7/5/22
Newsletter32
The Ass Crack of Dawn
It’s getting light out, and it’s pouring rain.
One final point regarding Quentin Tarantino’s “hatred” of John Ford, then Tarantino will vanish from these pages. Tarantino added at the end of his bold, foolish statement, “And beyond anything else, John Ford was an extra in ‘Birth of a Nation.’” Well, I have already defended the honor of Lillian Gish in this newsletter, the 18-year-old star of ‘Birth of a Nation,’ whose name was recently removed from a theater. In 1914 when “Birth” was shot, John Ford was 24, had been in Hollywood for one year, and to make ends meet worked as an extra on the biggest movie shooting in Hollywood with the most extra jobs, that maybe paid $5 a day. Ford is responsible for the film’s subject matter?
But let’s face the bigger issue here: our past. Despite it’s obvious flaws, “Birth of a Nation” remains the most important film ever made in the short history of cinema. All movies made before “Birth of a Nation” are one thing; all movies made after “Birth of a Nation” in 1915 are another thing. D. W. Griffith, who was not a racist, invented the language of cinema. Every single movie we see owes Griffith a debt of gratitude. He’s the one who figured out that you can start with a wide shot of a person from head to foot, cut in to a medium shot from the waist up, then cut to a close-up of just their face, then they turn and look. You can then cut to anything you want, and that’s what that person is looking at: a bottle of pills, a baby, a cow, anything. That’s the magic of movies, and D. W. Griffith invented it. The fact that he chose the incendiary, racist, and ridiculous book, “The Klansman,” as the basis for his first feature-length display of the language of cinema was ultimately a stupid idea. But nevertheless, that’s what Griffith chose 107 years ago. The KKK are the good guys, and the lead African-American parts are played by white people in blackface. President Woodrow Wilson previewed the film at the White House and said, “History written with lightning.” The film caused race riots in several major cities. It was also the biggest moneymaking movie from 1915 to 1939 when “Gone With the Wind” surpassed it. D.W. Griffith never made a racist film or statement before or after making that film. His only lame defense for the subject matter of the film was made many years later and was, “I chose that book because I thought the film would make money.” And it did. And it completely changed how all movies since then are made. D. W. Griffith was a genius in the true sense of the world: he completely innovated his field of endeavor. But by present standards the film is unacceptable. Fine. It is what it is.
I’ve got news for everybody: there’s the thing in life called irony. George Washington was not only our greatest president, he also owned slaves. Back in the time of Jesus, anyone who could afford a slave, owned one, or more. The apostle, Matthew, was formerly a tax collector, and undoubtedly owned slaves. If Mary and Joseph could have afforded it, they would have purchased a slave to tend baby Jesus, and who says they didn’t? The past is over, my friends, and you can’t change it. And it’s not only possible, it’s probable, that everything good will also be bad.
D. W. Griffith, Lillian Gish, and John Ford were great artists, and were not racists. Quentin Tarantino, whose claim to fame is for using the word nigger more than any filmmaker before or since, is audaciously pointing his finger and calling other people racists? Really?
D. W. Griffith was a genius of his art, who invented the path forward into cinema’s future. Quentin Tarantino is nothing more than a painfully unoriginal regurgitator of shitty movies.
He is, however, the perfect representative of the time he lives in.
Now the sky is blue, and I think the rain stopped.