"It Can't Be Ignored"

"Today, what they saw for the first time, we cannot see at all. Griffith assembled and perfected the early discoveries of film language, and his cinematic techniques that have influenced the visual strategies of virtually every film made since; they have become so familiar we are not even aware of them. We, on the other hand, are astonished by racist attitudes that were equally invisible to most white audiences in 1915."

In a 2003 article, Roger Ebert wrestles with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.