Book description
" Thomas Dixon has a notorious reputation as the writer of the
source material for D. W. Griffith's groundbreaking and controversial
1915 feature film The Birth of a Nation . Perhaps unfairly, Dixon has
been branded an arch-conservative and a racist obsessed with what he
viewed as “the Negro problem.” As American Racist makes clear, however,
Dixon was a complex, multitalented individual who, as well as writing
some of the most popular novels of the early twentieth century, was
involved in the production of some eighteen films. Dixon used the motion
picture as a propaganda tool for his often outrageous opinions on race,
communism, socialism, and feminism. His most spectacular production, The
Fall of a Nation (1916), argues for American preparedness in the face of
war and boasts a musical score by Victor Herbert, making it the first
American feature film to have an original score by a major composer.
Like the majority of Dixon's films, The Fall of a Nation has been lost,
but had it survived, it might well have taken its place alongside The
Birth of a Nation as a masterwork of silent film. Anthony Slide examines
each of Dixon's films and discusses the novels from which they were
adapted. Slide chronicles Dixon's transformation from a major supporter
of the original Ku Klux Klan in his early novels to an ardent critic of
the modern Klan in his last film, Nation Aflame. American Racist is the
first book to discuss Dixon's work outside of literature and provide a
wide overview of the life and career of this highly controversial
twentieth-century southern populist. Anthony Slide is the author of
numerous books, including Silent Players: A Biographical and
Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses.
