy: )
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I just wanna take a moment to thank CrashCourse for also highlighting the African American filmindustry and their answer to D. W Griffith's Birth of a Nation, my uni never talked about this, so without this video I'd never know. Learning this made me really happy: )
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Thessarabian
I wish you had mentioned WHERE a lot of those African American filmmakers were. They weren't welcome in Hollywood, their films were made in Jacksonville, FL- which was also a place where independent film makers trying to escape Edison went.
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I wish you had mentioned WHERE a lot of those African American filmmakers were. They weren't welcome in Hollywood, their films were made in Jacksonville, FL- which was also a place where independent film makers trying to escape Edison went.
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purplerains
The resurgence of the KKK post-reconstruction is inextricably connected to that film. In considering history, it cannot be ignored as a critical origin of the modern KKK that persists to today.
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The resurgence of the KKK post-reconstruction is inextricably connected to that film. In considering history, it cannot be ignored as a critical origin of the modern KKK that persists to today.
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Daniel
I dropped out of my university media course and am doing biomed instead. Thank you for making a pleasant, accessible way of learning all the cool stuff without having to do a whole degree in it.
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I dropped out of my university media course and am doing biomed instead. Thank you for making a pleasant, accessible way of learning all the cool stuff without having to do a whole degree in it.
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nesa1126
I love crash courses. every one. so, to make it better a little critique question: Why is in every crash course attempt of comedy so pathetic and bad?
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I love crash courses. every one. so, to make it better a little critique question: Why is in every crash course attempt of comedy so pathetic and bad?
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iBelieveEverything
so essentially one of or a team of Thomas Edison's workers came up with, and he took the credit for it, like with all of -his- inventions.
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so essentially one of or a team of Thomas Edison's workers came up with, and he took the credit for it, like with all of -his- inventions.
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Bobblesworth
Whithin the gates sounds like that Michelle Pfifer movie, think it might be called dangerous minds or something. First one seems better.
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Whithin the gates sounds like that Michelle Pfifer movie, think it might be called dangerous minds or something. First one seems better.
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D2R
am i the only one who has to take notes on this for a film class and thinks this guy talks waaaay to fast for me to take notes? No? Just me?
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am i the only one who has to take notes on this for a film class and thinks this guy talks waaaay to fast for me to take notes? No? Just me?
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