“Outrageously racist,” the film portrays black men as foolish criminals while glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, according to an IU press release. The 1915 film follows two families from the North and the South during the Civil War and the war’s aftermath.
“‘The Birth of a Nation’ is fundamentally a film about memory and the egregious distortion of history,” said Michael T. Martin, director of IU’s Black Film Center/Archive, in the release. “Its purpose was not to offer a factual view of the South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, but to socially and ideologically legitimize and valorize a racial hierarchy of white supremacy and patriarchy.”
Sponsored by the Black Film Center/Archive, “From Cinematic Past to Fast Forward Present: D.W. Griffith’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’ — A Centennial Symposium” is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 12, and Friday, Nov. 13, at IU, according to the release.
“This is not a celebration,” Martin said in the release. “The film is not being shown for entertainment purposes, but rather as an educational tool that both reflects on the past and resonates today in regard to race relations.”
Distinguished film history scholar Melvyn Stokes will give the first keynote address, titled “The Birth of a Nation: Transnational and Historical Perspectives,” from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the IU Cinema, according to the release.
Thursday will also bring two panels — “National/Transnational in Historical Time” from 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and “Cinematic Iterations in the Present” from 2:15 to 4:15 p.m. — before the screening of “The Birth of a Nation” with live accompaniment by Rodney Sauer of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.
The screening is free and open to the public, according to the release.
Distinguished film history scholar Linda Williams will give the second keynote address, titled “Melodramas of Black and White and Early Race Filmmaking,” from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday at the Indiana Memorial Union, according to the release.
Friday will also bring another panel, titled “Racinating Patriarchal Formations,” from 10 a.m. to noon.
The symposium aligns with similar events at other institutions, including “In the Shadow of ‘The Birth of a Nation’” at University College London and “The Birth of an Answer” at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, according to the release.
Establised in 1981, IU’s Black Film Center/Archive was the first archival repository devoted to collecting, preserving and presenting historically and culturally significant films by and about black people, according to the center/archive’s website. Black Film Center/Archive is located in the Herman B Wells library.
In addition to the center/archive, the symposium is sponsored by the Media School, IU Cinema, the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, the Department of American Studies, Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society, Cinema and Media Studies Unit, the Department of History and the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, according to the release.
Ashleigh Sherman
