History

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7144373

*The Birth of a Nation looms large in any conversation about the earliest years of cinema. Despite its extremely racist propaganda that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic is often lauded as the “first cinematic masterpiece,” praised for pioneering the basis for modern editing, camera work, and scale. This story, repeated to generations of film 101 students, isn’t nearly as accurate as its common retelling would suggest. *

In this video, I examine how The Birth of a Nation became mythologized as the birth of modern cinematic storytelling technique and highlight the many filmmakers—like Lois Weber and Giovanni Pastrone—whose innovations have been overshadowed by The Birth of a Nation's oversized legacy.

Mythbusting The Birth of a Nation:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEEWm99m8zj_kwlvlv7FALBHJEUdOJ0E