On February 18, 1915, D.W. Griffith unspooled his three-hour “The Birth of a Nation” in the East Room of the White House to a rhapsodic response. The then-president, Woodrow Wilson, was a defender of the Confederacy and peddled “Lost Cause” propaganda, and he was literally quoted three times in the film itself, including a remark in which he praised the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s generally accepted that after that screening Wilson said of Griffith’s film, immediately controversial upon release as it has been ever since, that it was “like writing history with lightning.” If this choice as the first movie ever projected inside the White House is lamentable, take heart in knowing that there was a previous screening outside on the lawn of the 1914 Italian silent masterpiece “Cabiria” that was the very first movie shown on the grounds full-stop.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.imdb.com ’
