The debate is simple: Which event of 1915 has had the greatest impact on modern society; the release of D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth Of A Nation” or the sinking of the Lusitania?
It’s easy to quickly jump to the conclusion that obviously the two World Wars influenced our society and world to the greater degree, but nothing is more dominating of the collective social conscious and conscience than the motion picture industry.
One could argue that De Mille’s The Squaw Man is more historically relevant as a film, but it was released in 1914.
So?
In 1915 the directors of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) surrounded Alexander Graham Bell as he sat by his invention (the telephone) as he made a call to his assistant Thomas Watson all the way across the nation in San Francisco.
The telephone line weighed 3000 tons and was suspended by 13,000 telephone poles. A New York to San Francisco call at the time cost $20.70 for the first 3 minutes, and $6.75 each additional minute thereafter.
Considering the impact that intercontinental telecommunications has had ever since - resulting in this wonderful medium we now enjoy called the World Wide Web - in my considered opinion both of your choices pale into far, far insignificance.
Given that the cost of a transcontinental phone call at the time was so expensive, and given that for a person in New York to read “The Birth of a Nation” over the phone to someone in San Francisco would have taken far, far longer than to merely inform that same person in San Francisco that the Lusitania had been sunk, the answer is obviously the sinking of the Lusitania. It dragged the USA into a war which many people did not wish to be dragged into, and it placed her on a war footing for the first time which shaped her industry in such a manner that 25 years later she was able to assume an unassailable economic and military position for the next 60 years on the global stage.
At best, “The Birth of a Nation” gave the literary set something to compare to Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” - which was released in the same year to the same degree of critical praise.
I’d have to give the “conventional” answer and say the sinking of the Lusitania, if that’s acting as a stand-in for WWI.
As an influence on modern society, WWI is seriously underrated, as WWII is what most people have in mind when they say “postwar”.
But WWI is taken as the dividing line between the nineteenth century and its way of looking at the world and the twentieth century and its way of looking at the world. In the past hundred years, there is no more significant historical event, IMO.
The movies introduced what you might call “automated” visual entertainment, as opposed to plays, which were staged live. TV extended this into our living rooms. The forms of the entertainment changed, and DW Griffeth pioneered many of these changes. But that’s just particular to that form of entertainment. I mean, all kinds of things were being automated, like transportation: from live musical entertainment to phonographs, to take one closely related change, or from horse and buggies to cars, or communications, where the inflexibility of the telegraph was being replaced by the radio and the telephone, or plumbing, which replaced outhouses and outdoor water pumps, and on and on.
All of these things together introduced our modern, automated age. But just to take one underrated influence from WWI: in the US, it was the first time since George Washington’s injunction against getting involved in European entanglements that US troops were sent to Europe to fight on one side of a European war, in other words, the first time in our history that this had happened. Arguably, together with the Spanish-American War, this event had the greatest influence on the decision to go to war in Iraq. And that’s just one influence from one country in one piece of its history that WWI influenced. Think of what happened to Russia or Germany because of that war.
I should qualify that by adding that my analogy should have read “the person in New York reading the ‘screenplay’ of Birth of a Nation” to the listener on the other end in San Francisco. Obviously, it was a magnificent film - my point was the time taken to share the plot, or concept of the story to a 3rd party.
I would also add that there is an inherent air of American-centric conceit to the question being asked in the OP too.
The OP asks, which of the two influenced modern society the greater? Last time I checked, “modern society” extends way beyond the mere borders of the United States. In this context, the sinking of the Lusitania was infinitely more influential on “world society” than the film - because as I explained earlier, the sinking of the Lusitania resulted in an industrial capacity within the USA which later influence the world stage far more than the inherently insular film “The Birth of a Nation” ever did.
If the question in the OP had been “which influenced modern American society” the greater, I would still argue the Lusitania option but I would gladly concede that the film had greater social relevance to Americans. But on the world stage? And modern society as we know it? It’s a no contest.
“The Birth of a Nation” undoubtedly introduced many of the modern techniques we see in modern film making - such a close ups, and cross cutting which allows the viewer to watch concurrent action in two separare locales - and the Civil War battle scenes were astonishingly realistic. Nonetheless, it was also a fully blown “White Supremacist” vehicle - and as such, it’s theme inherently invites derision from the modern viewer. Ergo, it’s relevance is marginal - except insofar as to marvel how far modern attitudes have come.
You are still missing my point. I use the two vehicles as examples of the progenitors of two major modern events. The two World Wars, and the advent of the modern motion picture industry.
Which has a greater influence on modern society? Yes, the entire world society, assuming developed countries that have motion picture industries.
Well, in the context of the narrow paremeters you’ve set, the sinking of the Lusitania remains by far the more influential in terms of tangible, visible results. The modern world is effectively polarised now into societies which are “technologically inventive” states, and “resource supplier” states. Those countries which followed the lead of the USA after WWI effectively are in the former, whereas much of the latter group maintained poor social contrsucts and relied on primary resources as their major income sources - as compared to building innovative industrial capacities.
The fact that the USA involved herself in WWI as a result of the Lusitania inspired the realisation amongst all countries in the “Western World” that to stay on the leading edge at an innovative industrial level was paramount.
In my considered opinion, cinema (and the arts in general) allow a medium which inspires introspection and dialogue. However, history shows that the urgent needs of nation states to defend themselves, and to also improve themselves, takes precendence over the arts.
In closing, I would note that an awful, awful lot of Europeans would doubtless take you to task that the sinking of the Lusitania was the “proginator” of World War One. I clearly recall hearing about a certain assasination in Sarajevo in 1914 which would argue quite the converse.
You might want to check your sources on that. My understanding is that the motion picture “The Kelly Gang” filmed in 1906 in Australia which ran for just over an hour holds the claim of being the first “full length motion picture”. Certainly, the advent of “chains of cinemas” owned by the major studios was a uniquely American cultural phenomona, but the claim that the “motion picutre industry” was a uniquely American invention holds about the same weight that the development of the automobile was equally uniquely American in my opinion.
Sorry, but your OP keeps falling flat in a lot of ways it seems to me. It’s too limited, and based upon an assumption which you believe to be correct which is open to all sorts of counter arguements.
The very assertion that “nothing is more dominating of the collective social conscious and conscience than the motion picture industry” in itself indicates that you believe such a thing to be true and are merly looking for people who essentially agree with your standpoint.
A casual poll would (in my opinion) easily find just as many people who would argue that newspaper editorials in the last 100 years have held just as much, if not more, social influence. Or, for that matter, quality literature.
To assert that cinema is singularly the most influential medium of the last 90 years (for influencing social thought patterns) is well, open to all sorts of debates. It has played a role - doubtless - but in my opinion, nothing has been so immediate and influential as radio. I’ve personally heard recordings of speeches made by FDR during WWII which have moved me as much as, if not more, than any film I’ve ever seen.
I doubt you would find many people to assert the assumption that the Australians invented motion pictures. Mind you, I will be moving to Australia, and am not a jingostic xenophobe, but :rolleyes:
Motion photography was invented in America, and the motion picture industry is American, and was eported around the world shortly after it’s advent. Now if William K. L. Dickerson had been Australian, you may have had a point.
Lots of credit to the Lumieres, though Edwin Smith really is responsible for modern film. The Great Train Robbery was the first film to utilize cross-cutting, incidentally.
Just a side note: the sinking of the Lusitania did not immediately cause the US to declare war on Germany. What it did was cause enough of an outcry from the US that Germany had to temporarily abandon it’s policy of unrestricted U-boat attacks on Allied shipping in neutral waters. After several months, the strategic material situation grew desperate enough for Germany that they tried to interest Mexico in declaring war on the US. The US government found out by intercepting and decrypting a German telegram, and the rest is history.
I’m certain if Birth of a Nation had never been, someone else would have eventually pioneered the narrative techniques it introduced. Too many people were experimenting with film for it not to have happened.
Historical correction – the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 didn’t draw the US into the war. It caused a crisis that resulted in Germany being more restrictive on its submarine operations during the next two years. It was the return to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, along with the Zimmerman telegram, that drew the US into the war. If it’s between WWI and motion pictures, I’d have to go with WWI as having a greater impact on modern society. It caused major changes in the world order of the time, seeing the breakup of two empires, Russia and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. It saw the creation of the first communist state in the world, which remained a major bugaboo up through the Cold War. It laid the foundation for the Second World War. The horrific losses of life affected the arts, leading to the lost generation among other things. I’d say that it was simply such a massive event that the war itself and the ripples it caused outdo motion pictures.
