D. W. Griffith  

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David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director.

Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915) made investors a profit, but also attracted much controversy, for its racist depiction of African Americans and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan. Intolerance (1916) was made as an answer to his critics, but not as an apology for the negative images of African Americans in film. Several of Griffith's later films were also successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but the high costs he incurred for production and promotion often led to commercial failure. He had made roughly 500 films by the time of his final feature, The Struggle (1931).

Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Griffith founded United Artists, enabling them to control their own interests, rather than depending on commercial studios.

A large part of Griffith's legacy is that he perpetuated racist stereotypes and opened the gateway to prejudice in mainstream Hollywood film. Refusing to apologize for the messages in his movies, he helped enable a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1910s and 1920s, enabling the onset of violence against black people and minorities in the United States. The Lost Cause post-Civil War narrative fabricated by Confederate politicians and high-ranking military was considered to be factual history after audiences saw it on the big silver screen.

Selected filmography

• The Taming of the Shrew (1908)
• Money Mad (1908)
• Balked at the Altar (1908)
• Romance of a Jewess (1908) with Florence Lawrence
• At the Altar (1909)
• "Those Awful Hats" (1909)
• Resurrection (1909)
• The Country Doctor (1909) with Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford
• In Old California (1910) with Henry B. Walthall
• In the Border States (1910) with Henry B. Walthall
• The Lonedale Operator (1911) with Blanche Sweet
• The Smile of a Child (1911) with Blanche Sweet
• Fighting Blood (1911) with Blanche Sweet and Lionel Barrymore
• Out from the Shadow (1911) with Blanche Sweet
• The Making of a Man (1911) with Blanche Sweet
• Her Awakening (1911) with Mabel Normand
• The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch (1912) with Blanche Sweet
• Friends (1912) with Mary Pickford, Henry B. Walthall, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey
• An Unseen Enemy (1912) with Lilian Gish
• The New York Hat (1912) with Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish
• Drink's Lure (1913)
• Oil and Water (1913) with Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey
• Judith of Bethulia (1914) with Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish
• Strongheart (1914) with Blanche Sweet, Lionel Barrymore and Alan Hale
• The Avenging Conscience (1914) with Blanche Sweet and Henry B. Walthall
• The Birth of a Nation (1915) with Lillian Gish, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper and Raoul Walsh
• Intolerance (1916)
• Broken Blossoms (1919) with Lillian Gish
• Way Down East (1920) with Lillian Gish
• Orphans of the Storm (1921) with Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish
• Dream Street (1921) with experimental sound sequences in Photokinema sound-on-disc process
• One Exciting Night (1922) with Henry Hull
• Mammy's Boy (1923) with Al Jolson
• America (1924)
• The Sorrows of Satan (1926)
• The Battle of the Sexes (1928)
• Lady of the Pavements (1929) with Lupe Velez and William Boyd
• D.W. Griffith's 'Abraham Lincoln' (1930) with Walter Huston