Birth of a nation
The Birth of a Nation "The task Im trying to achieve above all is to make you see. ... Griffith The film Birth of a Nation was one of the most controversial films ever made. ... Birth of a Nation was a production that captured the truth and presented it in a manner such that it caught the imagination of the audience and twisted apart any misconceptions to the contrary so that society had no where to hide and had to face the stark truth-no matter how harsh. ... Birth of a Nation a three-hour silent movie took the world by storm and turned film into an art form overnight. ... Birth compares with Leni Riefenstahls Nazi documentary Triumph of the Will as a contradictory groundbreaker, as repellent in content as it is breathtaking in style. ... His most controversial film "Birth of a Nation," whose depiction of Reconstruction-era blacks caused race riots when it opened; although "Intolerance" and other later works would better indicate Griffiths progressive beliefs, he seemed oblivious to the vitriol he was unleashing with that one silent picture. The Birth of a Nation was released on February 8, 1915. ... The Birth of a Nation chronicles the fall of the South during the Civil War (1861-1865) and the reemergence of white political domination over the interracial state governments of the Reconstruction era. ... To counter The Birth of a Nation, African American filmmakers produced "race films" to provide more positive, realistic onscreen images of blacks. ... THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first feature to demonstrate the power of the media of motion pictures. ... His greatest triumph that still reverberates to this day for its ingenuity and scope, as well as its controversial subject matter and cultural fallout, is the epic Birth Of A Nation (David W. ... After Birth his dreams became bigger, but they were also tempered to his newly forged consciousness towards racism and war that was awakened by the very public that he sought to entertain. ... " Birth of a Nation, on the surface was a hymn of praise to the Ku Klux Klan. ... Griffith tacked on a patriotic coda for the sound re-release of Birth in 1930: the singing of the National Anthem and a color shot of the Star Spangled Banner waving in the breeze, as if the film celebrated the birth of a new, unified nation rather than the rise of the KKK. ... The movie was greeted by the black and white community with an extreme reaction the white audiences loved the film, while the NAACP, launched a crusade in the African American press against The Birth of a Nation, outraged by Griffiths "vicious" stereotyping of blacks. ... The Birth of a Nation depicted the truth.