Remembering D.W. Griffith — One of White Cinema’s Titans
Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, January 22, 2020
D.W. Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) is best known for his 1915 masterpiece Birth of a Nation. The film covers the American Civil War and “reconstruction” in sprawling, epic, and exciting detail. More importantly, it is often credited for helping stimulate the uptick in white racial consciousness in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s. And that consciousness led to the sensible immigration policies that kept the country homogeneously European until their undoing in the 1960s. This makes Birth of the Nation one of the most consequential films in American history.
It is certainly worth watching — and you can find thorough reviews of it on nearly every dissident website — but unfortunately, its popularity has overshadowed a number of other excellent Griffith films. As with most filmmakers of the time, the bulk of his filmography consists of shorts, most of which can easily be found on YouTube. I especially recommend his Westerns, which are just as racial as his Southern films. Here are three good ones:
The Last Drop of Water (1911)
The Massacre (1912)
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913)
