The Birth of a Nation (1915) is writer-producer-director D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking silent epic, a work of egregious racism (it was originally titled The Clansman, which is certainly significant) that also, tragically, was perhaps the most original and influential work of art produced by the still-nascent movie industry. It’s been called both “savage” and “the most influential film in history”; now–via this splendid preservation/reconstruction from Patrick Stanbury and Kevin Brownlow, the latter of whom has declared that “we can never censor the past”–modern audiences can see and judge for themselves.