@import "/media/css/tf.css"; /* layout - screen only*/ @import "/media/css/reason.css"; /* layout - screen only*/ Reason Magazine Subscribe Site Search Subscribe Contact Us Reason Staff ... Submissions Site comments/questions: Mike Alissi Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions: Chris Mitchell 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 400 Los Angeles, CA 90034 The Outsiders How D.W. Griffith Paved the Way for Ed Wood Jesse Walker Ninety years ago today, at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles, 2,500 people watched the premiere of The Clansman , a 12-reel saga of the Civil War and Reconstruction directed by the Kentucky-born filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Later retitled The Birth of a Nation , the movie climaxes with a horde of Negroes besieging a cabin full of whites. If you've seen any modern zombie movie, then you've seen an echo of the cabin scene: In Griffith's eyes, the blacks outside that little house are the Living Dead, their monstrous arms reaching through the doors and windows while our heroes try desperately to fend them off. In Griffith's movie, the whites are rescued by the Ku Klux Klan, who subsequently strip the blacks of their arms and of the franchise. The movie had already been condemned by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the city of Los Angeles had passed an injunction against a matinee screening. Other jurisdictions would soon ban the picture outright. But | |
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