Because of the repugnancy of the subject matter of this movie, I've never been able to watch more than bits and pieces of it, let alone acknowledge it as a monument in the development of the filmmaker's art. Having read the three chapters Lillian devotes to this, I can see how D.W. Griffith was innovating with nearly every scene in the movie. It was the first (what we would call) full length movie to be made and accounts for a great many film making techniques we see today.
The film was met with huge controversy at the time, which bewildered D.W., who seems to have been a true child of the aristocratic South. Lillian spends much time trying to defend and explain his thinking (she wrote the autobiography I am reading in 1969.)
I am struck by what a student she was of the medium...She would have been about 22 when "Birth" was released. She had worked on it during any free time she had during her sixteen hour days, often seven days a week--doing whatever needed doing and watching the rushes whenever she could. On the stage from the time she was 5 and in movies from about 16 on, she immersed herself in the storyteller's art and understandably idolized D. W. Griffith.
As it turns out, the film was re-edited in the 30's and three reels were totally left out. So, what we have access to today is not the film Griffith was so proud of. (Of course...it might have been worse from a subject matter standpoint.) Lillian was really just a child, and a child of the medium at that. I wasn't even born until 30 years after this movie was released, so I am not one to put her down for her support of the film and its maker. And I must avow a new respect for the role Griffith (an Lillian Gish) played in the development of the medium of film.
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