As the number of available road companies grew, the publicity machine reversed itself. In the beginning, it had justified the film’s few exhibition outlets by the difficulties of showing it. “Only in New York and two or three other large cities is ‘The Birth of a Nation’ on view,” one newspaper explained. “The elaborateness of the mounting and accessories forbids its multitudinous reproduction.”73 After road shows made it possible to take the production on tour to smaller-sized communities, Mitchell and McCarthy realized that they would meet resistance in many localities to paying the same top price of $2 for admission as big city audiences had done. “It is hardly feasible to expect the smaller cities to contribute that amount of money to see it,” commented a local newspaper in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. “With New York 1,934 miles to the east of us,” observed one Western paper, “it seems probable the $2 admission price will have a long, slow, tedious and tiresome time reaching Denver.”74 To justify charging the higher prices that spelled bigger profits, publicists began to put across the message that The Birth of a Nation would be shown in only the highest-quality legitimate theaters “at prices charged for the best theatrical attractions.”75 They emphasized that the theaters concerned would need several days of preparation before they could show the film: a booth housing two projecting machines and various other pieces of electrical equipment would need to be installed at the correct distance from the screen and the stage and orchestra pit rearranged to accommodate the apparatus necessary to produce realistic battle and other sound effects.76 While the film was actually being shown, a large number of operators, electricians, and effect men would be required, as would a full symphony orchestra to play the musical score. As a result of all these additions, road company managers such as Howard Herrick could try to justify the higher prices charged for admission by claiming that the film was being exhibited in some much smaller community “exactly as in New York and Chicago.”77
There had, of course, been music at many theatrical performances; one reviewer referred rather disparagingly to the moment in Uncle Tom’s Cabin when Eliza crossed the ice over the Ohio River to the sound of “three scrapy [sic] fiddles,” and early movies were frequently screened to musical accompaniment, though often this was dependent on the whim and the skill (or lack of skill) of a single pianist.78 Newspapers made it plain that the music written and performed for The Birth of a Nation was of a very different order. Some asserted (falsely) that the film’s score was “the first significant accompaniment written for photo-drama.”79 They emphasized the degree to which it actually corresponded with the action taking place on the screen: Birth’s music, remarked the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “synchronised almost perfectly with the reel and added considerably to the enjoyment.”80 That the accompaniment was provided by a full orchestra—though its size varied from place to place81—was also the basis of much comment. Given the length of the film, for example, it was noted that the orchestra was required to play for nearly six hours a day. Sometimes musically aware film critics successfully identified the original melodies in Breil’s score and assessed their effectiveness in relation to the particular sequences of the film they accompanied.82
So successful was the manipulation of the local press by the film’s publicity department that paid advertisements for the movie were often almost un-distinguishable from so-called news material (the latter often simply a reprint of press releases issued by Mitchell and McCarthy). Newspapers treated the presence of Birth of a Nation in their locality as an event. They emphasized that seeing it was a unique “once-in-a-lifetime” experience, that it had already enjoyed long runs and played to capacity houses in major cities, that the local engagement would be a comparatively brief one, and that seats would need to be reserved in advance.83 Once the film started running, they reported that many people had traveled from miles around to see the show (sometimes, indeed, they published the names of such prominent “out-of-towners”), that there had been enormous queues at the box office and ticket sales had been spectacular, and that demand had been so great that additional performances had been scheduled or the film held over.84 Almost everything connected with Birth of a Nation was news: the cost to exhibitors of securing the film for their theater, the parades held in many places before the first performance (later some of these would be organized by a revived Ku Klux Klan), the presence of local dignitaries at opening night, the 1870s uniforms and dresses worn by the ushers, and the special trains arranged to bring viewers from neighboring towns and cities.85 In many places, theater owners invited certain groups—Northern and Southern veterans of the Civil War, visiting conventioneers, schoolchildren, newsboys, and orphans—to attend particular screenings for free, a tactic that led to much favorable comment in the local press.86
Changing the American Movie Audience
An innovative and effective publicity machine, enthusiastic reports in local newspapers, favorable word-of-mouth recommendations (“Each person who views the great film,” observed a writer in the St. Louis Star, “becomes immediately a ‘booster’ for it”),87 and the campaign to have the film banned or censored (which almost certainly persuaded many to view it mainly to see what was causing all the controversy) combined to make The Birth of a Nation the most successful movie of its time in the United States. Local newspapers made approximate estimates of the audiences who had seen the film toward the end of its run in particular cities: 185,000 in Boston, 100,000 in Kansas City, 100,000 in New Orleans, and 200,000 in Baltimore.88 There were differing estimates of how many people in total saw it after its first release: one source suggested that, from its first performance at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles to the end of its ten-month run at New York’s Liberty Theater, it had been viewed by a total audience of 5 million. The Brooklyn Eagle guessed that 10 million had seen it by June 1917. According to The Columbus Dispatch, one in every nine American adults had viewed it.89 Through its success, The Birth of a Nation helped mold the future course of American cinema. Even if the trend toward bigger and better movie theaters actually preceded the release of Birth, Griffith’s film greatly accelerated it. According to Roy Aitken, the road shows for Birth of a Nation “did much to convince many men with money that it could be a profitable venture for them to erect large theaters for the showing of outstanding motion pictures.”90
Another effect of the success of The Birth of a Nation was further to encourage the construction of a new type of cinemagoer, closer in many ways to traditional theatergoers than patrons of nickelodeons. This new spectator would be prepared to pay the same price (up to $2) as for a live stage performance, to devote a whole evening to watching a single film, to book seats well in advance and, if necessary, to queue for them, even—in extremis—to pay the extortionate prices demanded by ticket speculators.91 He or she would expect to watch a film in reasonable comfort and have it accompanied by music of greater standard and sophistication than that played in the nickelodeons. These viewers would also be ready to see a movie they liked more than once; commentators of the time noted with surprise just how many people had been to see The Birth of a Nation two, three, or more times.92 To make such repeat viewing possible, of course, the films concerned would need to have longer runs.
Clearly, spectators of The Birth of a Nation differed in a number of crucial respects from previous American moviegoers. First, because of the road show character of the film’s early distribution, they often had to travel considerable distances to see it at all. Journeys of sixty to a hundred miles and including an overnight stay in the city or town where the film was showing were relatively common.93 Second, spectators of Birth were almost invariably far from passive in their response to the movie. “No play ever produced,” observed one early critic, “has the gripping power of this picture. All the women were crying and not a few men.” “People sit quietly and make no demonstration at ordinary motion pictures,” observed another writer, but “not at ‘The Birth of a Nation.’”94 Many people who saw Birth became sufficiently emotionally engaged with
the story as to lose their natural inhibitions. They found themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, caught up in the enthusiasm of “an audience that cheered and wept and sung.”95 Sometimes, old war shouts were heard in the theater, as Civil War veterans relived the conflict.96 It is probable that audiences in different sections of the country reacted in different ways to particular sequences of the film: an audience in Terre Haute, Indiana, for example, applauded Lee’s surrender to Grant. It is hard to see Southern audiences reacting in the same way, though they may have shared the enthusiasm of the Terre Haute audience for other scenes in the film, including the “Little Colonel’s” refusal to shake the hand of the mulatto leader or the blacksmith’s single-handed struggle against a gang of blacks in the saloon.97 Wherever the film was shown, however, observers agree that storms of applause greeted the climax of the film—the Klan rides—and that such applause was virtually continuous for the rest of the movie.98 Third, spectators’ engagement with The Birth of a Nation did not always end when the screening did. Viewers continued to talk about it with family members, neighbors, and friends (one commentator, probably exaggerating somewhat, noted that “as a tea table topic” it had “quite eclipsed the European imbroglio”). Many also later sent glowing letters of appreciation for the film to the manager of the theater.99
Reconfiguring the American movie audience did not begin with The Birth of a Nation. Previous films—“spectaculars” or historical films, usually of European origin—had been longer than basic nickelodeon fare, had been booked into real theaters, and had been accompanied by orchestral music. They had attracted middle-class moviegoers, who were ready to pay more to see them than the five or ten cents required for entrance to the nickelodeons. The five years before Birth’s release had also seen an increasing trend toward longer films by some American producers and, as a corollary to the idea of the movies as an evening’s entertainment, the opening of a number of larger, more comfortable movie theaters. What Birth succeeded in doing was greatly to accelerate these trends. It accustomed millions of people to the idea of watching a film lasting almost three hours in what had formerly been a “live” theater and paying up to $2 for a seat. It habituated them to the ideas that a film, like a play, had timed performances (nickelodeon programs tended to be continuous), that it would normally have a full musical score and orchestral accompaniment, that it could run at the same theater for long periods making repeated viewings possible, and that it might be necessary to reserve seats well in advance.
The Birth of a Nation was the first American-made film to be seen by a heterogeneous (if largely white) national audience. “Old and young, rich and poor, in the gallery and in the choice seats, united in the heartiest cheers and shouts of applause and often wept together,” noted a New Orleans newspaper. According to a Baltimore reporter, the movie possessed “a peculiar sway over the emotions of all classes and degrees of men.” When Birth was completed, there were two major doubts surrounding its release. “It was feared,” remarked one commentator, “that this play was so strongly pro-Southern that it would not take with Northern audiences.” In reality, Northern spectators cheered the Klan on just as enthusiastically as Southerners did.100 The other uncertainty related to the social composition of the audience: would the film appeal to middle-class Americans who rarely attended movies as well as to the mainly working-class audiences of the nickelodeons? The previews held at the White House and the Raleigh Hotel in Washington suggested that it would, and this was later confirmed once the film opened in New York.101
The movie was able to construct such a large and socially heterogeneous audience for four main reasons. First, it was impressive in scale and highly entertaining. Second, Birth was the first domestically produced film to deal in truly spectacular fashion with American history. It encouraged Americans to engage with it by offering them a particular view of their past. Third, the film (as discussed in Chapter 7) was in many ways a response to and commentary on the state of the country itself and some of the problems facing American society in the mid-1910s. For audiences of the time, it offered many contemporary parallels and resonances. Fourth, the film was associated with the most expensive and ambitious publicity campaign that had ever been launched in connection with any motion picture.
6
Fighting a Vicious Film
The long war over The Birth of a Nation began quietly.1 On January 20, 1915, a small subcommittee of the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures met in New York to watch The Clansman (soon to be renamed). The subcommittee was made up of ten people, including two members of the board’s general committee.2 It is impossible to identify the members of this group—the board insisted on the anonymity of its viewing committees.3 It was certainly all white and in all likelihood predominantly female: in the spring of 1915, the board had a general pool, the so-called Censoring Committee, of 116 censors, of whom 95 were women.4 All that is known about the committee for certain is that it approved Griffith’s film for general exhibition.5 The producers of The Clansman must have been pleased; the board’s decision seemed to suggest that the film would not be greatly troubled by censorship difficulties. Over the next few days and weeks, they would come to realize that this was an illusory impression.
The first hints of trouble came from Los Angeles, where by late January The Clansman was being advertised as a forthcoming attraction at Clune’s Auditorium. The local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), together with other Los Angeles organizations, approached the city’s own censor board to try to have the film banned. The censor board itself arranged for a committee from the NAACP and its allies to see the film on the afternoon of January 29. Ignoring their protests, however, it then passed the film. The NAACP subsequently appealed to both the mayor and chief of police of Los Angeles to stop the film, but both declined on the grounds, as the NAACP branch secretary explained, that “the Censor Board had jurisdiction … and that they were powerless.” Next, on February 2, the NAACP protested to the city council. On the morning of February 3, the council passed a resolution asking the board of censors to ban the film and demanding an emergency city ordinance to forbid its exhibition. However, with no sign that the board of censors was prepared to change its mind and no additional evidence of action on the part of the city council, the NAACP—with the February 8 première looming—as a last resort went to court to obtain an injunction to stop the film. Their grounds, as Richard Schickel points out, were the same as those later used by other branches of the NAACP: that showing the film created a threat to public safety since it encouraged racial tensions that might well lead to violence. Although the injunction was granted, it was narrowly drawn, forbidding the matinée screening on February 8 but not the actual evening première (or any later performance).6
In protesting against The Clansman and attempting to have it suppressed, the small local branch of the NAACP in Los Angeles had fired the first shots in a very long campaign. Moreover, in its appeal to the city council, it foreshadowed many of the arguments against the film that would subsequently be made by its opponents. The Los Angeles NAACP objected to the film on five grounds: that it revived the issues of the Civil War period, simultaneously belittling the North and the cause of liberty; that it made the black man “look hideous” and invested him “with the most repulsive habits and depraved passions”; that it was immoral in suggesting an illicit relationship between Stoneman and his mulatto servant; that the confrontation between the “Little Colonel” and black soldiers encouraged the perception that differences between the races might best be solved through violence; and that the scene of the meeting of Silas Lynch, the mulatto politician, and the “Little Colonel” was “calculated to excite feelings of animosity between the races.”7 While the authors of the protest were prepared to concede that Griffith’s film had been “prepared with elaborate care” and displayed “some artistic qualities, particularly in the first half,” they saw these as “wasted on a bad cause.” Att
empting “to commercialize the evil passions of man,” the filmmakers had encouraged “bitterness and strife between the races” by portraying the black man as “a hideous monster.” Their movie, alleged the NAACP, was both “historically inaccurate and, with subtle genius, designed to palliate and excuse the lynchings and other deeds of violence committed against the Negro.”8
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