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Dominican Rep. The Birth of a Nation
- Original title
- The Birth of a Nation
- Year
- 1915
- Running time
- 190 min.
- Country
United States- Director
- Screenwriter
- Cast
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Lillian Gish
Mae Marsh
Henry B. Walthall- Miriam Cooper
Mary Alden
Ralph Lewis- George Siegmann
Walter Long
Robert Harron
Wallace Reid- Joseph Henabery
Elmer Clifton
Josephine Crowell- Spottiswoode Aitken
George Beranger
Raoul Walsh- See all credits
- Cinematography
G.W. Bitzer (B&W)- Producer
- Genre
- Drama. War | Historical. 19th Century. American Civil War. Racism. Epic film. Silent Film
- Synopsis
- The most successful and artistically advanced film of its time, The Birth of a Nation has also sparked protests, riots, and divisiveness since its first release. The film tells the story of the Civil War and its aftermath, as seen through the eyes of two families. The Stonemans hail from the North, the Camerons from the South. When war breaks out, the Stonemans cast their lot with the Union, while the Camerons are loyal to Dixie. After the war, Ben Cameron, distressed that his beloved south is now under the rule of blacks and carpetbaggers, organizes several like-minded Southerners into a secret vigilante group called the Ku Klux Klan. When Cameron's beloved younger sister Flora leaps to her death rather than surrender to the lustful advances of renegade slave Gus, the Klan wages war on the new Northern-inspired government and ultimately restores "order" to the South. In the original prints, Griffith suggested that the black population be shipped to Liberia, citing Abraham Lincoln as the inspiration for this ethnic cleansing. Showings of Birth of a Nation were picketed and boycotted from the start.
- Rankings Position
- Critics' reviews
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"The Birth of a Nation has become a staple of any film studies course, for its excellent performances, thrilling action sequences and epic landscapes."
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"Birth of a Nation is a great epoch in picture making; it's great for pictures and it's great for the name and fame of David Wark Griffith"
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"Griffith's later films are unquestionably superior. But here, in a very real sense, is where the movies began, both as an art and as a business."
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