'Nation' is getting 'remixed'

NEW YORK -- In 1915, "The Birth of a Nation" changed the art of filmmaking. It also celebrated the Ku Klux Klan as heroes of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Now the movie itself is under reconstruction.

The artist and musician DJ Spooky is treating the seminal but racist film like a piece of music -- he's doing a "remix." Spooky's work-in-progress, titled "Rebirth of a Nation," was shown at the American Museum of the Moving Image recently.

Spooky chose D.W. Griffith's "Birth" precisely because it deals with issues of race. By manipulating it, and showing how it can be changed, he hopes to show how images and ideas about race are mutable as well.

"In one era, race is one thing. In another . . . it changes," the DJ said. "There's never one final answer for any of this; it's always a remix."

Carl Goodman, curator of digital media at the museum, called it "sampling cinema."

"By allowing people to play with and remix and reconfigure the media of the past, it becomes a powerful form of commentating," Goodman said.

On Thursday night, Spooky projected the film onto a large screen, adding layers of visual effects. An image of a fully robed Klansman underlay the scene depicting the South's surrender at the end of the war. An image of a young Southern woman looking at cotton cloth for a dress was followed by an image of slaves picking the cotton.

Spooky also added material, such as images of a dance performance inspired by Southern history. And the soundtrack was of course his creation, a mix that ranged from a rendition of "Dixieland" to the type of beat-driven music one would hear in a club.

Spooky, born Paul Miller, has recorded with musicians ranging from Yoko Ono to Wu-Tang Clan's Killa Priest. His artwork has appeared in the Whitney Biennial, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany and the Andy Warhol Museum, among others.

Spooky said he planned to travel with the project and was working out arrangements to show it internationally. His ultimate goal is to show it on three screens at a time, accompanied by an orchestra.

"Birth" is a milestone in American screen history, an epic production that changed how movies were filmed and edited with its use of massive numbers of extras, on-location shoots and camera close- ups.

It also outraged many people with its stereotypical, racist portrayals of black people and its embrace of the Klan.

Timothy Shary, an assistant professor of screen studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said Griffith made a movie that was admirable for its artistic innovations, but not much else.

"You have to wonder what Griffith was thinking," he said.

Shary was curious at the idea of a film being remixed, but expressed a cautionary note as well.

"If you take a lot of scenes out of that film out of context, they do play very violently and they generate a lot of vehement reactions," he said, adding it could create misinterpretations of the originator's intent.

However, Shary said, "if you are very thoughtful about it, you will extract even more meaning from it."

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