Directed by D. W. Griffith

Alongside Carl Theodor Dreyer and Sergei Eisenstein, DW Griffith is considered one of the founding fathers of modern cinema – albeit, perhaps, the most controversial of the three thanks to his epic 1915 masterpiece Birth of a Nation (a technically brilliant and innovative film, the subject matter – it was an adaptation of Thomas Dixon’s novel, T... show more >

Alongside Carl Theodor Dreyer and Sergei Eisenstein, DW Griffith is considered one of the founding fathers of modern cinema – albeit, perhaps, the most controversial of the three thanks to his epic 1915 masterpiece Birth of a Nation (a technically brilliant and innovative film, the subject matter – it was an adaptation of Thomas Dixon’s novel, The Clansman – continues to incite fierce debate to this day). Certainly Birth of a Nation was the first film to have queues stretching around the block and, as King Kong’s inamorata Lilian Gish later explained in an interview, ‘They lost count of the amount of money they made…’ Irrespective of the controversy, film-makers as diverse as John Ford, Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin (who called him ‘The Teacher of Us All’) cite him as one of the greats – and who are we to disagree with them? < show less