"The Birth Of A Nation"

Paper Summary:

Examines director D. W. Griffith's 1915 silent film. Griffith's revolutionary techniques and artistry. The cultural significance, impact and mixed response to the epic film that set off a nationwide controversy. Visual impact of film and its inventive images. Griffith's development of a cinematic language. Describes key scenes. Racist content. Protests by public and civil rights groups.

From the Paper:

"D. W. Griffith's 1915 silent film "The Birth of a Nation" is one of the most influential films ever made, and one of the most controversial. The movie was the first important innovative motion picture utilizing creative technical skills that were unmatched in its day, and that influenced filmmakers of later generations. The story, based on Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman, is told in a melodramatic style. The basic plot centers on the friendship of the Camerons, a Southern family, with the Stonemans, a Northern family, and it is a friendship that is both threatened and tested by the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. The Southern family is ruined by the War, the Negroes (the word used at the time) gain some power in the South, and the Ku Klux Klan is formed in "self-defense" of white families and homes. The theme or spirit of the film can be ..."

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