The Birth of a Nation (Blu-ray Disc)
- Starring: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
- Director: D.W. Griffith
- Studio: Kino Home Entertainment
- Rating: Unrated
- Running Time: 3 hrs. 6 mins.
- Release Date: November 22, 2011
SYNOPSIS:
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A pivotal moment in film history. After The Birth of a Nation, nothing was the same: not the way audiences watched movies, not the way filmmakers created them. D.W. Griffith's jumbo-size saga of the Civil War expanded the boundaries of storytelling on the screen, conveying a richer, more complicated (and certainly longer) tale than anyone had seen in a movie before. The delicate relationships, the sad passage of time, the spectacular battle scenes all look as fresh and innovative today as they did in 1915. So do Griffith's brilliant actors, most of them--including favorite leading lady Lillian Gish--drawn from his regular stock company. What has become increasingly problematic about The Birth of a Nation is Griffith's condescending attitude toward black slaves, and the ringing excitement surrounding the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith, whose political ideas were naive at best, seemed genuinely surprised by the criticism of his masterwork, and for his next project he turned to the humanist preaching of the massive Intolerance. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President Woodrow Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lightning." That judgment has lasted. --Robert Horton
A pivotal moment in film history. After The Birth of a Nation, nothing was the same: not the way audiences watched movies, not the way filmmakers created them. D.W. Griffith's jumbo-size saga of the Civil War expanded the boundaries of storytelling on the screen, conveying a richer, more complicated (and certainly longer) tale than anyone had seen in a movie before. The delicate relationships, the sad passage of time, the spectacular battle scenes all look as fresh and innovative today as they did in 1915. So do Griffith's brilliant actors, most of them--including favorite leading lady Lillian Gish--drawn from his regular stock company. What has become increasingly problematic about The Birth of a Nation is Griffith's condescending attitude toward black slaves, and the ringing excitement surrounding the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith, whose political ideas were naive at best, seemed genuinely surprised by the criticism of his masterwork, and for his next project he turned to the humanist preaching of the massive Intolerance. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President Woodrow Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lightning." That judgment has lasted. --Robert Horton
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- The Making of The Birth of a Nation (1992, 24 min. Produced by David Shepard)
- Filmed prologue to The Birth of a Nation (1930, 6 min. 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 the Closed Shutters (1910, 17 min.)
- The Fugitive (1910, 17 min.)
- His Trust (1910, 14 min.)
- His Trust Fulfilled (1910, 11 mins.)
- Swords and Hearts (1911, 16 mins.)
- The Battle (1911, 17 mins.)
- 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 NAACP, transcripts of meetings, legal documents, newspaper articles, and a montage of scenes ordered cut by the New York Censor Board.
- PLUS: Excerpts from The Birth of a Nation souvenir book (1915) and several original programs
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