The Birth of a Nation: Controversial Classic Gets a Definitive New Restoration

Giveaway: Win Two Brilliant BFI Birth of a Nation Blu-ray Sets!

• Landmark film still generates headlines and fierce debate over a century after original release
• Photoplay’s Patrick Stanbury recounts the tale of their stunning new digital restoration
• It’s now been released by the British Film Institute in a magnificent 2-Blu-ray package
• May 2018: Twilight Time in the US release region free, 3,000-copy limited edition

More than a century after it first hit the headlines, The Birth of a Nation (1915) is still a huge source of controversy, and the reasons for that are plain to see. But it would be unfortunate if the debate around its racist content prevented us from acknowledging the part it played in the development of the American film industry or, crucially, the rise of cinema as art. It was a quantum leap in so many ways: breadth and scope of the story, creative and expressive use of photography, epic sweep of the staging, dynamic editing, scale of theatrical exhibition. And, of course, a huge success at the box office.

It is possible to understand all of this from books, but the only way to fully appreciate what it was that so electrified audiences in 1915 is to actually see the film – and to see it properly presented. Yet since the advent of sound there have been few opportunities to see Birth as its maker originally intended.

US 1921 reissue lobby card

Contents

• The first time around: 1993 Photoplay restoration
• A 21^st century makeover: 2015 Photoplay restoration
• Photoplay restoration screenings
• Photoplay Blu-ray specifications
• The Birth of a Nation on home video

Miriam Cooper in The Birth of a Nation

The first time around: 1993 Photoplay restoration

This new edition of The Birth of a Nation was not originally conceived as a new restoration, but rather it was to be an upgraded version of the Thames Silents presentation of the film, first seen on Channel Four in 1993, and which had been commissioned as a companion piece for the series D. W. Griffith: Father of Film (1993), Photoplay’s first major documentary production. In planning the Thames Silents production, we were determined to honour Griffith’s work in two very important ways: we would use the best materials for the film that could be found, and we would use the original Breil score, that had been such an important part of the film’s success.

• UK: VHS 1993 Thames Silents version
• US: Kino DVD (2008) D. W. Griffith: Father of Film, also in 5-DVD Griffith Masterworks 2

D. W. Griffith, director of The Birth of a Nation

For the film, we knew exactly what we needed. In the ’70s, an original 35mm nitrate print of the 1921 reissue, tinted and toned, had surfaced, and 16mm copies of this had been available to collectors. Both Kevin Brownlow and I had bought these, and been stunned by the way the extra clarity, and the tinting, enhanced the film. So for our new version the obvious choice was to use the 35mm original print. This proved more of a challenge than we expected, but eventually film researcher David Thaxton tracked it down for us at the Museum of Modern Art, who agreed to allow us to make a new 35mm negative, in colour to preserve the tints.

BFI Blu-ray screenshot, scanned in 4k from the original negative

The extra quality from the new neg was everything we had hoped for. But it still left us with problems, as there were some key sections either missing (eg the death of the second Cameron son) or damaged (eg some of the scenes with Lydia Brown, or the parade of troops departing for the war). To fill these gaps we copied a duplicate fine grain held by the BFI. This black and white footage, which we tinted to match, was clearly inferior to our colour neg, but that still accounted for more than 95% of the finished film.

BFI Blu-ray screenshot

Meanwhile, the music had to be prepared. The original score by Joseph Carl Breil had been a landmark in the development of musical accompaniment for American silent film. Thanks to the way Birth had been toured as a roadshow presentation, a high proportion of those who saw the film in its early days would have experienced it with an orchestra, frequently as many as 40 players. And not just in the US. When Birth was seen in London, first at the Scala and later the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Breil score was heard.

BFI Blu-ray: the Union Army marching through Georgia

To create our version of the score, we commissioned John Lanchbery. The former music director of the Royal Ballet, and a friend of David Gill’s from his own ballet days, Jack (as he was always known) proved an ideal choice, for he was also a lifelong lover of silent film. Studying the original score, he was impressed by the way it wove existing classical works together with Breil’s new writing. In fitting the score to our transfer of the film, Jack retained the majority of Breil’s plan. There were a few sequences where it was felt that choices which had seemed fresh and apt in 1915 might now appear clichéd. An example would be the bombardment of Atlanta, originally accompanied by Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, for which Jack substituted Francesca da Rimini by Tchaikovsky. The whole score was also newly orchestrated by Jack, taking advantage of the larger forces that we had at our disposal for the recording.

BFI Blu-ray screenshot

A 21^st century makeover: 2015 Photoplay restoration

When I started work on remastering the film in 2014, we had our colour negative scanned at 2k, along with the BFI sections. It was immediately apparent that, just as the colour neg revealed even more detail in the scan, the sections were all too obviously inadequate. They would have to be replaced.

In late 2014, I spent eight days at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Centre of the Library of Congress, in Culpeper, Virginia, going through their extensive nitrate holdings for Birth. Chief amongst these materials is the original negative. When the film was reissued with sound, it had been retitled, recut, and shortened. To accommodate the faster projection speed required for sound, some sections of the neg were replaced with copies that had been stretch-printed. The original negative (most reels of which survived) reflected all these changes. As if still having that negative after 100 years wasn’t incredible enough, they also had, to my astonishment, much original negative material that had been cut or replaced in making the sound version, together with many out-takes. Alongside these negatives, they also had numerous positive reels, mainly from the late ’20s.

BFI Blu-ray: Elmer Clifton (L), Miriam Cooper and Henry B. Walthall

Faced with this cornucopia of riches, my ambitions grew. Rather than just upgrading the black and white sections, I decided to improve as many as possible of the damaged sections we had previously let by. Finding these was no easy task; much of the material, particularly the neg trims, was in random order, and most of the time I was just looking at it over a lightbox. In the course of examination it became abundantly clear that just because a print is nitrate and struck from the original neg, that is no guarantee of quality.

Early prints – like the one from which our colour neg had been made – were step-printed, one frame at a time, giving a very sharp and steady image. The later ones were made on continuous printers and were soft and lacking in detail by comparison. Fortunately, I was able to find most of the footage I wanted, and most of it either original neg or good quality pos. In two or three instances, as I would later realise, I had selected negative that was of a different take, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have original neg quality so retained them.

UK programme, courtesy of Patrick Stanbury; US programme (alt/alt)

The staff at the LoC could not have been more helpful in making it possible for me to have scans of my selections, which in this case were done in 4k. Once I had them, they had to be edited together with the existing footage. In many cases the original neg was missing the beginnings and ends of shots, where frames had been lost due to re-editing over the years, so where possible these frames were replaced from our colour neg and the original neg stretched or squeezed to compensate for different degrees of shrinkage. Once that was done, the new footage was graded to match the tinting of the original. Then, all that remained was to fit the new picture master back to the 1993 score recording (the original stereo now converted to 5.1), ensuring that each of the approximate 1600 cuts was in the right place, and that key sync points within shots were hit.

BFI Blu-ray: Henry B. Walthall and Lillian Gish

No account of this project would be complete without a huge thank you to my friend and colleague Rob Byrne, from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, who spent more than six months on the vital, and seemingly interminable, task of digital restoration, cleaning up the image. The restoration was first presented, unfortunately unheralded as such, at the National Film Theatre in June 2015. Since then it has been seen in Barcelona and at the Mar de Plata International Film Festival in Argentina. It will also be shown by the Cinematheque in Luxembourg in March 2016.

Spottiswoode Aitken (L), Miriam Cooper, Josephine Crowell, unknown soldier and Mae Marsh. BFI Blu-ray screenshot, scanned from the original negative in 4k

To augment the feature itself, for the Blu-ray release we have assembled an extensive list of archival materials as ‘extras’:

As well as the prologue and intermission talking sequences from the sound reissue of 1930, we have a two-reel assembly of out-takes and tests, all mastered in HD from original materials held at the Library of Congress.

A unique item is never-before-seen footage of John Lanchbery conducting the recording of the score for the last 20 minutes or so of the film.

The Rose of Kentucky, a Biograph one-reeler from 1911 which is Griffith’s only other film to feature the Klan (here cast as the villains). This features a new score by Stephen Horne.

Mildred Harris in The Drummer of the 8th (1913); BFI Blu-ray

To mark the centenary of the formation of the Triangle Film Corporation, which was formed in the wake of Birth’s success to distribute the work of Griffith, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett, we have films from Sennett and Ince with civil war themes. From Sennett, there is Stolen Glory, a Keystone short from 1912, built around a Los Angeles parade of Union veterans (sourced in 2k from original 35mm material in the BFI National Archive) and The Drummer of the 8^th, a poignant 2-reel Ince civil war drama, also from 1912, and mastered in HD from an original fine grain and presented in two cuts. Both these films have new scores by Stephen Horne. Finally, also from Ince, is The Coward (1915), a civil war 6-reel feature starring Frank Keenan and Charles Ray and directed by Reginald Barker. This is newly restored in 2k from a 35mm print, and features a new score from the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Margaret Gibson and Charles Ray in The Coward (1915); BFI Blu-ray

Rounding out the list of archival material is Griffith’s appearance, with Cecil B DeMille, on Lux Radio Theatre from 1936, and the 1932 short The Rebel Yell (from the BFI National Archive), in which veteran Confederate officers recreate the yell they used to chill the heart of their enemy.

US poster

There is also a gallery of original posters, lobby cards, programmes and printed material, most of which comes courtesy of the extraordinary John T. Hillman and Marcelo Coronado Collection and SilentCinema.com. This includes a group of lobby cards from the sound reissue which have been incorrectly credited, on the Blu-ray itself, to my own collection. Not true! They came from John and Marcelo.

The Birth of a Nation BFI Blu-ray screenshot, scanned in 4k from the original negative. Ford’s Theatre, with the audience cheering Abraham Lincoln just prior to his assassination. This scene was deliberately blocked to resemble contemporary artistic impressions of the event; a devide copied two decades later by Alfred Hitchcock in The 39 Steps.

I first saw Birth at the National Film Theatre, almost 50 years ago. I was taken by my father, at my request, as a special reward for dusting his books during my summer holiday (I wonder how many 13-year-olds have even heard of the film today, let alone implored a parent to help them see it!). It was a full house, and we were absolutely gripped throughout its three hours (shown without an intermission, alas). Even then, as a youngster, I was struck by the way this film, early though it was (it was made as many years previously, as the memory of that screening is to me now as I write), seemed fresh and new.

Despite its age, and allowances for the occasional melodramatics, I did not feel I was watching a museum piece. That sense has stayed with me ever since, as has the desire to share my enthusiasm for this great piece of film-making. For, putting all the controversial aspects to one side, The Birth of a Nation is still one of the greatest of silent films. In devoting more than a year of my life to the production of this new edition, my aim has been to sweep away the cobwebs of history, and reveal to modern viewers the film as its first audiences both saw and heard it, a century ago. Many defects inevitably remain, but I hope that this will now be seen as the version to have, the one that most vividly demonstrates the extent and power of Griffith’s vision. If I have succeeded, then that will be reward enough.

Patrick Stanbury © 2016

Stolen Glory (1912), BFI Blu-ray

• BFI Shop | BFI Player

All images, except for screenshots and where noted, are courtesy of The John T. Hillman and Marcelo Coronado Collection and SilentCinema.com.

Photoplay restoration screenings

Public screenings of The (unadulterated) Birth of a Nation are comparatively rare in any version. The 1993 Photoplay restoration’s première was on 11 October 1997 at the opening night of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, only 13 days after David Gill’s death. The score was performed by the Camerata Labacensis of Ljubljana conducted by John Lanchbery, sadly the only time he got to do so.

Its next outing was on 27 May 2004 at the Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen, where Lanchbery’s score was performed by the Tivolis Symfoniorkester conducted by Matthew Rowe. It was then screened twice with Lanchbery’s recorded score on 1 and 6 November 2015 at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Buenos Aires, and was next shown the same way on 24th November 2023 at the Cinémathèque Française, Paris.

Henry B. Walthall and Mae Marsh in The Birth of a Nation, BFI Blu-ray

Photoplay Blu-ray specifications

UK: BFI 2-Blu-ray | eBay

Disc 1 (region B)

• The film (191:07) with LPCM 2.0 stereo and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Extras, all in 1080p HD with LPCM 2.0 mono or stereo audio:

• 1930 sound reissue prologue (1930, 5:56)
• 1930 sound reissue intermission and introduction to Act 2 (1930, 1:53) – D. W. Griffith in conversation with Walter Huston
• Outtakes and original camera tests (38:44)
• Melvyn Stokes on The Clansman, D. W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation (2015, 20:06) – newly filmed interview with the film scholar and Birth of a Nation authority (not on TT Blu-ray)
• The Greatest Mother of Them All: Kate Bruce (1920, 1:06) – short newsreel on the Griffith actress (not on TT Blu-ray)

Disc 2 (region B)

• The Coward (Reginald Barker, Thomas H. Ince, 1915, 68:39) – a faint-hearted soldier in the American Civil War regains his courage
• The Rose of Kentucky (D W Griffith, 1911, 16:35) – rural romance set in Griffith’s home state
• Stolen Glory (Mack Sennett, 1912, 13:26) – comedy set during a parade of Union Civil War veterans
• The Drummer of the 8th: original edit and 2015 re-edit (Thomas H. Ince, 1913, both 28:24) – poignant Civil War drama presented in two different cuts
• The Rebel Yell (1932, 8:07) – archival film in which reunited Confederate veterans recite the famous battle cry of the South
• Stills and collections gallery (2015, 13:50) (not on TT Blu-ray)
• The Birth of a Nation at 100 (2015, 32:28) – roundtable discussion filmed at the BFI Southbank (not on TT Blu-ray, but here in HD)
• The Birth of a Nation score recording sessions (21:20) – LPCM 2.0 stereo and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (only 5.1 on TT Blu-ray)
• D. W. Griffith on Lux Radio Theatre with Cecil B DeMille (1936, 4:02) – the two legends reminisce
• 36-page illustrated booklet with essays by Ashley Clark, Kevin Brownlow, Patrick Stanbury and full credits (TT has them as on-disc text essays)

US: Twilight Time 2-Blu-ray | eBay

The US set is very similar but region 0/free and while it misses a few of the BFI extras, it additionally includes The Birth of a Nation: The Legacy (2015, 17:42) and The Clansman: From Stage to Screen (2018, 16:38) with theatre historian David Mayer. The former featurette is also available on Prime Video (UK link) and John McCarty, its writer/director/editor has uploaded it in lower res on the Internet Archive.

Henry B. Walthall and Mae Marsh in The Birth of a Nation, BFI Blu-ray

• Giveaway: Win Two Brilliant BFI Birth of a Nation Blu-ray Sets!

The Birth of a Nation on home video

There is no extant original release version of The Birth of a Nation and, in the conventional sense, there never really was one. Griffith himself re-edited and reworked the film constantly, literally right up until its première screening and in the months afterwards. As well as the likelihood he shot and incorporated additional new footage following the première (according to cinematographer Billy Bitzer), Griffith and others continued to re-edit the film each of the numerous times it was reissued over the ensuing decades. Therefore, perhaps more than any other, it suffers from the same fate as many public domain silent films: there are a multitude of poor quality releases with different edits, scores, running speeds and usually in definitely unoriginal black and white.

Among the many truly awful public domain versions, there are several exceptions that aspire to greatness but fall short to all but the most ardent collector. These feature a fair transfer of Griffith’s own severely edited, occasionally confusingly rearranged, B&W, sped-up to 24fps, 1930 sound reissue version. It usually runs at 100–120 minutes, as opposed to the 180 minutes-plus of the full length, speed-corrected to 15-16fps, restored versions. Above average DVDs of the sound reissue, with its added effects and synchronised Louis F. Gottschalk score, can be had from the likes of Grapevine, Reelclassicdvd et al. (or there’s a VHS rip here). However, my advice is to forget all of them; there are no more than a handful of home video editions of this film worthy of consideration and they should satisfy even the most ardent collector.

In 1991, two other versions appeared on LaserDisc. Leading the charge was the superior, then new version from Lumivision (LLDV). It was based on a tinted Eastman House print with a digital synthesiser version of Breil’s score by R. J. Miller and is still available on DVD today.

• US: Lumivision LaserDisc (1991) – pirated on DVD by Mr. FAT-W Video
  • VCI VHS/alt (1999)
  • Triton/Slingshot DVD/pic/rear (2000)
  • VCI 2-DVD/alt (2015) – w/Griffith’s follow-up, Intolerance (1916)

Following hot on its heels was Republic Home Video’s reissue of a lesser version previously issued in 1986 on VHS and Betamax. This B&W and tinted Paul Killiam version (PKV), dated from 1979 and was drawn from a 35mm print of the 1921 reissue in Killiam’s famed collection, with an orchestral score by Fraser MacDonald.

• US: Republic VHS (1979)
  • Republic LaserDisc (1991)

However, both were then roundly beaten in terms of both video and audio quality with The Birth of a Nation’s first significant – and perhaps still most widely known – appearance on quality home video; the David Shepard version (DSV). He produced it in 1992 under the aegis of Film Preservation Associates, based on a 16mm colour neg made from the tinted nitrate print Patrick mentions above. It was accompanied by Eric Beheim’s arrangement for quartet of Joseph Carl Breil’s original orchestral score. Most sources misattribute this score to Robert Israel but he actually had no involvement in it at all. The recording sessions overran and they only managed to get just over half of over three hours’ worth of music needed in the can. Consequently, passages had to be repeated to stretch it out enough to score the entire film.

David also produced a featurette, “The Making of The Birth of a Nation” (1993, 24:57), to accompany his version. Aside from disc 1 of Eureka’s 3-DVD set (2013), detailed below, the DSV is still the best available on DVD but note that it has been (mis)appropriated numerous times. This includes being pirated by serial thieves in France (Aventi/2-DVD, Bach), Italy (Ermitage/reissue) and closer to home by the likes of shady US label Catcom Home Video. Official releases of the DSV are:

• US: Kino 2-VHS (1992)
  • Image LaserDisc (1994)
  • Image DVD/pic (1998)
  • Kino 2-DVD (2002) – also in 7-DVD Griffith Masterworks
  • Kino Prime Video

• UK: Eureka DVD/pic (2000) – B&W DSV w/R.J. Miller score; also in 5-DVD D.W. Griffith: Monumental Epics
• Germany: Absolut Medien DVD (2008)
• France: mk2 3-DVD (2006, reissued 2008) – w/Intolerance, also in 51-DVD Voyage autour du Monde en 50 films
• Spain: Divisa DVD (1999) – B&W DSV
• Australia: Force Video DVD (2000, reissued 2009) – B&W DSV w/R.J. Miller score

With regard to singer-composer-conductor Breil’s magnificent score, the Photoplay restoration is the only way to hear it complete, as opposed to the partial ensemble version offered by the DSV. There is just one other accessible orchestral recording: a hour-long condensation from 1985 which is perfectly fine and certainly more vigorous than the sometimes sluggish DSV score. But neither is anywhere near a match for the Photoplay/Lanchbery recording, which seamlessly slips from sleep-inducing whisper to full-blooded roar, then just as effortlessly back again.

In 1976, silent film accompanist Lee Erwin released a quadrophonic LP of music from three of the dozen or so scores Breil composed for Griffith. It features Erwin’s signature theatre organ renditions and half of it is devoted to Birth, as is its tie-in book.

• Angel LP Music for Silent Film Classics: America, Birth, Intolerance and Salute to the Silents (1976) – Lee Erwin (28:20)
• Fifth Continent 2-LP/CD The Birth of a Nation Original Score (1985)  New Zealand Symphony Orchestra cond. Clyde Allen (56:00)

Great Scores: The Birth of a Nation – Craig Lysy/alt

Incidentally, esteemed silent film composer-conductor Gillian B. Anderson also carried out a complete reconstruction of Breil’s score and has conducted it live on several occasions, most recently in 2015 (vid) but it has never been released on home video.

The Missing 50%: The Orchestration for The Birth of a Nation (p.73-79) – Gillian B. Anderson, Journal of Film Preservation #93, 10.15

Lanchbery composed one other full length silent film score: in 1997 he first conducted the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra for Photoplay’s unique tinted restoration of John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924), a version exclusive to UK DVD.

• UK: BFI DVD The Iron Horse (2002)

Another Birth-related DVD is Civil War films of the Silent Era (Image, 2000) It’s region 0, NTSC and contains excellent tinted prints of The Coward (1915, 77min), The Drummer of the 8th (1913, 24min) and Granddad (1913, 29min), all scored by Eric Beheim. They don’t appear on any Birth of a Nation releases, aside from the first two films’ inclusion newly rescored and restored in HD on the BFI/Twilight Time BDs.

There is one other HD version aside from Photoplay’s: in 2011 the previously-issued, tinted 35mm print from the Paul Killiam Collection, freshly supplemented with footage from the Library of Congress, was given both a new scan and compilation score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. So far it has seen three official Blu-ray releases, all of which feature the same decent selection of extras in SD, ported over from the 2002 Kino DVD set. The UK Eureka is long deleted so your best bet is to try eBay or go for the Spanish discs, which are absolutely identical apart from their menus.

• US: Kino Blu-ray/2-DVD and 3-DVD (2011) eBay | Kino shop – discs 2 and 3 are from 2002
• UK: Eureka/Masters of Cinema Blu-ray and 2-DVD (2013) eBay | Eureka shop
• Spain: Divisa Blu-ray/DVD (reissued 2017, 64-pg Digibook 2022) and 2-DVD (2012)
• Japan: IVC Blu-ray and DVD (2018) – avoid: pirated transfer from Films sans Frontières

If the Killiam/LoC transfer was the only HD version available, it would likely be deemed satisfactory. However, the BFI 2-Blu-ray set and its US R0 equivalent are far superior in every respect and put it firmly in the shade. There are huge differences visually in that the Killiam version is from later, worn elements and has undergone little clean-up, let alone anything like a full restoration. It’s contrasty, riddled with speckles, scratches and more egregious signs of damage throughout, is often cropped and has continual movement in the frame – whereas the BFI’s edge-to-edge transfer is almost spotless and rock steady. Further, the Killiam/LoC Blu-rays are contrasty, with frequently blown-out highlights and specious tinting, as opposed to the BFI’s vividly detailed image and 100% authentic tinting scheme. It should be noted that Eureka carried out additional clean-up on the master supplied to them, so their Blu-ray does offer some improvement over the Kino and Divisa, in addition to having slightly stronger black levels and tints (Ki, Eu; Ki, Eu). More caps:

DVD: Image, Kino, Eureka | BD: Kino, Eureka

• Slaves: Im, Ki, Eu | Ki, Eu
• Soldiers: Im, Ki, Eu | Ki, Eu
• Battle: Im, Ki, Eu | Ki, Eu
• Cooper: Im, Ki, Eu | Ki, Eu
• Trio: Im, Ki, Eu | Ki, Eu

The Birth of a Nation will never be a film that everyone wants to watch, but for those who do, the best way is without question via Photoplay’s restoration. The BFI and Twilight Time have given it what are easily the finest silent film Blu-ray packages I’ve ever seen. In an ideal world, all silents would be available like this.

– Brent Reid

• US: Twilight Time 2-Blu-ray (region 0) eBay – 3,000 limited edition
• UK: BFI 2-Blu-ray (region B) eBay | BFI Shop | BFI Player

Betty Marsh, real-life niece of Mae Marsh, in The Birth of a Nation, BFI Blu-ray

In February 2017, PBS broadcast Birth of a Movement, a fascinating documentary about William Monroe Trotter, a Boston-based African American newspaper editor who waged a battle against the showing of the film. It’s been released on DVD and those in the US can watch it on Prime Video.

The Birth of a Nation: The Cinematic Past in the Present (2019) is a collection of superb essays covering virtually every aspect of the film. Especially notable for those interested in its myriad physical forms is the contribution by Andy Uhrich, which “describes the domestic and nontheatrical distribution and reception of The Birth of a Nation from the late 1930s to the end of the 1970s.” You can buy it via the link or read it for free!

The Birth of a Nation: at 100 | The Legacy | C-Span, YT | A Mixed Legacy | in 8 Minutes | Hollywood’s first motion picture | TCM | Movies That Shook the World | Why You Should(n’t) Watch | What is | & the Origins of the NAACP | Caused a Century of Racism | and racism in entertainment | The history of, Ideas Matter | Everyday Racism, transcript | Attucks and | 1970 reissue trailer

Int subs: Nacimiento de una nación: la película más racista de la historia, #2 | Analisis estructural | 100 años

How the fight to ban The Birth of a Nation shaped the nascent civil rights movement – Dorian Lynskey

See DVDCompare for more in-depth details of any of the discs mentioned and Caps-a-holic for screenshot comparisons.