The Birth of a Nation (1915)

[Benjamin Grimm]

I've long been curious about this film, and I finally saw it for the first time yesterday.

[Edgy MD]

What's to think? A huge step forward in the art and science of dramatic film. A huge step backwards for the culture of the nation.

[Vic Sage]

Griffith invented the syntax of cinema, and created the feature length film with BIRTH OF A NATION, but he was a product of his time and geography. Born and raised in Kentucky, a few years after the civil war, a war in which his father served as a confederate colonel, the film's view of race, reconstruction and the KKK is hideous by contemporary standards. But it was a broadly accepted view of our recent history when it came out (though it did engender some protests in northern cities).

its really an impossible film to rate, like TRIUMPH OF THE WILL.