Has anybody here read the novel and/or the play The Clansman upon which this movie was based? And if so, how does it compare? And if it does not stray much from the original story, WHY isn't everybody attacking the author to the extent they do the director?
shareI haven't read Dixon's novel, but I've read quite a bit about it and excerpts from it in articles and books on the film. The consensus seems to be if anything that Dixon's novel is even more violently racist than the film. It certainly has some disgusting characterizations of black physical features in the aforementioned excerpts.
One doesn't need to read much about Thomas Dixon to discover that he was a well-known white supremacist. Same thing with Woodrow Wilson, Griffith's other source for the film. They spent more of their lives advocating racism than Griffith did. But Griffith's film did reach a larger audience than did their writings.
But Griffith's film did reach a larger audience than did their writings.
I haven't read The Clansman, but if you're interested in reading it. You can get "The Clansman" "The Leopard's Spots" (which is the prequel to The Clansman), The Traitor (sequel) and "Fall of a Nation" which is his sequel to Birth of Nation. All legally free through the Internet Archive.
EDIT: I started reading The Leopard's Spots, just out of the fact that you post got me curious, to see what they are like. I had to stop reading after the first African American man spoke his lines, here's a little taste: "Dar's de ole home, praise de Lawd! En now I'seerfeard ter see my Missy, en tell her Marse Charles's daid. Hit'll kill her. Lawd hab mussy on my po' black soul! How kin I!"
I won't post the description he made of the man, only to say that, the term used was racist. Yet earlier on in the book he described General Lee as having a handsome face.
Just off what I've read, I would say that these books are likely to be very racist indeed.
I read "The Clansman" several years ago, just to say I had. It was pretty putrid melodrama, even for the time period it was published. Dixon was no Dickens!
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?
Turgid, plodding, windy and melodramatic in the worst sense of that word. I hated every page, more on aesthetic grounds than anything related to the objectionable ideas it tries to promote. Griffith took dross and made art. You may not like how he used his talents but it is a remarkable film.
shareI read the first two decades ago. I'm sure there were some blacks who talked like that - we've all surely met people who spoke with strong regional.accents.
Lee was regarded as handsome.