The Films of D. W. Griffith

The Films of D. W. Griffith serves as an introduction to, and a cultural argument for, the work of the first widely acknowledged master filmmaker. Situating D. W. Griffith within film history and American studies, Scott Simmon addresses Griffith's competing reputations as a genius of cinematic form and a retrograde purveyor of reactionary and racist tales. His study includes extended discussion of Griffith's controversial drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction, The Birth of a Nation, and...