Title
"'Birth of a Nation' Pictures Next Week" [newspaper article with image]
Date
1915
Description
This article on the Regent's showing of "The Birth of a Nation" describes "a new kind of grand opera" and includes an image of a large orchestra. The article only briefly mentions the "opposition aroused by the film" and otherwise links the musical score to the film's controversial themes and plot without criticism: "Now grave, now gay, no sounding the loud diapason of war, again sweetly harmonising love's sighs and rhapsodies; anon bringing back old plantation melodies, or the crash of riot and rapine, or the welcome Ku Klux Klan call that fell so gratefully on the ear of Southern whites sorely oppressed by the 'servants in the master's hall' - it fits the changing scenes of the story like a flowing beautiful garment. "
Inscription: "Birth of a Nation" Pictures Next Week | Wonderful Production Cost Half a Million Dollars to Make | Thousands of People and Horses Appear | Thrilling Events of Great Civil War Depicted in a Truthful Manner.
David W. Griffith's epoch-making spectacle, "The Firth of a Nation," following its record-breaking runs in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, will be seen in one of its original productions at the Russell Theatre all next week with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. This work, partly for the nature of the new art, partly from the opposition aroused, has excited keen curiosity and the extraordinary advance sale indicates that the playhouse will be crowded.
"The Birth of a Nation" tells by film and music the story of a nation re-born through the storm and stress of internecine strife. Instead of the four to six scenes of the conventional play, its technique permits of filming literally thousands of scenes and covering a wide range of history and characters. Slavery, the prime cause of the war; Lincoln's call for troops to subdue the Southern States; the ball on the eve of the Bull Run, and the first triumph of Confederate arms; the devastation wrought by Sherman's march and the awful ordeal of the Siege of Petersburg; Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox; the assassination of the Federal President; the harsh Radical policy to the stricken South; the uprising of the Ku Klux Klan, and the overthrow of the carpet-bagger regime - these great factors and events pass in review before the thrilled spectators
The Love Story | The love interest of the play is based on the friendships between the Camerons of South Carolina and the Stonemans of Pennsylvania, two families involved in the struggle. Ben Cameron, the gallant clansman of the Dixon stories appears again in the role of romantic hero; the piquant Northern girl, Elsie Stoneman, as the heroine. Mr. Griffith took most of the scenes in the great out-of-doors, where Nature painted the backgrounds and army men directed the battle campaigns. The notable indoor scenes, like Ford's Theatre on the night of the Lincoln tragedy, the peace at Appomattox, and the South Carolina legislature of 1870, are exact facsimiles of the originals. Altogether it is the first time in art-production that history in the large has been presented in living pictures. to do this many times the amount of the time, energy and expense usually devoted to amusement enterprises had to be used. Eighteen thousand people and 3,000 horses appear in the picture, which cost approximately $500,000 to produce.
Of equal importance to the scenes is the music that interprets them. It consists of an elaborate symphonic score arranged after Griffith's suggestions of the musical motifs for the leading characters. Now grave, now gay, no sounding the loud diapason of war, again sweetly harmonising love's sighs and rhapsodies; anon bringing back old plantation melodies, or the crash of riot and rapine, or the welcome Ku Klux Klan call that fell so gratefully on the ear of Southern whites sorely oppressed by the "servants in the master's hall" - it fits the changing scenes of the story like a flowing beautiful garment. The marriage of this music to the film best of all entitled the producer to his well-earned laurel of having created a new art; a new kind of grand opera, so to speak, that had not even been conceived before.
Symphony Orchestra with "The Birth of a Nation," at the Russell all next week.
David W. Griffith's epoch-making spectacle, "The Firth of a Nation," following its record-breaking runs in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, will be seen in one of its original productions at the Russell Theatre all next week with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. This work, partly for the nature of the new art, partly from the opposition aroused, has excited keen curiosity and the extraordinary advance sale indicates that the playhouse will be crowded.
"The Birth of a Nation" tells by film and music the story of a nation re-born through the storm and stress of internecine strife. Instead of the four to six scenes of the conventional play, its technique permits of filming literally thousands of scenes and covering a wide range of history and characters. Slavery, the prime cause of the war; Lincoln's call for troops to subdue the Southern States; the ball on the eve of the Bull Run, and the first triumph of Confederate arms; the devastation wrought by Sherman's march and the awful ordeal of the Siege of Petersburg; Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox; the assassination of the Federal President; the harsh Radical policy to the stricken South; the uprising of the Ku Klux Klan, and the overthrow of the carpet-bagger regime - these great factors and events pass in review before the thrilled spectators
The Love Story | The love interest of the play is based on the friendships between the Camerons of South Carolina and the Stonemans of Pennsylvania, two families involved in the struggle. Ben Cameron, the gallant clansman of the Dixon stories appears again in the role of romantic hero; the piquant Northern girl, Elsie Stoneman, as the heroine. Mr. Griffith took most of the scenes in the great out-of-doors, where Nature painted the backgrounds and army men directed the battle campaigns. The notable indoor scenes, like Ford's Theatre on the night of the Lincoln tragedy, the peace at Appomattox, and the South Carolina legislature of 1870, are exact facsimiles of the originals. Altogether it is the first time in art-production that history in the large has been presented in living pictures. to do this many times the amount of the time, energy and expense usually devoted to amusement enterprises had to be used. Eighteen thousand people and 3,000 horses appear in the picture, which cost approximately $500,000 to produce.
Of equal importance to the scenes is the music that interprets them. It consists of an elaborate symphonic score arranged after Griffith's suggestions of the musical motifs for the leading characters. Now grave, now gay, no sounding the loud diapason of war, again sweetly harmonising love's sighs and rhapsodies; anon bringing back old plantation melodies, or the crash of riot and rapine, or the welcome Ku Klux Klan call that fell so gratefully on the ear of Southern whites sorely oppressed by the "servants in the master's hall" - it fits the changing scenes of the story like a flowing beautiful garment. The marriage of this music to the film best of all entitled the producer to his well-earned laurel of having created a new art; a new kind of grand opera, so to speak, that had not even been conceived before.
Symphony Orchestra with "The Birth of a Nation," at the Russell all next week.
Source
"'Birth of a Nation' Pictures Next Week." Ottawa Journal. November 20 1915: 9.
Microfilm from Ottawa Public Library