Showing results for "Sin" in Film & TV

How to do really bad things! What's a woman to wear when she kills her husband? Or plays her detective for a sap? And ultimately, what's the appropriate ensemble for facing a firing squad? Who is the femme fatale? Since time began, every culture has obsessed about her; women have wished to be her, and men - the dumb clucks - have connived to control her.

For over a century, cinephiles and film scholars have had to grapple with an ugly artifact that sits at the beginnings of film history. D. W. Griffith's profoundly racist epic, The Birth of a Nation, inspired controversy and protest at its 1915 release and was defended as both a true history of Reconstruction (although it was based on fiction) and a new achievement in cinematic art. Paul McEwan examines the long and shifting history of its reception, revealing how the film became not just a cinematic landmark but also an influential force in American aesthetics and intellectual life.