The Birth of a Nation (1915)
3h 15m | PG-13
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
Director: D.W. Griffith
Studio: Epoch Film Co.
Genre: Drama, History, War
Video: 720p
Cast
Lillian Gish
as Stoneman's Daughter Elsie
Mae Marsh
as Flora Cameron
Henry B. Walthall
as Col. Ben Cameron
Miriam Cooper
as Margaret Cameron
Mary Alden
as Stoneman's Housekeeper Lydia
Ralph Lewis
as Leader of the House Hon. Austin Stoneman
Reviews
He achieved what no other known man has ever achieved. To watch his work is like being witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination, and first eloquence of language; thebirth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man. - James Agee Griffith demonstrated to every filmmaker and moviegoer who followed him what a movie was, and what a movie could be. - Roger Ebert