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8/7/2025, 12:58:42 AM
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>A second critical imperative concerns a presumed distinction be- tween art and ideology. The Birth of a Nation illustrates the fact that film can be at once stylistic and political, simultaneously imaginative, brilliant, reactionary, and racist. If The Birth of a Nation teaches us any- thing, it is the ways in which the art of cinema can construct white su- premacy as history written with artistry. The innovations Griffith made in pursuit of a style of narrative filmmaking were not simply in the serv- ice of storytelling; they were in the service of white supremacy. Thus, the art of The Birth of a Nation is its racism, particularly its construction of whiteness through the lens of black stereotypes and the craft of cine- matic technique. In The Birth of a Nation, art is ideological, form is con- tent, and cinema is simultaneously moving, artistic, ugly, and painful.
>A second critical imperative concerns a presumed distinction be- tween art and ideology. The Birth of a Nation illustrates the fact that film can be at once stylistic and political, simultaneously imaginative, brilliant, reactionary, and racist. If The Birth of a Nation teaches us any- thing, it is the ways in which the art of cinema can construct white su- premacy as history written with artistry. The innovations Griffith made in pursuit of a style of narrative filmmaking were not simply in the serv- ice of storytelling; they were in the service of white supremacy. Thus, the art of The Birth of a Nation is its racism, particularly its construction of whiteness through the lens of black stereotypes and the craft of cine- matic technique. In The Birth of a Nation, art is ideological, form is con- tent, and cinema is simultaneously moving, artistic, ugly, and painful.
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