So far during the years of movies, we've had Georges Melies introducing the idea of editing, narrative and fictional stories and he was a big hit, especially with his films. Then we had Edwin Porter's The Great Train Robbery which also introduced cross-cutting and on set location, was another big hit and became the first American blockbuster. Also in 1908 we had the first movie to have an original film score and screenplay with The Assassination of the Duke of Guise and of course by the mid 1900s to early 1910s, we start to see the rise of feature films and how they became popular over time. So what happens when you take all those elements that people have learned over the years, put them in a blender, while also adding some historical and drama elements? You get The Birth of a Nation one of the most biggest, hugest, and influential films of all time.

Whenever people study or look back on silent films, almost everyone mentions this film in one way shape or from and it's no real mystery has to why. This film broke a lot of new ground and pretty much change the game on how feature films should be present to everyone worldwide, but it also broke new grounds in a sense of conversational as well and the idea of movies and freedom of speech, but let's talk about how this movie was thought up in the first place and let's talk about the director himself as this will be important for this movie.

The director of Birth of a Nation, David Wark Griffith, also known as D.W. Griffith, was born on January 22nd, 1872, on a family farm, in Crestwood, Kentucky. His family wasn't a rich family, they were a bit poor and they had to move out and sell the farm later in Griffith's life due to the family being in debt during Reconstruction. The only education that David received in his life was grade-school education with his older sister, Mattie, teaching him a few things, as well as his love of nineteenth century literature and works of the Bible and Shakespeare; and the theater was actually Griffith's most favorite pastime of all.

So D.W. Griffith drop out of school to help the family out, money wise, and listed in a bunch of jobs. From working in a bookstore or a dry good store, and eventually he would find himself working the theater as trying to be a play writer. He wrote a play in theater in 1907 called A Fool and a Girl but it was panned by lots of people and critics so Griffith later went into filming, again trying to sell one of his plays for Biograph, but instead he was offered a chance to be an actor in Edwin Porter's short movie, Rescued from an Eagle's Nest released in 1908.

About a year later when one of Biograph's main directors, Wallace McCutcheon was sick, Griffith was then given the opportunity to directed, which he gladly took and directed his first short film called The Adventures of Dollie also released in 1908. After that he continue to direct and work for Biograph from there until 1913.

During his time in Biograph, he met some people that would later become very important to his work and also help them discovered their role in film business. This would include future director and cinematography G. W. Bitzer, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Lillian Gish and many more. During his years as a director, Griffith would explore and expand the idea of a movie and the camera and what sort of edits and tricks can you do with this camera in your movies. Like I said, some of these innovate film techniques, like cross-cutting or flashbacks, or anything else were not that new. Some of them have been done before by other directors, but Griffith would expand on some of those techniques and use them frequently for his films in a way that fits with the story he wants to tell and he did help popularize them even more.

Now that's not to say Griffith didn't invent or make some new techniques in his films. One of the new techniques he introduced was a close up shot, starting in The Lonedale Operator in 1911. Another innovative film technique he introduce was the follow-focus in The Musketeers of Pig Alley which is also said to be an early gangster film.

Now like I said, because Biograph were still on the fence of having feature films in their studio, it would be hard for Griffith to make longer movies if he wanted to and there were lots of arguments between Griffith and Biograph, so Griffith left Biograph in 1913 after making his first feature film for them called Judith of Bethulia.

Later, after making two more feature films, he decided he wanted to do something special for this film, why? Well coming soon in 1915, it'll be the 60th anniversary of the end of the Civil War in America, and after reading a novel The Clansman from a southern named Thomas Dixon, Griffith felt he found the right story to make and turn into a new feature film.

So what made these two people to make a movie like this in the first place? Well starting with D.W. Griffith's point of view, his father had fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side and Griffith has stated in interviews that when he was a child, he would hear stories from his father about what the civil war was like for him, he was also raise during the time when the Reconstruction era was coming to an end and Griffith had a couple of friends, southern friends, that would give their own opinion on what they though Reconstruction meant for them as well as what they thought about the free slaves and the Klan.

As for Thomas Dixon, what made him write the Reconstruction trilogy novels, was because of a play he saw on Harriet Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which many historians claim that this book was part of the piece that started the civil war. Anyway, Dixon didn't like the fact that this play was critically negative towards the south and felt like this play was spreading lies and false facts about the southerners and slavery, so he responded to the play by making these novels to which he felt were the true stories about what happened in the south and slavery.

After Dixon made the novels and play he wanted to bring and show his novels to a wider audiences, not just in America, but around the world as well, and he felt that film was the only way to meet his goal. So Dixon meet D.W. Griffith and showed him the novel and after reading the novel and showing interest in it, agreed to make the film and got the rights of the novel from Dixon and also agreed to give Dixon $10,000 for the rights of his play, but Griffith was only able to give Dixon about a quarter of the original payment, about $2,500, because of how much of the money he used for the budget of the movie which at first was $40,000, but later went up to $110,000. So Griffith said to Dixon, "Look, I'll give you 25% interest based on how much money this movie will make from the box office." Dixon was reluctant, but agreed and well let's just say he became a very rich man after the movie was released.

So with everything under control, Griffith went back to work on making his movie. He used the people that work with Griffith in the past, such as G. W. Bitzer, Lillian Gish, and so on. He also made up most of the scenes in his mind, so there was little to no script at all for this movie and he used most of the edits he used in his previous films, while also adding in new film techniques like night photography, panning shots, still shots, and even staging battle scenes in which he made hundreds of extras to look like there's actually thousands of them.

It was also one of the earliest films to have it's own score. Music composer, Joseph Carl Breil wrote a three hour music score for the whole film. He borrowed some scores of classical musicians such as Symphony No. 6 from Beethoven and Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner. Breil also borrow Southern folk songs into the movie such as Dixie, The Star-Spangled Banner and he also made some original soundtracks such as The Perfect Song which was use to portray the relationship between Elsie and Cameron.

The filming took about ten months to completed starting from January 1914, to October 1914 and after some editing, Griffith and his new company, Epoch Producing Company released the film in Los Angeles, on February 8, 1915.

Now this film really broke lots of new ground and gained lots and lots of attention from almost everyone worldwide. It was a huge success, probably the biggest successful movie that anyone in Hollywood and America as ever seen at that time. It gain lots of praises from both critics and audiences, calling the movie the greatest picture and greatest drama ever made, but it was also one of the first films to be subject into this idea of does freedom of speech apply to movies just like it does with books; because this film was also really criticizes by blacks and even whites alike for its extreme racist portrayal of blacks and making the KKK heroes and it's inaccuracy of both the Civil War and Reconstruction. Before the film premiered in theaters, the new from organization, the NAACP, protested against the film and try to get the film banned or at least censored a few scenes that involves blacks in a negative light.

Now this was not the first time that a film would evoke emotions out of people to the point where the film itself would become controversial. I've mention another film called The Dreyfus Affair was one of the first films to have people debate over something that was actually happening by the time the film was released, but The Birth of a Nation was much, much, much, higher in terms movies that tug at the emotions from people both happy and angry. The film was subject to many protest and riots.

One protest that was lead by William Monroe Trotter in Boston was turn into a riot, and there was another riot in Philadelphia that eventually the film was banned in places like Chicago, Missouri, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, ect, but it was only ban for a certain time until these places decided to show the film after all.

So after the NAACP's failed attempts to get the film ban, they decided to get some of the extreme scenes censored. Now before some of you think or say, "They can't do that, that's against freedom of speech." Well keep in mind, film was still a new concept to a lot of people and most of them were still in this mind set that films were there to be entertainment, they weren't seen as an art form. They were just seen as any other from of businesses, and there was a supreme court case just a few days after this film was released on this idea of films being included in freedom of speech.

A new formed film studio, Mutual Film Corporation, had argued in the case against Ohio that film was part of freedom of speech and that by having the state government issuing license fees and by having approval rating from the government as well as forcing the directors to make the changes or they could end up in jail for not going through the approval stage before they release their film was a violation of freedom of speech, but the court dismiss those claims stating that film is just a business and were not part of the press or as organs of public opinion and they also claim that films can be used for evil, so by a vote from 9-0 it was ruled that the first amendment would not be used to protect the freedom of speech from movies for a long time.

So basically if a city or a state wanted to banned for censor a movie they can do that and it happened with a lot of films and Birth of a Nation was one of them, but that didn't stop the people to go and see the film, if fact this was the very first film to be shown in the White House under President Woodrow Wilson. Thanks to the help of Thomas Dixon, who knew Wilson from college, he was able to convince the President to see the movie and he said that the movie, "Was like writing history with lighting. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." But it's also possible that it was a false report, and it was likely that it was Dixon that made the false quote, as Wilson's aide, Joseph Tumulty, has denied the claims and Wilson later called the movie an unfortunate production, but this movie was definitely the most watched movie ever in the history of film it was re-released three times, in 1924, 1931, and 1938, and by 1946 it's estimated that over 200,000,000 saw this film world wide and it's no surprise that the film made tons and tons of money. While we don't have the exact amount of money this movie made, it's safe to assume that the movie made over $11,000,000 world wide, the $10,000,000 coming from America and the other $1,000,000 coming from other countries.

This film showed lots of people that films were not just made to entertain; it show people that films can be made to both entertain and deliver a message or it can also be complex and at the time this was one of the most complex ever put out and lots of people drew their inspiration from this film to make their own films, even blacks drew their inspiration for making movies thanks to this film oddly enough. The films inspired people like Oscar Micheaux to make a movie called Within Our Gates (1920) to countered Griffith's message in Birth of a Nation and show people the struggles that blacks at to the deal with during the Jim Crow Era.

Birth of a Nation also helped influence the rise of something call race films. Basically these films were made specifically for African American audiences and they were usually star mostly black actors such as Paul Robeson and Louis Jordan and their purpose was to either show people, mostly black audiences because they were mostly shown in segregated theaters, but some of them were still shown in theaters regardless and most of time they would depict a theme of middle class people, mostly blacks, and showing the struggles that some of these people go through, like gangs, race violence, and sometimes it was just simple things, like romance and just a simple little comedy skits where they were move away from the stereotypical characters of these black character and give them a more human and a three dimensional character trait.

So in a way, we do have Birth of a Nation to thank for influencing many blacks, in turn, to make their own films to counter argue messages from other films or to show they're side of the perspective lives and what they've experienced, but this film is also known on bringing back the Klu Klux Klan back during the 20s, as members of the group used this film as both a propaganda and reformation tool to bring in more and new members of the KKK, so that's another reason why this film gets lots of hate and yeah it is hard to ignore that fact while watching this movie.

Anyway, as for how Griffith responded to the critics and the riots, he was both surprise and sadden. He thought this film was showing the truth of history and couldn't understand why people hated the film, even going so far as to said that male blacks hated the movie because they wanted to marry white women. … Yes really. He would kept on saying that he was not a racist and even in the released on the film he would say "That the second half of the film is just part of history and it no way reflects on any race or people of today." And that… "We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, to show the dark side of wrong." He even offered anyone $10,000 if they can find any historical errors in film.

He really didn't know why people where so angry over this film and he didn't like that people were calling for censorship over this film and even express his opinion on it in a book he made a year after the film titled The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America voicing his thoughts and opinion on the whole idea of censorship how it helps to fuel both political means and prejudice.

Griffith also defended himself by the people accusing him at being a racist and decided that in order to answer his critics on their hatred for the movie, Griffith took a short film he was working on at the time and make three more stories and turn them into one feature film with all four stories focusing on one theme. … Intolerance.

Intolerance was another very important and innovative film to ever come out and it was released just a year after The Birth of a Nation. There were two inspirations that made Griffith direct this movie. One, of course, was the riots and the calling for censorship over his previous movie, The Birth of a Nation. Another was from an epic Italian film called Cabiria. Cabiria is an Italian film that was released just a year before Birth of a Nation. The director of the film, Giovanni Pastrone, help popularize the tracking shot by adding something new. Now instead of having the camera moving along with the location or the film set, Pastrone introduce the "zoom" technique in which he had the camera either move towards to away from a scene, which Griffith really liked and decided to do that in his film for one of his stories.

Now like I said, this film was originally going to have one story and it was going to be a short film titled The Mother and the Law, but after the success that Birth had, Griffith decided to expand the story a lot more and put three more stories into the film. So here we have a film that has four different stories and each of the stories revolves around the same theme of intolerant people, that kind of stuff was unheard of back then. So it's no surprise that this film was very expensive to make, even more expensive than Birth of a Nation. The film as a whole cost $2,000,000 for Griffith and a third of that budget went to the Babylonian story, which was one of the four stories in the movie, he used it for the sets and the actors as well.

Sadly, though, this movie did not meet the same praise or even commercial success that Birth of a Nation got. Now there were still some people that liked the film, but one of the possible reasons that this film didn't good so well was like I said, the idea of four stories at the same time in one feature film was very new and complex to most people at the time that they didn't get it. Also another possible reason for the bit of box office failure was both Griffith expensive payment to have a live orchestra for the film and it was also because that by the time the film came out, Americans were pretty much in the mindset of fighting the Germans in World War one, so they didn't like Griffith's pacifist themes in the film. Now the film wasn't a complete bomb, it did make some money, about $1,000,000. So it wasn't that big of a failure and nowadays both Birth of a Nation and Intolerance set the stage for how future films, especially feature films should be made, and both of these movies are still talked about and studied by every film class you can imagine. They both had complex story, they at some advanced camera and editing work and they were both really epic films that now people didn't just saw films as pointless entertainment, they saw them as art now and a lot of directors would take note and be inspired by these movies to make their own movies and make them just as grand and epic as before. How did they do it? Well you'll just have to find out in the next decade, the 20s.