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The Birth of a Nation

1915

D.W. Griffith

Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper ...

7.1

7,442

Drama. War 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 ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Ciara Wardlow Film School Rejects	"It might be tempting to just try to forget about it and pretend like it didn’t happen (...) It’s, in a number of regards, a horrendously ugly film with an ugly history, but it’s our history, and it’s important to know it."	NEG
United States	Richard Brody The New Yorker	"Birth of a Nation wasn't just a seminal commercial spectacle but also a decisively original work of art"	POS
United Kingdom	Derek Malcolm The Guardian	"The quasi-Victorian Griffith was in so many respects way ahead of his time even if his philosophy and mind-set could often be said to be behind it."	POS
United Kingdom	David Parkinson Empire	"The Birth of a Nation has become a staple of any film studies course, for its excellent performances, thrilling action sequences and epic landscapes."	POS
United States	Variety Staff Variety	"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"	POS
United States	Dave Kehr Chicago Tribune	"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."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times	"Griffith demonstrated to every filmmaker and moviegoer who followed him what a movie was, and what a movie could be"	POS

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