Considering DW Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation is close to its 100th anniversary of production what if some film company decided to remake it using the same characters but at the same time historically accurate rather than KKK apologetica? How would the plot turn out and who would get casted?
Mel Gibson should direct it. He’s a great American.
Sounds like a great idea. As a follow-up, we could print a special edition of *Mein Kampf *without the antisemitism.
The antisemitism will be available to real fans through the Deluxe edition, off course.
I remember reading in the 1970s that Roger Corman (of all people) wanted to do a remake but the rights to the novel/film were too tangled. I don’t know if it would be easier today or not.
Casting: Miley Cyrus as the Lillian Gish character
Russell Crowe as “The Little Colonel”
Fred Thompson as Senator Stoneman
Barack Obama in drag as Stoneman’s mistress
I’m saving up for the boxed set myself!
The one with the reproduction hood and noose?
No, the one with the inflammable cross.
Birth of a Nation was based in large part off of a novel called The Clansman which was also made into a play of the same name. The movie is currently in the public domain so I would imagine anyone is free to do whatever they want with it.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/dixonclan/
You can find a complete copy of The Clansman here. (Site make you fill out a survey that takes 1 minute to complete) I honestly don’t think you could really remake the movie these days regardless of injecting any historic accuracy.
The problem is that The Birth of a Nation is a movie about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force that protected the South from the blacks who were (insert every bad stereotype of Blacks ever used*). It could never be made straight. The film was considered racist even when it first opened.
The only way it could be done would be the make the Klan the bad guys, which isn’t a remake. You might be able to do a dark comedy version, I suppose.
*Film historian Charles Bogle pointed out that the major film stereotypes of blacks – even today – can be traced back to The Birth of a Nation.
I’m sad because I thought this thread was going to be about DJ Spooky’s brilliant “remix” of Birth of a Nation…
This is the **PERFECT **project for Paul Verhoeven!
Hijack: The OP was posted at what appears to be 2:46am Pacific Time. Curtis, don’t you have school today? How can you be up at almost 3am and be alert at school?
But back to your question, as everyone else said, the movie is really racist and I doubt there would be any interest in a remake, so I’m not sure why you’re even asking. (FYI, you can download the whole thing quite legally from Archive.org.) It was significant at the time because it pioneered all sorts of camera techniques that are really common now.
In my head this is starring Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little, fresh from filming Blazing Saddles.
The same characters, but historically accurate? How would that work? The characters aren’t historically accurate.
“Evil Senator Stoneman” never really existed – the name was swiped from George Stoneman, but based on Thaddeus Stevens, I believe. The Stoneman name was probably being maligned for his being part of Sherman’s command, although ironically he opposed Reconstruction.
Nonetheless, the fictional characters named sorta after real people really wrecks any attempt at historical accuracy. Although, it was kinda awesome being “Evil Senator Stoneman” after we had to watch BoaN in high school, 'cause I had the same last name.
NM
I was staying up home late.
And if Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers could be made into anti military/war movie why not this into an anti-racist movie? Thus the KKK would be depicted as a racist organization who murders blacks, Reconstruction would be portrayed more sympathetically and accurately.
I would argue that such a radical change in POV would make the new movie Birth of a Nation only in name. It would be like redoing Casablanca with the Nazis as heros and having Ilsa escape by shooting Rick in the back of the head.
Well, you can’t. I mean, the movie was based on a novel that assumes the White-Southern version of the history of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and which glorifies the Klan, or Clan. That’s the story. It would be possible to make a more realistic film about Reconstruction, but it would be a completely different story, not a rebooting/revisioning of Birth of a Nation.
Exactly as with Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. Not a great idea either way ;).