Key Facts
full title · The Birth of a Nation
director · D. W. Griffith
leading actors/actresses · Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry Walthall, Ralph Lewis,
George Siegmann
supporting actors/actresses · Miriam Cooper, Mary Alden, Walter Long, Elmer Clifton, Josephine
Crowell,
· Joseph Henabery, Robert Harron, Spottiswoode Aitken,
George Beranger, Maxfield Stanley, Jennie Lee, Donald Crisp, Howard Gaye
type of work · Motion picture
genre · Revisionist historical romance
language · English
time and place produced · 1914, California (Hollywood,
San Fernando Valley, and Big Bear Lake)
awards · 1992, National Film Registry
date of release · Premiere: Los Angeles, February 8, 1915 (titled The
Clansman)
· Public Opening: New York, March 3, 1915 (newly
retitled The Birth of a Nation)
producers · Harry Aitken, D. W. Griffith
setting (time) · Antebellum America; the Civil War; and the Reconstruction period
setting (place) · Primarily Piedmont, South Carolina; Washington, D.C.;
and rural Pennsylvania
protagonist · Colonel Ben Cameron
major conflict · Carpetbaggers, thieves, and muckrakers from the North
descend greedily upon the South after the postwar assassination
of President Lincoln to defile the honored traditions of its aristocratic
gentry by raising black militias to take power over the land.
rising action · The opportunism of Austin Stoneman, the lusty cruelty
of Silas Lynch, and the criminal behavior of the newly freed black
slaves threaten Southern whites, who seethe amid the danger and
try to find a solution.
climax · At the moment when Ben Cameron suffers his worst bout
of agony and hopelessness over his lost land, inspiration comes
to him to form the Ku Klux Klan, providing him and the rest of the South
a way to fight back.
falling action · As soon as the Klan forms, Ben Cameron leads the group
through Piedmont, rescuing all whites in danger, violently punishing misbehaving
blacks, and wresting control of the land back into the hands of
the proud Southern whites.
themes · The perseverance of Southern honor; proper courting;
the manifold tragedies of war
motifs · The street in Piedmont; the southern landscape; iris
shots
symbols · Quality of clothing; Abraham Lincoln; animals
foreshadowing · When Tod and Duke meet in Piedmont, they lovingly taunt
each other, roughhouse, and playfully fight, foreshadowing their eventual
meeting on a Civil War battlefield. They also hug each other frequently,
foreshadowing their eventual death in each other’s arms. The daguerreotype
image of Elsie that Ben sees early in the film foreshadows the iris
shot of Elsie at Ben’s bedside as he awakens from a coma. Early
shots of Stoneman’s vast, empty library prefigure the days when,
after Lincoln’s assassination, it will be full of sycophantic congressional
leaders attached to Stoneman’s power.
