On this day in 1914, director D.W. Griffith began filming his controversial film Birth of a Nation, which introduces important new filmmaking techniques and influences many later directors.

Griffith started out as a stage actor and playwright in the late 1800s, then became a writer and director at movie studio Biograph. One of the first directors to realize that film acting required a different set of skills than stage acting, Griffith assembled a stable of actors specifically trained for the new medium, including Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish.

Griffith spent about $100,000 making Birth of a Nation, a Civil War epic that used groundbreaking techniques in filmmaking, including multiple camera angles. When the film debuted in Los Angeles in February 1915, it was nearly three hours long; before Griffith, directors had assumed audiences would never sit still for such a long movie.

The film, originally titled The Clansman, provoked an outcry from liberals and black leaders, who objected to the film’s sympathetic portrayal of members of the Ku Klux Klan and demonization of Southern blacks. Despite attempts by several groups to ban the film, the picture became a financial success, drawing long lines to pay the unprecedented price of $2 a ticket. One of the songs in the movie’s score, “The Perfect Song,” became the first musical hit generated by a movie. Oddly, the song became the theme music for the radio and TV series Amos ‘N Andy, which also provoked criticism for perpetuating racial stereotypes.