The Birth of a Nation
Thursday 6 March 2008 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
For the Landmarks series championing influential works, Matthew Sweet is joined by writers Kevin Jackson and Bonnie Greer, and film historians Richard Dyer and Kevin Brownlow to reassess DW Griffith's controversial silent classic from 1915, The Birth of a Nation, a film whose qualities have always been overshadowed by its subject matter - the Ku Klux Klan.
Playlist
Birth of a Nation
A special programme in the series Night Waves Landmarks.
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss one of the most important and controversial films of all time: D W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.
This film was the first great feature film, probably also the first great war movie, the first film to be shown in the Whitehouse, and until Apocalypse Now, the most famous use of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie's in cinema.
It was also the highest grossing film in American history for decades until it was beaten by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
But it is also a film whose subject is the triumph of the Ku Klux Klan in restoring the Southern states in the years following the American Civil War.
It caused riots throughout the twentieth century, right up to the 1970s and has divided the public.
To re-assess the film Matthew Sweet is joined by the writers Kevin Jackson and Bonnie Greer, and the film historians Richard Dyer and Kevin Brownlow.
