The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith, released as the first non serial American film to run twelve reels and among the first American films to carry an orchestral score, and it helped popularize techniques including the close up and the fadeout alongside elaborately staged battle sequences using hundreds of extras made to look like thousands. Its lasting significance is inseparable from its content: its Black characters, largely played by white actors in blackface, are portrayed as unintelligent and sexually aggressive toward white women, and the Ku Klux Klan is depicted as a heroic force. The NAACP led an unsuccessful campaign to have the film banned, riots broke out in Philadelphia and other cities on its release, and a 2023 study found that roadshow screenings of the film were associated with a sharp spike in lynchings.