The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 film directed by D. W. Griffith, a film that marks a watershed in the history of cinema. Its war scenes and effects make it the first great commercial movie in the modern sense, according to critics. It portrays a romantic and idealized version of the South and even slavery. It depicts blacks as brutish savages. One of the most polemic elements is the exaltation and embellishment of the Ku Klux Klan. Deeply racist, the movie is both a romantic reinterpretation of the Civil War favorable to the South and a milestone in the movie industry.
