4:00
Such a mass of material must of course be arranged, somehow. Not all films get or deserve equal time.
A good deal of the book is arranged by state, but Beard begins with chapters on “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind,” two powerful films that set the South in the minds of millions of Americans, for better or worse.
Choose worse.
“The Birth of a Nation” is the first important American film—"for its technique and brio, but also for its politics and lies,” Beard tells us. The film depicts a Reconstruction of “Black corruption, Black suppression of the white voice….” “Black Union soldiers are murderous gangsters and rapists.…” Black elected officials are “drunks, clowns and dandies, right out of the minstrel tradition.” The KKK rides to the rescue.