A Speedy and Public Trial
By Carol Gergis, with comments by Jena Viviano and Caitlin Prozonic
[1] Birth of a Nation’s controversial nature was the catalyst for much racial tension and many attempts to soften it for future generations. It was scenes in the film such as Gus’s “trial†that stirred up protest among the blacks and their sympathizers, whose attempted censorship stemmed from their emotional response to them. Their fear of a romanticized image of the Ku Klux Klan and the racial violence it would inspire was realized with the murder of Gus’s character. As Thomas R. Cripps writes in his essay, “The Reaction of the Negro to the Motion Picture, Birth of a Nation’s,†Jane Addams was quoted in describing the film as a “gathering [of] the most vicious and grotesque individuals he [Griffith] could find among the colored people, and showing them as representatives of the...entire race.†Gus is the prime example of her observation in this particular scene.
[2] The scene is introduced, and later interrupted throughout, with titles acting as narration. The first of these is “The trial.†There is an implied justice in what is about to be done to Gus by the Klan members, including the Little Colonel himself. He, especially, cannot be called part of an objective jury. Nonetheless, the scene continues with the subtitle describing the Klan’s verdict: “Guilty.†The space of time between these two titles further justify what is about to happen by implying that there was some discussion and debate on the matter. After the murderous deed has been done, the film informs us of what has become of Gus’s body with the subtitle, “On the steps of the Lieut. Governor’s house. The answers to the blacks and carpetbaggers.†The phrasing of this sentence tells the audience that there is only one pathway for solution, and the KKK is on it. Its purpose seems to be to establish complete faith in the mission of the heroic Klan.
[3] As soon as the audience’s faith in the Klan is assured, its actual mission is revealed in every detail of the scene. The colors of every shot display the filmmaker’s intended feeling toward the situation. When Gus is on trial, the shots are black and red, and when Gus is not involved in the shots, they are black and white. The contrast of light and dark make it apparent that Gus’s influence on the world of the film is horribly evil. The darkness also makes it difficult to distinguish Gus’s face in each shot. This creates some ambiguity to his identity, which is a subtle message to the audience that his identity is not what matters. Rather, it is the darkness of his skin that makes his impact on the world negative. (see comment by Jena Viviano)
[4] Following the same theme, the audience is never quite shown the faces of anyone involved in Gus’s killing. All the Klan members are masked, and even as one of them begins to remove his mask, the shot switches so that his identity is kept hidden. His identity is assumed to be the Little Colonel, and had the filmmakers decided to explicitly reveal it as such, the message of the scene would have changed entirely. The Little Colonel has a personal hatred for Gus because of his poor little sister. Since, however, the Little Colonel’s face is hidden from the audience, this reasonable justification makes way for only racial prejudice. Gus’s face is also constantly angled downward. There is a certain anonymity to the characters in this scene that shows the audience the solution to their problem. Just as any black brings darkness and chaos to the world, any white can bring light and order back into it, simply by removing the blacks.
[5] When the shot switches from the Klan member about to unmask himself, it switches to a shot of Little Sister laying on her deathbed, with her family mourning around her. This scene is shot in black and white, and all the surrounding scenes are shot in black and red and involve violence. This sudden contrast seems to serve the purpose of reigniting any sympathy Griffith may have lost with the other parts of the scene. It is placed near the middle so that just as the audience may be questioning what is going on, they are reminded of its justification. As they feel pity for the poor, dying girl, they cannot help but step back onto the side of Griffith.
[6] The camera placement is also quite significant in this scene. In general, the camera seems to be positioned for a consistently straightforward shot. Even as the action goes on within the scene, the camera stays at a constant position. This seems to me to imitate the Southern white’s desire for the status quo to remain intact. The entire idea of this film seems to revolve around the chaos that is aroused when the status quo is broken. To counter these changes, the traditional attitudes of the racist white of this time are translated into the placement of the camera in the scene. The camera does not follow the action; the camera waits for the action to move out of the way of the shot. After Gus is dead and laid at the Lieutenant Governor’s doorstep, Gus’s face is yet again angled away from the camera, and all that is distinguishable is his dark skin, his lifeless body, and the sign that indicates that the KKK brought him to this point. The shot remains centered as the Klan members ride away with their hands raised in victory. All the audience can see of Gus by the scene’s conclusion is his leg hanging off the porch. This represents his new role as a slight blemish on a newly purified world.
[7] Some other key details in the scene involve Gus’s positioning relative to the Klan members during the trial. Since he is always physically below a mass of Klansmen, Griffith seems to be emphasizing that, socially and politically, Gus and his fellow blacks should be beneath the white majority. Griffith manages to paint a picture of a white supremacists’ ideal world using these techniques. Music is also a tool of communication to the audience. Like the camera placement, it is a consistent sound during the scene, though it rises slowly in tension. As Gus’s body is left on the porch, the music seems to resolve back into a less suspended key. This represents that the world is a little bit more right without one more black in it.
[8] The blacks feared that in response to this film, many whites’ racist rage would emerge and consume the culture even more with a rise in lynchings and a rise in the recruitment of KKK members. These fears were proven legitimate as the film did just that. One woman who saw the play it was based on was quoted as saying that when she came out, she “wanted to kill every nigger†she saw (Everest). Other remarks were quoted in the same passage from audience members declaring their hatred for blacks as they watched the play. This is evidence that though the story, and even this particular scene, could be defended in context of the character Gus’s history, the point Griffith makes to his audience is more general and encourages the negative black stereotype. He goes even further with Gus’s trial to encourage a solution to the de-purification of the world by ridding it of blacks entirely.
Comments
Isn't it ironic that the people Griffith finds so hateful are being antagonized by one of the most hateful and malicious groups in the history of the United States? How twisted and sickening is his logic? Not only that, how sickening is it that people can easily be convinced of such a hateful crime against humanity (prejudicing someone because of the color of their skin) by the flash of a camera and a little manipulation of history? Directorial choices like this make a huge impact on a movie, especially if it is a black and white, silent movie. Griffith knew how impactful a scene like this would be on the overall mood of the movie. This scene only reaffirms the political slant in the movie that African Americans are not worthy of respect and individualistic rights. How upsetting is it that this type of mentality is a part of our country's history? (see comment by Caitlin Prozonic)
I agree that Griffith’s logic is quite sickening by making the Ku Klux Klan an obvious hero over blacks in such a racist way while the KKK is really such a terroristic group, but it is important to keep in mind that Griffith does not see the KKK in the same light as we do. To him, they are the heroes in a terrible battle against former slaves who are wreaking havoc throughout the South. This movie shows the importance of the perspective of the creators of films and their agenda. Griffith had his own ideas he wanted to portray on film, and this is how he viewed the Reconstruction after the Civil War. I also agree that it is sickening that so many people could be convinced of Griffith’s “history†when so many of the facts are falsified, especially so blatantly, but we have to remember that people do not usually check the facts of a film before they go to see it, then or now. Many use films to fill in the gaps of their knowledge of history, blindly taking for granted that what they are seeing is historically accurate, even though filmmakers constantly bend history for their own agenda. People assume that a film is made using all historical fact, but much of what is made on film is just that -- created. Films are made for entertainment, and, since much of history will never truly be known, filmmakers need to fill in the gaps of history with their own interpretations and entertaining scenes and events. It is just a shame that such a powerful piece of technology, so easily used to spread stories and ideas to the masses, can be used for such hateful means.
