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After an initial prologue that blames the Civil War and Reconstruction on the introduction of Africans to America, the Stoneman boys travel south during the antebellum period to visit their old pals. Romances develop: Phil falls for Margaret, and Ben falls for a daguerreotype of Elsie.
- Context
David Wark (D.W.) Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) is...
- Important Quotes Explained
“A Plea For The Art of the Motion Picture: We do not fear...
- Character List
Colonel Ben Cameron. Played by Henry Walthall. The noble...
- Context
- 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
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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)
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Based on a novel by a Baptist preacher named Thomas Dixon, the film painted Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War, as a time when vengeful former enslaved people, opportunistic White scalawags, and corrupt Yankee carpetbaggers plundered and oppressed the former Confederacy until respectable White southerners rose up and restored order.
The Birth of a Nation, originally called The Clansman, [5] is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr. 's 1905 novel and play The Clansman. Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods and produced the film with Harry Aitken .
Its name is the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan's first order of business is to kill Gus and drop his dead body on Lynch's doorstep. This sparks a mini-war between the two factions. Elsie learns about Ben's involvement and is so furious that she goes back on her promise to marry him. That's when things really start heating up.
Birth of a Nation demonstrates how many early twentieth-century Americans wanted to view the Civil War and romanticize the South, and how assumptions about racial inferiority helped (at least in theory) unite disparate elements of the white American people.
Jul 1, 2014 · Debunking Wilson’s rave for ‘The Birth of a Nation’. “On February 18 [1915] Wilson and his daughters and his Cabinet gathered in the East Room for the first running of a motion picture in the White House [“The Clansman,” later retitled “The Birth of a Nation.”] ” ‘It was like writing history with lightning.
