Outdoor night-time shots in this film were lit by red magnesium flares, and
Outdoor night-time shots in this film were lit by red magnesium flares, and another of its innovations was the use of the iris effect for close-ups. An early scene depicts a housekeeper named Lydia attempting to flirt with Charles Sumner, while his dismissal of her leads her to spit after him and tear her shirt in frustrated desire. Late in the film Flora Cameron jumps to her death rather than submit to the lustful advance of the Black Union soldier Gus, leading her brother Ben to bring the Ku Klux Klan to the rescue of Southerners suffering under Reconstruction. So runs the ugly plot of, FTP, what film described as "history written with lightning" by Woodrow Wilson, the first epic silent film directed by D.W. Griffith?
Outdoor night-time shots in this film were lit by red magnesium flares, and another of its innovations was the use of the iris effect for close-ups.
{Birth of a Nation}