Born in Kentucky in 1875 and died in 1948, Griffith did more than anyone to turn early American film into a storytelling art, developing cross-cutting, the close-up and the long feature. His The Birth of a Nation (1915) was a technical landmark but is also notorious for its racist portrayal of Black Americans and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, a legacy that remains central to any honest account of his career.
Filmography
- The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)
- Judith of Bethulia (1914)
- The Birth of a Nation (1915)
- Intolerance (1916)
- Hearts of the World (1918)
- Broken Blossoms (1919)
- True Heart Susie (1919)
- Way Down East (1920)
- Orphans of the Storm (1921)
- Isn't Life Wonderful (1924)
- Abraham Lincoln (1930)