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The plot of The Birth of a Nation revolves around two families living on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line who become friends when their sons board together at school. The Stonemans, the Northern family, live in Washington, D.C., and own a rural getaway in Pennsylvania.
- Character List
A list of all the characters in Birth of a Nation....
- Motifs
Griffith and his cameraman Billy Bitzer employ the use of...
- Context
David Wark (D.W.) Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) is...
- Character List
- 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)
“The Birth of a Nation” is structured as a series of oppo-sitions. On the epic, historical level, Grifith posits North vs. South, the Union vs. the Confederacy, war vs. peace, and black vs. white.
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Aug 1, 2019 · The Birth of a Nation: The Cinematic Past in the Present. More than one hundred years since it premiered on cinema screens, D. W. Griffith’s controversial photoplay, The Birth of a Nation, continues to influence American film production and to have relevance for race relations in the United States. While lauded at the time of its release for ...
- Michael T. Martin
- 2019
This official tie-in to the highly acclaimed film, The Birth of a Nation, surveys the history and legacy of Nat Turner, the leader of one of the most renowned slave rebellions on...
Sep 27, 2016 · This official tie-in to the highly acclaimed film, The Birth of a Nation , surveys the history and legacy of Nat Turner, the leader of one of the most renowned slave rebellions on American soil, while also exploring Turner’s relevance to contemporary dialogues on race relations.
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The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith film) Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you.
