Films of the Past

When we were just watching some of the film Birth of a Nation. The film opened up with the kkk riding around on horses while there were black union forces in the streets running around. The film meant for the union troops to look as the evil ones but while I was watching the whole time I was confused, because since I was a child I was taught that the kkk was evil. So the whole time while the film was being played I was just sitting there in confusion until the music started to play and the kkk started to shoot the troops then I began to see what the film was getting at. The second film that was watched was Within Our Gates. The film was the first one that showed a person being lynched on the screen, that to me was one of the things that made in very radical. I was confused why the mob hung both the man that was accused of murdering the man but also his wife and they tried to kill his son. The last film that was watched was Murder in Harlem. This was a very unusual film, the thing that hits me the hardest is that the man that was asked to take the girl out of the basement, he realized that the boss was trying to frame him, and he said that there was nothing that he could do about it. The thing that made this film radical in my mind was the way it changed who was guilty three times. How the film showed only one guilty point of view at a time, It started out with the night watchman, then the boss, and finally the boy that came in and strangled the girl.