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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. The Honorable Austin Stoneman, an abolitionist politician, presides over ...
- 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
Nat is taken with a "wench" named Cherry (Aja Naomi King) that is being sold off. He convinces Samuel to buy her for $275. On the way home, Nat picks up a toy for a white boy and informs his thankful mother, but her husband smacks Nat with a rod for talking to his wife. He continues to hit Nat until Nat grabs the rod.
- 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)
The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. Two brothers, Phil and Ted Stoneman, visit their friends in Piedmont, South Carolina: the family Cameron. This friendship is affected by the Civil War, as the Stonemans and the Camerons must join up in opposite armies.
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English. Budget. $8.5 million [2] Box office. $16.8 million [2] The Birth of a Nation is a 2016 historical drama film written and directed by Nate Parker in his directorial debut. It is based on the story of Nat Turner, the enslaved man who led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.
- $16.8 million
- Henry Jackman
- $8.5 million
Nov 21, 2023 · The Birth of a Nation Plot Summary. The Birth of a Nation is a three-hour silent film divided into two parts, separated by an intermission. The first part focuses on the Civil War and the ...
Oct 7, 2016 · The Birth of a Nation: Directed by Nate Parker. With Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Penelope Ann Miller, Jackie Earle Haley. Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher in the antebellum South, orchestrates an uprising.
