Birth of a Nation (1915) revised review

I have now tried twice to watch this movie, but failed miserably to get to any of the allegedly controversial content, never mind the end. The interminable scenes trying to establish the nature of the two families (the Camerons and the Stonemans) simply sent me to sleep, literally. I awoke in the middle of one of the civil war battles. Griffith's management of these large scale scenes would be impressive, if it wasn't for the fact that the camera is largely too distant for the audience to see what is going on.

Film historians will still be drawn to this movie, sometimes regarded as the first epic/blockbuster. But with so many more movies yet to watch, the rest of us can safely give this a pass.