The Birth of a Nation
United States
1915
190 Min
Black and White
1.33:1
Silent
Synopsis
More than 75 years after its initial release, The Birth of a Nation remains one of the most controversial films ever made and a landmark achievement in film history that continues to fascinate and enrage audiences. It is the epic story of two families, one northern and one southern, during and after the Civil War. D. W. Griffith’s masterful direction combines brilliant battle scenes and tender romance with a vicious portrayal of African-Americans. It was the greatest feature-length blockbuster yet to be produced in the United States and the first to be shown in the White House. After seeing it, President Woodrow Wilson remarked it was “like writing history with lightning!”
There was a time when critics sought to de-emphasize the film’s content and celebrate the picture as an artistic masterpiece, but from today’s perspective, such an approach seems less tenable. However flawed The Birth of a Nation now seems as an historical epic, it is undeniable that the film itself made history. In cities and states across the country, it energized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which tried to have the film banned, or at least the most gruesome scenes censored. The film also inspired African-Americans to move into filmmaking as a way to offer alternative images and stories. —KINO
Director
D.W. Griffith
Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob “Roaring Jake” Griffith, a Confederate Army colonel and Civil War hero. He grew up with his father’s romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth century literature that were to eventually mold his black-and-white view of human existence and history. In 1897, Griffith set out to pursue a career both acting and writing for the theater but for the most part was unsuccessful. Reluctantly, he agreed to act in the new motion picture medium for Edwin S. Porter at the Edison Company. Griffith was eventually offered a job at the financially struggling American Mutoscope & Biograph [us] where he directed over 450 short films, experimenting with the story-telling techniques he would later perfect in his epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). Griffith and his personal cinematographer G.W. Bitzer collaborated to create and perfect such cinematic devices as the flashback, the iris shot, the mask, and crosscutting. In the years following Birth… read more
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T.J. Gossard
11Apr12
The greatest line missing from this movie; "Oh, hooray! The KKK is here to save the day!"
Judicial Joe
1Apr12
Literally the most racist film I have ever seen, its only saving grace is its excellent mise-en-scene. But what a disturbing, perverse story the mise-en-scene serves, letting us gaze into the abyss of the pre-Holocaust, pre-civil rights Ku Klux Klan. Nothing irked me more than the miscegenation subplots. As someone who has had interracial romances and knows many people in successful interracial relationships, Griffith's views on race mixing alone make this film impossible to take seriously in the year 2012, when our President is half-white, half-black and racial integration has been in place in America for almost fifty years.
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Articles
Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
Daily Briefing. Kehr on Griffith, Harvey on Curt McDowell
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Invento Sin Futuro
By Lucas Granero on December 20, 2009
Se torna demasiado complicado exaltar la grandiosidad de la obra de Griffith sin dejar de pensar en el mensaje completamente retrógrado, fascista y patético que maneja su ópera prima. Se trata, sin… read review
Untitled
By Neil Bahadur on November 22, 2009
I don’t know what this really is. I don’t know whether to call this art or who knows what. It’s telling that this film was the film that popularized the art of the motion picture. Certainly the… read review
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What's the deal with The Birth of a Nation?
24 posts by 11 people
8 months ago