Synopsis: A story of two families that end up in opposite sides during the American Civil War.
Appraisal: This film was clearly a tremendous mistake, but, borrowing the words from an Elvis Costello song, "it was a brilliant mistake". Obviously structured like a propaganda piece, it could be thought of as part of a campaign against the U.S. entering the First World War, although I could not find any conclusive information about whether it had that intention or not. I think it is much more likely that the filmmaker was moved by the pettiest, lowest motivation possible: spite. And he achieved a possibly unexpected result: the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan, in a perverted form, much more evil than its earlier version. (And the U.S. entered World War One anyway.) The adjective "brilliant" refers of course to the technical excellence of the film.
This is my second viewing of this film, but the first viewing of the complete, three-hour long, version.
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