D. W. Griffith

David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Widely considered as the most important filmmaker of his generation, he pioneered the feature-length movie and many enduring cinematic techniques, such as the close-up. His film The Birth of a Nation (1915) broke box-office records but also attracted much controversy, as it showed African Americans in a negative light and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Intolerance (1916) was made as an answer to his critics. Several of Griffith's later films were also successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but his high costs 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, he founded United Artists, enabling them to control their own interests, rather than depending on commercial studios. Griffith was a founder member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.