'Birth of a Nation' re-assessed [audio 45min]

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss one of the most important and controversial films of all time: D W Griffith's controversial silent classic from 1915, The Birth of a Nation. This film was the first great feature film, probably also the first great war movie, the first film to be shown in the White House and, until Apocalypse Now, the most famous use of Wagner's"Ride of the Valkyries" in cinema. It was also the highest grossing film in American history for decades until it was beaten by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But it is also a film whose subject is the triumph of the Ku Klux Klan in restoring the Southern states in the years following the American Civil War. It caused riots throughout the twentieth century, right up to the 1970s, and has divided the public. To re-assess the film Matthew Sweet is joined by the writers Kevin Jackson and Bonnie Greer, and the film historians Richard Dyer and Kevin Brownlow.