On the AFI List
Short of some the completely disposable bottom 50, the AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies 10th Anniversary List did what it was supposed to do. It made up for many of the glaring mistakes from the 1997 list, like positioning both Vertigo and Raging Bull in the Top Ten, while moving Singin’ in the Rain into a better place.
The AFI, did make an interesting about face with the inclusion of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance and the exclusion of the silent film master’s Birth of a Nation. Griffith said that he didn’t make Intolerance, an epic telling four stories of bigotry through history, because he made the notoriously racist, but historically important Birth of a Nation. I’m sure the AFI contributors will say that Intolerance is the better film (which it is), but I’m sure there were political reasons to keep it off the list as well. All I’m saying is, if Toy Story makes the list for being the first computer animated feature film and Snow White makes the list as the first animated feature film, then the first feature film Birth of a Nation should be on there somewhere.
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