He has the mask of the Ku Klux Klan on his face till the crisis has passed.
The wrath of the Southerner against the blacks and their Northern organizers has been piled up through many previous scenes.

As a result this rescue is a real climax, something the photoplays that trace strictly personal hatreds cannot achieve.
The Birth of a Nation is a Crowd Picture in a triple sense.

On the films, as in the audience, it turns the crowd into a mob that is either for or against the Reverend Thomas Dixon's poisonous hatred of the negro.
Griffith is a chameleon in interpreting his authors.

Wherever the scenario shows traces of The Clansman, the original book, by Thomas Dixon, it is bad.

Wherever it is unadulterated Griffith, which is half the time, it is good.