ABSTRACT
In spite of the fact that America is, de facto and de jure, the most welcoming place for immigrants and different cultures, somehow it also seems to signify prior ideological completeness of a self-suf¿cient system that is closed upon itself and in no need of the world. The same can be said about cinematic America, or, the America created by Hollywood. The cinematic spectacle, especially in the case of America, is not just a cinematic spectacle – and never was. One classic example is D. W. Grif¿th’s Birth of a Nation. The ¿lm’s unmistakable racist message is only matched by its aesthetic quality as cinematic art – pioneering techniques in cutting, montage, lighting, camera movement, make up, costumes, massive casting, and so on. Its artistic form seems to serve its white supremacist content. White Americans in the ¿lm, regardless of the differences and antagonisms dividing the North and the South, seem to be bestowed with a certain dignity, composure, and integrity, while “true evil” belongs only to African Americans. At the height of their power in the South, after their newly acquired freedom, the black characters are shown as mis¿ts in garments not their own. They are shown as people who do not know how to use power, they can only abuse it. In their short-lived state as the “new aristocracy”, they are made to look not digni¿ed but ridiculous and rowdy. Not to mention that the ¿lm’s narrative obviously seeks to show that at the back of all political ambitions, the black man’s principal desire is plainly the Àesh of the white woman.
