. . . TV Talking Heads (who apparently never bother to view the films that they introduce all the way through), WITHIN OUR GATES is inherently FAR MORE Racist than BIRTH OF A NATION (1915). Though the earlier flick distorts history in order to comply with Texas Public Education Standards, WITHIN OUR GATES portrays an entire Minority Group as being in the thralls of a seemingly congenital Khaki-on-Khaki Crime Wave. The key players sharing this portion of the rainbow's palette range from snitches, back-stabbers and purse snatchers to character assassins, thugs and murderers. It's hard to single out anyone among this mottled crew as a role model, or even someone that you'd want sitting on the stool next to you at a White Castle. If a Shaker filmmaker released a feature alleging this sort of infighting, perfidy, and general environment of felonious assault among his Shaker brethren, he'd immediately get neutered, banned, ex-communicated and shunned. Whether or not the author of WITHIN OUR GATES was similarly ostracized is left as an open question. However, the fact remains that EVERY copy of this Racist Rant was soon destroyed in its home country, and only one print survived in some European enclave that could not distinguish between Art and Trash.
Review of Within Our Gates
Within Our Gates
(1920)
Despite the misinformation spewing forth from . . .
10 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers