All of that is generally true, with several caveats:
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As I argued above, I do not agree with the use of the term “great” here, because of its semantic blurriness. There is a definition of “great” that is defensible, but several others that are not. Better to forestall the debate about intent by avoiding the word entirely.
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Birth of a Nation did not, all by itself, revolutionize film grammar. It incorporates many techniques of editing and camera movement that had been experimented with previously (e.g. the earliest “thematic closeup” I’m aware of was fifteen years before BoaN; also, Griffith himself was tinkering with cross-cutting in a Dickens adaptation five or six years beforehand), but it was the first movie to put them all together and then become a blockbuster box-office triumph. These techniques were previously uncommon because conventional wisdom said viewers wouldn’t know how to process the visual information; the real success of BoaN is in showing that audiences were ready for the revolution. The point is that it’s an overstatement to claim Griffith invented all of this modern film grammar in a single groundbreaking movie; the real history is quite a bit fuzzier than that.
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The real question is whether this movie has any interest or value outside the circles of serious film scholarship. I believe that within those circles, BoaN is indeed a very important movie, well worth watching, studying, and acknowledging. But outside those circles, I’m more skeptical. I take a dim view of the simple-minded cultural critics who foolishly argue that depiction must in all cases equate to endorsement, but at the same time I believe it’s worthwhile to carefully contextualize one’s comments about a technically significant but thematically repugnant movie like this.
Here is Roger Ebert on the movie:
As noted earlier, I quibble with the use of the word “great,” but in the context of this essay Ebert makes a case for it. He articulates a nuanced position, one with which I largely agree. There is space between “it’s a great movie, full stop” and “to the dustbin with you, racist trash!” BoaN occupies that middle space.