1915 · drama · war
The Birth of a Nation
Directed by D.W. Griffith3h 13m1915
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.
Our read: The Birth of a Nation (1915) reads as a sombre, measured, grounded drama · war entry — measured in intensity, epic-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature.
Sombre, measured, measured drama / war, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, epic, cold.
- sombre
- measured
- intense
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