MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

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 (Henry B. Walthall), 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 (Mae Marsh) leaps to her death rather than surrender to the lustful advances of renegade slave Gus (Walter Long), 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, and as recently as 1995, Turner Classic Movies cancelled a showing of a restored print in the wake of the racial tensions around the O.J. Simpson trial verdict. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Features:
  • "The Making of 'The Birth of a Nation'" 1992 24 minutes produced by David Shepard
  • Filmed prologue to "The Birth of a Nation" 1930 6 minutes featuring D.W. Griffith and Walter Huston
  • Civil War Shorts directed by D.W. Griffith:
  • In the Border States 1910 16 min.,
  • The House With Closed Shutters 1910 17 min.,
  • The Fugitive 1910
  • 17 min.,
  • His Trust 1910 14 min. courtesy of David Shepard; musical setting compiled and arranged by Robert Israel performed by the Biograph Quartet,
  • His Trust Fulfilled 1910 11 min.,
  • Swords and Hearts 1911 16 min.,
  • The Battle 1911 17 min.
  • New York vs. "The Birth of a Nation": an archive of information documenting the battles over the film's 1922 re-release, including protests by the N.A.A.C.P., transcripts of meetings, legal documents, newspaper articles and a montage of scenes ordered cut by the New York Censor Board
  • Excerpts from a "Birth of a Nation" souvenir book (1915) and several original programs

AWARDS

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1991

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Henry B. Walthall - Ben Cameron, the Little Colonel
       Miriam Cooper - Margaret Cameron
       Mae Marsh - Flora Cameron, the Little Sister
       Lillian Gish - Elsie Stoneman
       Robert Harron - Ted Stoneman
       Ralph Lewis - The Honorable Austin Stoneman, Leader of the House
       Wallace Reid - Jeff, the blacksmith
       George Siegmann - Silas Lynch
       Raoul Walsh - John Wilkes Booth
       William de Vaull - Jake
       Mme. Sul Te Wan
       Bessie Love - Piedmont girl
       Tom Wilson - Stoneman's Negro Servant
       Monte Blue
       John Ford - Klansman
       Sam de Grasse - Sen. Charles Sumner
       Jennifer Lee - Cindy, The Faithful Mummy
       Charles Stevens - Volunteer
       George Andre Beranger - Wade Cameron
       Howard Gaye - Gen. Robert E. Lee
       Walter Long - Gus, a Renegade Negro
       Violet Wilkey - Flora as a child
       Mary Alden - Lydia Brown, Stoneman's Mulatto Housekeeper
       Olga Grey - Laura Keene
       Eugene Pallette - Wounded Enemy to Whom Ben Gives Succor
       Donald Crisp - Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
       Josephine Crowell - Mrs. Cameron
       Alberta Lee - Mrs. Lincoln
       Maxfield Stanley - Duke Cameron
       Erich Von Stroheim - Man who falls from Roof
       William Freeman - Sentry
       Elmo Lincoln - White Arm Joe
       Spottiswood Aitken - Dr. Cameron
       Gibson Gowland
       Elmer Clifton - Phil Stoneman
       Joseph Henaberry - Abraham Lincoln

• Director:

  D.W. Griffith

• Producer:

  D.W. Griffith

• Screenwriter:

  D.W. Griffith

• Book Author:

  Thomas Dixon

• Screenwriter:

  Frank E. Woods, Thomas F. Dixen

• Cinematographer:

  Billy Bitzer

• Composer (Music Score):

  D.W. Griffith

• Editor:

  James Smith

• Costume Designer:

  Robert Goldstein

REVIEW:

• The conflicted legacy of this first American blockbuster epic rests on the combination of Southern-bred D.W. Griffith's landmark technical achievements and his racism, as his version of the Civil War and Reconstruction highlighted fears of miscegenation and the heroism of the Ku Klux Klan. Aiming to make the greatest film ever, Griffith deployed all the technical experiments of his previous movies for maximum visceral effect, along with a prepared score mixing classical music and folk tunes. With expressive close-ups and long shots, irises and superimpositions, Griffith communicated not only the monumental scale of Civil War battles but also the intimate psychology of his central characters. The climactic ride of the Klan to save white girlhood from black defilement marked Griffith's most extraordinary and influential use of parallel editing to galvanize emotional excitement. The longest and most expensive American film made as of 1915, Birth opened to raves for its artistry and record-breaking box office returns, helping to legitimize movies as "respectable" entertainment. Its force was hardly all positive, however, as the NAACP organized a public campaign against the film and demanded that Griffith make cuts; the film was banned in several states for its racism, race riots broke out after its Boston premiere, and it directly influenced the 20th century reemergence of the Klan. As paradoxical proof of its cinematic power, Birth of a Nation still arouses protests decades after it was made. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi