D W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation Read online

  Because the present volume is based on archival research as well as published sources, it will shed new light on Birth of a Nation in a number of crucial areas. The mechanisms by which the film was distributed and exhibited are not, for all the legends, very well known. J. B. Kaufman, for example, remarks that “there was nothing like the systematized road show exhibition of later years.”62 In reality, the distributors of Birth of a Nation pioneered such road show exhibitions. Indeed, analyzing the manner in which Birth was “sold” to a mass audience underlines its pioneering importance in the development of American cinema. For all the analysis so far published of Birth of a Nation’s approach to history, there is still little understanding of the role the film played either in the cultural struggle over how Americans remembered the Civil War era or the consequences of that struggle. Finally, with honorable exceptions (Janet Staiger, for example), accounts of the film’s reception confine themselves in the main to the Northeast and do not go much beyond its initial release. This means that the full dimensions of the campaign against the film by the NAACP and others have not so far been properly appreciated either in geographical or chronological terms. Examining the film only at the time of its initial release has also created difficulty in understanding the film’s wider role in the history of American society and culture—a major theme this volume will address.

  The book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the West Coast première of the film at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles on February 8, 1915. It outlines the movie’s plot and explores the reactions of the first-night audience. Chapter 2 analyzes the paths by which Thomas Dixon Jr. came to write the novels and play on which The Birth of a Nation was based. It emphasizes the point that Dixon was deliberately trying to create a new “master narrative” of Southern history that would challenge that to be found in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The chapter also covers Dixon’s own unsuccessful attempts to bring his work to the screen. Chapter 3 outlines the stage and film career of David W. Griffith, assesses his reputation as a film director, and discusses the reasons for his eventual involvement in the Birth of a Nation project. Chapter 4 examines the making of the picture itself, including casting, rehearsals, filming, Griffith’s directorial style, and the compilation of a musical score.

  Chapter 5 deals with the strategy behind the film’s exhibition in “live” theaters by means of road shows, the publicity campaign developed to “sell” the film, and the rapturous response of many spectators. It assesses the role of The Birth of a Nation both in altering expectations of the movies and reconfiguring the social composition of the American movie audience. Chapter 6 analyzes the campaign of protest against the film launched by the NAACP. It shows that this campaign, undermined by divisions within the black community as well as legal complexities over censorship, essentially failed. At the same time, however, it helped the NAACP expand in size and establish itself for the first time as a major national force. Chapter 7 contrasts Griffith’s attempts to present his film as “history” with its thoroughly biased approaches to slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Klan. It sets out to explain why an essentially “Southern” view of these issues also, in 1915, appealed to many Americans living outside the South. Chapter 8 analyzes the film’s own long post-1915 history, including the more successful efforts of the NAACP to have the film suppressed during World War I, the 1920s (when the NAACP astutely exploited Birth’s association with a revived Ku Klux Klan to broaden the base of opposition to it), and the 1930s. It discusses the relationship between the film and social science research projects, including the Payne Fund Studies. It explains how communists and anti-communists came to fight over Birth and shows how the film’s producers continued to dream of a remake. It concludes by examining the later careers of those who worked on the Birth of a Nation project.

  1

  Première in Los Angeles

  The people who entered Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles on the evening of Monday, February 8, 1915, were both excited and apprehensive. They almost certainly knew that the earlier, afternoon performance of the film they were about to see, The Clansman, had been prohibited by a court injunction obtained by the Los Angeles branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.1 Since most of them were connected in some way with the production of the film, they were also worried about reactions to the film at this, its official première.2 The Clansman had taken more time to complete than any other previous American film. It was the longest film so far made. It had cost more than any other film.3 Consequently, there was a good deal riding on the success of this particular showing. But there was no way of judging the quality of the final production before it was screened.

  Once inside the auditorium, the 2,500 members of the audience were greeted by usherettes, all wearing gowns modeled on the fashions of the Civil War era. Many signed the petitions passed round by these usherettes demanding that the Los Angeles City Council take no action to prevent the exhibition of the film.4

  The first sign that something out of the ordinary might be about to happen came with the unmistakable sound, rising above the noise of the crowd, of a large symphony orchestra tuning up. Then the members of the orchestra made their way, carrying their instruments, through a little doorway under the stage into the orchestra pit. At a little after eight o’clock, the house lights dimmed and a tense silence fell among the audience. The film’s title was first projected on to the dark fabric of the curtain. Some in the audience thought that this was a mistake, since all they could see was a flickering faintness; but then the big curtain rose, leaving the title clear on the picture screen. At the same moment Carli Elinor, director of music at Clune’s Auditorium, who had compiled a special musical score for the film, raised his baton to inaugurate a huge fanfare from the orchestra.5

  The audience was first shocked into silence by this musical explosion and then appeared to respond with unusual enthusiasm. They watched the initial titles, which identified the film as a production of D. W. Griffith, listed the players, and expressed the pious aspiration that “If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain.” The orchestra continued to play quietly until the titles were over and then helped the opening sequences of the film to glide along—in the memory of one audience member—“on a flow of music that seemed to speak for the screen and to interpret every mood.”6

  It is probably impossible to recreate exactly the film that was shown in Los Angeles that night.7 David Wark Griffith, the director, had been editing the film almost continuously since the last scene had been shot at the end of October 1914. It had already been shown to preview audiences at the Loring Opera House in Riverside, California, on January 1 and 2,8 and Griffith had afterward continued to edit. Riverside projectionist Carl Douglass would later observe that

  Griffith’s cutter was a red-headed woman [Rose Smith], at least six feet tall. She would sit with him and his secretary. He talked while his secretary made notes.

  Then the cutter would come into the … projection booth, and the next day I’d see a lot of the film she’d cut on the floor. Then they’d show the picture at the next regular performance, and maybe cut some more and sometimes put back some that had been cut.9

  Editorial changes continued to be made after the première and also after its East Coast opening.10 In many states and cities, moreover, a number of cuts were demanded by local politicians and censorship boards before the movie was permitted to open. Even eyewitnesses at the première, including the normally reliable Karl Brown, Griffith’s assistant cameraman who had worked on the film, later remembered things being in the film that were not there or became confused over at what point in the film particular sequences occurred.11 In any case, there is no such thing as a “true print” of the film in existence. The surviving prints of The Clansman (which would soon be re-titled The Birth of a Nation) suffered not only from Griffith’s c
ontinual tinkering and censorship demands; they were also, as Robert Lang has pointed out, subject to “careless preservation of the negative … primitive methods of assembling release prints, and inexpert on-the-spot repairing done by projectionists after film breakage.”12

  Yet, on the balance of probability, the film screened at Clune’s that night was broadly similar to a 16mm copy of a 35mm nitrate print that is preserved in the Library of Congress.13 In this print, the first sequence of the film is preceded by a title asserting that “The bringing of the African to America planted the first seed of disunion.” It shows a minister praying over manacled slaves on the point of being auctioned in a town square.14 The second shot of the film is of abolitionists demanding the freeing of the slaves (though it is plain that this shot originally also implied that slaves were extremely malodorous, with a female abolitionist being repulsed by a young black boy).15 After these short references to slavery, the film begins to introduce the main characters of the two families around whom the narrative will be built: the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons.

  Austin Stoneman is presented as “a great parliamentary leader” in the House of Representatives. He has three children: Elsie, Phil, and Tod. The brothers have promised Ben, the oldest son of the Camerons, to visit him on his family plantation in Piedmont, South Carolina. Ben has two sisters, Margaret and the much younger Flora, and two brothers, Duke and Wade. After the Stoneman boys arrive on the plantation, they meet the entire Cameron family, including Dr. and Mrs. Cameron. A close and tender relationship develops between Phil Stoneman and Margaret Cameron. Meanwhile, Tod Stoneman and Duke Cameron become prankish chums and Ben Cameron falls in love with a portrait of Elsie that her brother Phil is carrying.

  Into this idyllic world, the film introduces the looming threat of the Civil War. Dr. Cameron is shown reading a newspaper proclaiming that “If the North carries the election, the South will secede.” The scene then switches to the Stoneman library in Washington, where the congressman is shown receiving Republican senator Charles Sumner—and cherishing a strong passion for his mulatto housekeeper, Lydia.16 Again, the film returns to Piedmont, where the younger Camerons and Stonemans are taking their sad leave of one another.

  The Civil War is shown breaking out, as newly elected President Lincoln calls for volunteers and the Stoneman brothers set out to join their regiment. Ben Cameron is depicted as present at a ball in Piedmont in honor of the departure of its quota of troops to fight in the Confederate Army (the South, it is pointed out, has just won the battle of Bull Run). At dawn, Ben leads the troops (including Wade and Duke) off to the war. In the North, less colorfully, Elsie tells her father of Phil and Tod’s departure for the front.

  The movie then jumps two and a half years by means of a title, to show Ben Cameron in the field reading a letter from Flora, followed by Flora reading one of her brother’s own letters providing news from the front. Immediately afterward, a mainly black force of guerrillas is shown attacking Piedmont. While Dr. Cameron tries to resist, and is knocked down for his pains, his wife, Margaret and Flora hide in a cellar. The black soldiers, under a white officer, engage in a riot of looting and destruction. The Cameron family, however, are rescued by the arrival of a company of Confederate troops, who drive off the guerrillas.

  Action in the film then switches to the main conflict in the war. Tod Stoneman and Duke Cameron had earlier promised to see each other again. Duke is wounded in a charge and, as he lies on the ground, Tod prepares to kill him with his bayonet. At the last moment, however, he recognizes his old chum. As he stands over the Southerner with a smile of recognition, he is shot in the back and collapses on top of Tod. The two boys die in each other’s arms. The Cameron family and Austin and Elsie Stoneman are shown learning of the deaths of the boys.

  The war continues and the South is shown increasingly hard-pressed. General Sherman’s army is pictured marching through Georgia to the sea. The siege of Atlanta follows—and the death of Wayne, the second Cameron son. The Confederate forces at Petersburg are shown eating their only food: parched corn. In an attempt to rescue a stranded food train, General Robert E. Lee orders his forces forward. An artillery bombardment commences and “Little Colonel” Ben Cameron leads a final desperate attack on the Union lines, commanded by Phil Stoneman. (As the Confederates charge, an inset shows the Cameron family praying.)17 The Southern forces take two entrenchments but in the process lose almost all their men. “The Little Colonel” pauses before the final, suicidal assault to offer his water bottle to a wounded Union soldier, and is cheered for his heroism by the Union men. Cameron leads the Confederate remnant into a charge. When the man carrying the regimental standard is hit, Cameron picks up the standard and—though wounded—continues the advance. Phil Stoneman orders his men to stop firing, and as Cameron rams the standard into the mouth of a cannon and collapses, Stoneman protects his friend and drags his now limp body into the trench. The battle continues.18 Dead soldiers are shown lying in a heap. The North is finally victorious.

  A terrified Flora Cameron during the raid by black “guerrillas” on Piedmont. (Epoch/The Kobal Collection)

  The Camerons now learn that their second son is dead and their eldest is badly injured in a Washington hospital. At this point, “The Little Colonel” meets Elsie Stoneman, who is working in the hospital as a nurse. He shows her the portrait of her he has taken from Phil Stoneman. Mrs. Cameron arrives at the hospital to visit her wounded boy. At this point, an army doctor tells Mrs. Cameron and Elsie that Ben Cameron has been sentenced to be hanged as a guerrilla. Elsie and Mrs. Cameron together call on President Lincoln to ask for clemency and, after initially refusing, Lincoln finally gives in to the mother’s plea and signs a pardon. Her mission accomplished, Mrs. Cameron leaves her now-convalescent son to return home.

  The “Little Colonel” lies wounded in hospital between his mother and his nurse, Elsie Stoneman. (Epoch/The Kobal Collection)

  Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House is then shown, and the same day, Colonel Cameron is discharged from the hospital and leaves for home.19 On arrival in Piedmont, he is met by Flora wearing strips of cotton wool (“Southern ermine”) to hide the raggedness of her dress.

  Back in Washington, Austin Stoneman meets Lincoln to protest the president’s policy of clemency for the ex-Confederate states but is rebuffed. The South, encouraged by Lincoln, begins to rebuild. Then the film reconstructs the events of the evening of April 14 as, with Elsie and Phil Stoneman in the audience, Lincoln goes to Ford’s Theatre. When his bodyguard deserts his post to get a better view of the play, Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth. With the very different reception of the news of the assassination in the Stoneman household (“You are now the greatest power in America”) and by the Camerons (“Our best friend is gone. What is to become of us now!”), the first part of the film comes to an end.

  For much of the first part of the film at its première, the vast bulk of the audience at Clune’s had seemed entranced. Helped by the music, but perhaps most of all by skilful editing, the film flowed from shot to shot without any real sense of discontinuity. To one skeptical observer, Karl Brown, who had worried about the fragmentation and even the triteness of the sequences he had watched being shot, the finished film came as a revelation. He would later recall feeling “hot and cold,” with a series of “tingling electric shocks” running through him, as the film unfolded. The battle scenes, he noted, were especially powerful, aided by the special effects of explosions created by a backstage crew and the musical score. As the “Little Colonel” charged the Union guns and rammed his flag into the cannon’s mouth, “bombs” burst in the air and orchestral trumpets sounded. By that stage, Brown remembered, every man in the audience was on his feet cheering Cameron on.20

  The more sentimental scenes, however, seemed equally effective: Brown remembered the women in the audience (his mother included) weeping openly as the “Little Colonel” returns after the war to his ruined home. There were also momen
ts of intense humor: when a guard at the hospital looks at Elsie (Lillian Gish), realizes she is unattainable, and sighs, that sigh was greeted by “gales of laughter” from the audience.21

  When the intertitle came on reading “Intermission,” Brown and his father made their way into the lobby where they eavesdropped on the conversations around them. Many people were expressing their enthusiasm for the film. Some were arguing that it was an authentic recreation of the Civil War and its character. But there were also a number of voices warning that director Griffith had crowded all the best scenes into the first half of the picture and that the remainder of the film was likely to be an anticlimax. (Brown also shared this anxiety.) When chimes from inside the auditorium announced the end of the intermission, Brown went back to his seat “with a sense of cold foreboding.” The second part of the film, he thought, had passages of “long, dull, do-nothing stuff” before the final action shots, which essentially only repeated scenes from earlier films such as Griffith’s The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913). Brown believed that the audience was likely to become restive and bored with the slow pace and common clichés.22

  The second part of the film begins with a succession of titles introducing the notion of the “agony” suffered by the South during the period of Reconstruction that immediately followed the ending of the war. (Some of these are made up of quotations from Woodrow Wilson’s History of the American People.) According to these, congressional leaders set out to crush the white South under the rule of blacks and Northern adventurers. With Lincoln’s death, Austin Stoneman has become “the uncrowned king” of the United States. He has a protégé, Silas Lynch, a mulatto who has become a black leader. Stoneman announces his intention to make Lynch the equal of any white man. (Lydia, his mulatto mistress, hearing this cannot contain her sense of triumph.) Senator Sumner calls to try to persuade Stoneman to moderate his policy of extending power to blacks, but Stoneman refuses (again to Lydia’s joy and excitement).