The first important and coherent motion picture made is also one of the most controversial ever. The Birth of a Nation directed by D.W. Griffith was the first full length feature film and the first blockbuster created earning about 18 million dollars after its release in 1915. Griffith's three hour anti-war statement forced viewers to challenge their beliefs by documenting the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. The first part of the movie chronicles the Civil War as experienced through the eyes of two families; the Stonemans from the North, and the Camerons of the South. Lifelong friends, they become divided by the Mason-Dixon Line, with tragic results. The second half of the film chronicles the Reconstruction period in the South. .
To say that Griffith created a "historically accurate" film is a long stretch. The Birth of a Nation is a neatly wrapped pack of lies, an entirely racist, offensive affront to African-Americans and a dangerously biased, false rewriting of history. Oswald Garrison Villard, the editor of the Nation, called the film " improper, immoral, and injurious- a deliberate attempt to humiliate ten million American citizens and portray them as nothing but beasts." Griffith, at first, attempts to show an unbiased view of war's futility, but as the film progresses, it becomes impossible to deny that Griffith's sentiments are with the Confederate South. .
The first half of the film, which focuses on the Civil War, introduces African-Americans as being pushy and violent. In one particularly racist scene, an angry "Negro" militia attacks a home full of helpless white Southerners. Over the course of the film's first two hours, African-Americans rise to become the tyrannical rulers of the South. .
The second part of The Birth of a Nation looks at America's Reconstruction in the post-Civil War period. Griffith wildly skews our post-Civil War history to accommodate a warning about giving African-Americans power.
