Hello, my name is Justin the Clue, and I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club. And today, we're talking about D.W. Griffith.

We're pulling him out, we're knocking the dust off of him, and we're like, listen, it's the first

semester of film 101.

Let's do the Griffith episode.

I got to say, this is one of those topics that I actually find pretty intimidating.

Of course, because there's like a million books, documentaries, essays.

A hundred years of discourse.

Yeah, about D.W. Griffith. What can we bring new to the table? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So nowadays, D.W. Griffith's reputation is pretty bad. It's in that condition because, obviously, of the racism in birth of a nation.

Yes. And let's get it off the table now. Yep. A very racist movie.

Yeah. And frankly, I think it's fine that his reputation has suffered, to be honest. I mean, there were many decades where his reputation was, he was the father of American

cinema, he was the greatest artist Hollywood has ever produced. And then there was a time when his

reputation was, he's the father of American cinema. Some people think birth of a nation is racist.

Some people. And then, you you know there was a time when

his reputation was he was the father of american cinema and he created a very racist movie and now

it seems to me just you know wetting my finger and putting in the air that the current discourse

he was very racist he created one of the most evil films ever made, but he was also a very

important technical innovator. I think that's correct. I agree. I think that's a totally fair

and reasonable perspective. I think an important thing when you talk about a film like Burst of the

nation is that you can find it dramatically compelling, well edited, and stuff like that, and still

be like, oh, it's also very morally

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