The Tree of Life is a subtle film that intricately links together the world while discussing vast concepts. One such concept, the way of nature, is personified through Brad Pitt’s character; he is a man who acts in primal animalistic ways, and consistently lets these emotions get the better of him. This motif has been explored in many films prior to Terrence Malick’s masterpiece and previous directors’ efforts by no means come close to the beauty of Malick’s film. Many of the films of the past relied on caricatures of actual people in order to depict the primal nature of mankind and two films in particular, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and Robert Day’s Tarzan and the Great River, rely solely on non-white characters to get this point
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Few films have had as much of an impact on the history of film as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. It was one of the first films in history that had a score designed specifically for the film, it was one of the longest films ever made upon its release, it was the highest box office grossing film at the time of its release and it arguably helped create a film grammar which has lasted to this day. Unfortunately, this film is also one of the most unabashedly racist films that has ever been produced. The way of nature in this film, at least as it was portrayed in The Tree of Life, is entirely reserved for African-Americans. They are shown as an almost sub-human class that needs the oversight of the white southerners to maintain control over their more primal natures. From the start of the movie, Griffith starts off by showing the southern slaves working on plantations which immediately creates the link in the viewer’s mind that they are inherently closer to nature. Griffith’s next step was to then give the African-Americans in his film characteristics that likened them more to animals rather than the humans that they actually were and this gross misrepresentation is most prominently shown in Gus. Once he is freed and able to control his own destiny, his first act is to try to
Few films have had as much of an impact on the history of film as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. It was one of the first films in history that had a score designed specifically for the film, it was one of the longest films ever made upon its release, it was the highest box office grossing film at the time of its release and it arguably helped create a film grammar which has lasted to this day. Unfortunately, this film is also one of the most unabashedly racist films that has ever been produced. The way of nature in this film, at least as it was portrayed in The Tree of Life, is entirely reserved for African-Americans. They are shown as an almost sub-human class that needs the oversight of the white southerners to maintain control over their more primal natures. From the start of the movie, Griffith starts off by showing the southern slaves working on plantations which immediately creates the link in the viewer’s mind that they are inherently closer to nature. Griffith’s next step was to then give the African-Americans in his film characteristics that likened them more to animals rather than the humans that they actually were and this gross misrepresentation is most prominently shown in Gus. Once he is freed and able to control his own destiny, his first act is to try to