CFP: Southern Exposure: Analyzing the U.S. South through Film (2/1/06; collection)
Southern Exposure: Analyzing the U.S. South through Film
CFP: Critics often cite D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation as the
origin of the Hollywood feature film and credit it with helping to
form the Hollywood narrative style. However, the film also marks the
importance of the U.S. southern setting in shaping the American
cinematic imagination. Griffith's film raises the broad issues of
war, tragedy, and romance, but also depicts the more disturbing
issues that continue to be associated with the filmic south: racial
and sexual violence, slavery, vigilante justice, and lynching.