A controversial, explicitly racist, but landmark American film masterpiece - these all describe ground-breaking producer/director D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915)....
Its pioneering technical work, often the work of Griffith's under-rated cameraman Billy Bitzer, includes many techniques that are now standard features of films, but first used in this film. Griffith brought all of his experience and techniques to this film from his earliest short films at Biograph, including the following:
•Use of ornate title cards •Special use of subtitles graphically verbalizing imagery •It's own original musical score written for an orchestra •Introduction of night photography (using magnesium flares) •Use of outdoor natural landscapes as backgrounds •Definitive usage of the still-shot •Elaborate costuming to achieve historical authenticity & accuracy •Many scenes innovatively filmed from many different and multiple angles •Technique of the camera "iris" effect (expanding or contracting circular masks to either reveal and open up a scene, or close down and conceal a part of an image) •Use of parallel action and editing in a sequence (Gus' attempted rape of Flora, and the KKK rescues of Elsie from Lynch and of Ben's sister Margaret) •Extensive use of color tinting for dramatic or psychological effect in sequences •Moving, traveling or "panning" camera tracking shots •Effective use of total-screen close-ups to reveal intimate expressions •Beautifully crafted, intimate family exchanges •Use of vignettes seen in "balloons" or "iris-shots" in one portion of a darkened screen •Use of fade-outs and cameo-profiles (a medium closeup in front of a blurry background) •Use of lap dissolves to blend or switch from one image to another •High-angle shots and the abundant use of panoramic long shots •Dramatization of history in a moving story - an example of an early spectacle or epic film with historical costuming and many historical references (e.g., Mathew Brady's Civil War photographs) •Impressive, splendidly-staged battle scenes with hundreds of extras (made to appear as thousands) •Extensive cross-cutting between two scenes to create a montage-effect and generate excitement and suspense (e.g., the scene of the gathering of the Klan) •Expert story-telling, with the cumulative building of the film to a dramatic climax
Last edited by AppleOnYa; 02/20/1111:46 PM.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
