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Mar 14, 2016 · The three-hour silent film The Birth of a Nation did “incalculable harm” to Black Americans by creating a justification for prejudice, racism, and discrimination for decades to follow.
- The Power of Propaganda
Hitler and Goebbels did not invent propaganda. The word...
- The Power of Propaganda
Oct 9, 2024 · Released in 1915, The Birth of a Nation was initially titled The Clansman, but Griffith changed the title to reflect the broader theme of the nation’s “birth” after the Civil War, presenting the reunion of North and South as a heroic achievement. The American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, was marked by numerous bloody battles that ...
Feb 8, 2015 · The Birth of a Nation is three hours of racist propaganda — starting with the Civil War and ending with the Ku Klux Klan riding in to save the South from black rule during the Reconstruction era.
- Overview
- Production notes and credits
- Cast
The Birth of a Nation, landmark silent film starring Lillian Gish, released in 1915, that was the first blockbuster Hollywood hit. It was the longest and most-profitable film then produced and the most artistically advanced film of its day. It secured both the future of feature-length films and the reception of film as a serious medium. An epic about the American Civil War (1861–65) and the Reconstruction era that followed, it has long been hailed for its technical and dramatic innovations but condemned for the racism inherent in the script and its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
(Read Lillian Gish’s 1929 Britannica essay on silent film.)
Britannica Quiz
Pop Culture Quiz
Based on the novel The Clansman (1905) by Thomas Dixon, the two-part epic traces the impact of the Civil War on two families: the Stonemans of the North and the Camerons of the South, each on separate sides of the conflict. The first half of the film is set from the outbreak of the war through the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, and the concluding section deals with the chaos of the Reconstruction period.
Director D.W. Griffith revolutionized the young art of moviemaking with his big-budget ($110,000) and artistically ambitious re-creation of the Civil War years. Shooting on the film began in secrecy in July 1914. Although a script existed, Griffith kept most of the continuity in his head—a remarkable feat considering that the completed film contained 1,544 separate shots at a time when the most-elaborate spectacles, Italian epics such as Cabiria (1914), boasted fewer than 100. Running nearly three hours, The Birth of a Nation was the then longest movie ever released, and its sweeping battle re-creations and large-scale action thrilled audiences. It was also innovative in technique, using special effects, deep-focus photography, jump cuts, and facial close-ups.
•Studio: D.W. Griffith Productions
•Director and producer: D.W. Griffith
•Writers: D.W. Griffith and Frank E. Woods
•Music: Joseph Carl Breil
•Lillian Gish (Elsie Stoneman)
•Mae Marsh (Flora Cameron)
•Henry B. Walthall (Colonel Ben Cameron)
•Miriam Cooper (Margaret Cameron)
•Ralph Lewis (Austin Stoneman)
•George Siegmann (Silas Lynch)
Dec 13, 2015 · Set mostly in South Carolina, “The Birth of a Nation” offered a wildly distorted view of Reconstruction, the period that followed the Civil War, by picturing African-Americans as faithful ...
- Allyson Hobbs
Feb 4, 2015 · The Birth of a Nation—1915’s blockbuster hit and the most popular movie of its day—was released 100 years ago this month. It’s just as shocking now as it was then.
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Mar 31, 2015 · The Birth of a Nation didn’t just transform cinema forever; it inaugurated a debate about art, race, and freedom of expression that shaped American history. * * *
