“The Birth of a Nation” moved the motion picture industry into the modern era with its innovative film techniques. Producer-director-screenwriter D. W. Griffith was the first movie director to use panoramic long shots, night photography, panning camera shots, and a carefully staged battle scene with hundreds of extras. Some other new elements Griffith added to movies was building up the plot to an exciting climax, dramatizing history with fiction, and an original musical score written for an orchestra. This was also the first movie to feature close-ups and fade-outs.
The downside of “The Birth of a Nation” is the unflattering portrayal of African American men, often played by white actors in “blackface,” and depiction of the Ku Klux Klan as an heroic force. The outcry of racism was so widespread that Griffith was moved to make “Intolerance,” released the next year.
“Birth of a Nation” was divided into two parts: Part 1 about the Civil War and Part 2 about Reconstruction. Silent screen superstar Lillian Gish was the star of the show, with the supporting cast including Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mary Alden, Wallace Reid, Raoul Walsh, and Donald Crisp as General Ulysses S. Grant. Crisp started in silent short films in 1908 and would continue acting until his final film role in 1963’s “Spencer’s Mountain.”
“Birth of a Nation” was successful at the box office in 1915 for the David W. Griffith Corporation, distributed by Epoch Producing Company.
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
cinema
My Review
“The Birth of a Nation” moved the motion picture industry into the modern era with its innovative film techniques. Producer-director-screenwriter D. W. Griffith was the first movie director to use panoramic long shots, night photography, panning camera shots, and a carefully staged battle scene with hundreds of extras. Some other new elements Griffith added to movies was building up the plot to an exciting climax, dramatizing history with fiction, and an original musical score written for an orchestra. This was also the first movie to feature close-ups and fade-outs.
The downside of “The Birth of a Nation” is the unflattering portrayal of African American men, often played by white actors in “blackface,” and depiction of the Ku Klux Klan as an heroic force. The outcry of racism was so widespread that Griffith was moved to make “Intolerance,” released the next year.
“Birth of a Nation” was divided into two parts: Part 1 about the Civil War and Part 2 about Reconstruction. Silent screen superstar Lillian Gish was the star of the show, with the supporting cast including Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mary Alden, Wallace Reid, Raoul Walsh, and Donald Crisp as General Ulysses S. Grant. Crisp started in silent short films in 1908 and would continue acting until his final film role in 1963’s “Spencer’s Mountain.”
“Birth of a Nation” was successful at the box office in 1915 for the David W. Griffith Corporation, distributed by Epoch Producing Company.