I just watched 'Birth of a Nation' again for the first time in over 30 years after buying the DVD set. This is the film that led me into becoming a teacher along with Leila Berg's book 'Risinghill - Death of a Comprehensive School'. In fact, the sex education scene in BOAN was almost certainly inspired by an identical real-life lesson described in Berg's book. There was a time, many years ago, when the likes of Loach, Clarke, Watkins, Jackson & Hines and of course Leland used television as a medium to try and change society for the better, and amazingly the BBC and ITV (and C4) backed them. Now we are fed a diet of repetitive thrillers and unreaity shows so that the 1% can maintain their dominance and keep the rest of us in perpetual serfdom. Television has truly become the opiate of the people, just as well we have DVDs and the BFI.
Review of Birth of a Nation
