While Robert Johnson is right in general about the movies, I think he is
wrong about _Birth of a Nation_.  Although the film ended up a huge success,
when the project was undertaken, almost nobody - aside from Griffith and his
immediate circle - thought that such an expensive, long, and costly film
would make any money.  It was made not so much out of commercial motives as
out of Griffith's deep belief 1) in the possibilities for motion picture
art [a quite noble belief, IMHO] and 2) in Thomas Dixon's racist view of
the history of the South, the Civil War and Reconstruction [a dangerous
belief which, with the release of _Birth of a Nation_ helped restart the
KKK].
 
-- Ben Alpers
   Princeton University