We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
America when the film was first shown. People took up sides with great vehemence. Some said it was anti-Negro, others said it was pro-Negro. There was so much bitterness and controversy aroused, that Griffith had to enter the field as a white-hot pamphleteer to argue that the film must be accorded the same right of expression as the novel or the newspaper.
From the scenics to the religious films, to Westerns, to melodramas, to the simple story film of the first Mary Pickford type, to the The Fall of Troy and Quo Vadis, the film had not yet attempted to get to grips with contemporary reality. In his previous work, such as Mans Genesis, and Judith of Bethulah, Griffith had been moving towards the expression of social ideas through the film. Until he joined Mutual, he had never had a completely free hand. It was only now that he was able to give full expression to those ideas. This development brought three important results to the cinema.
i. The film had staked its claim for the expression of ideas on current social problems for the first time.
2. 'The Birth of a Nation set a new standard in quality, not only in cinematic technique, but in conscientious search after truth in background, costumes and action, with consequently, an immeasurable increase in the scale of monetary expenditure on films.
3. It set a precedent for Chaplin when he joined Mutual three years later. It gave Chaplin the latitude to make pictures for that firm over which a great deal more care, time and money was expended than upon any comedies hitherto made. It gave Chaplin a practical insight into the technical problems involved, which later fitted him to make feature length masterpieces under his own personal direction.
88