In this acclaimed three-part documentary, celebrated film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill tell the proud, sad story of D.W. Griffith, the man who first brought artistry and ambition to the movies, and then, having dragged a reluctant American film industry to international prominence, found it had no more use for him. Judiciously chosen film clips illustrate exactly how, within seven years of going to work for Biograph Studios in 1908, Griffith painstakingly refined camera and acting techniques; how trial and error led him to create a grammar that was the cinema's own; and how, in 1915, he presented the fully-fledged film masterwork The birth of a nation. A wealth of background detail is provided by vivid accounts of Griffith at work (from Lillian Gish, Blanche Sweet, Karl Brown, Stanley Cortez, among others).