The Birth of a Nation (1915) – With groundbreaking artistic,
camera, and storytelling techniques, this may be the most innovative film ever
made; the problem, of course, is that it’s brutally and unforgivably racist to
the extent that a twenty-first century viewer may well have trouble taking it seriously;
even Griffith’s otherwise-worthwhile anti-war sentiments are rendered pretentious
and hypocritical by his “noble” white-on-black violence; today, the film’s
worth is due completely to its status as an artifact of both film and American
history. 4
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