The Golden Age Of Hollywood

 
D.W. Griffith (1874 - 1948)



David Wark Griffith is often referred to as the father of film and it is an apt description. He didn't invent everything to do with filmmaking but he did bring it all together through imaginative use of existing techniques. Griffith's shadow falls over many pioneering filmmakers because basically he was a master storyteller who knew the stories the public would be interested in. He was also the first director whose work led the cinema to be considered an art form in its own right, The Birth of a Nation (1915) whatever else may be said about it was a milestone in the history of the industry and made the upper classes take the new medium seriously.

Griffith began his film career as an actor at the Biograph studio in 1908, he took the name Lawrence Griffith to conceal his identity because of the stigma which then existed about working in the flickers. Replacing the set director he made his first film The Adventures of Dollie over the next four years he laid the ground work for the American silent drama. His biggest innovation was probably his use of cutting between different events which increased tension. His actresses were to become some of the biggest stars of the silent era Mary Pickford, Lillian and Dorothy Gish.

It was Blanche Sweet though who took the title role in his most ambitious production for Biograph, Judith of Bethulia (1913) an attempt to match the Italians who had made American films look like poor relations with their pre-World War I epics. Biograph were against such extravagance though and believed audiences wouldn't sit through longer films so Griffith left the company and it never amounted to anything again.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) is a stunning but disturbing landmark in film history largely because of Griffith's mastery of story-telling techniques. He attempted to atone for its overt racism with Intolerance (1916) an incredible multi-story epic which lacked the dramatic unity of the Birth but is probably the greatest silent film in terms of technique.

Griffith lost a lot of money through the expensive floor shows that accompanied Intolerance (1916) and he was never able to make anything on that scale again. Hearts of the World (1918) was basically a remake of The Birth set in the Great War with anti-German propaganda. Better was the poetic romantic drama Broken Blossoms (1919) in which Lillian Gish gave one of her greatest fragile waif portrayals. Way Down East (1920) had another great Gish performance and an incredible final sequence in which Richard Barthelmess saved her from getting swept over the falls. Sadly it was Griffith's last great success.

Orphans of the Storm (1921) is another impressive film with the Gish sisters but Griffith had by now abdicated his position as most influential director in the industry. As the Twenties went on his films began to look more and more old fashioned, he never really adapted to the Jazz Age and Carol Dempster was no substitute for Lillian Gish. Eventually he lost his independence and became a contract director at Paramount, it didn't really work.
After just two sound films Griffith retired, the industry had no place for its founding father for the last 17 years of his life. It was a sad end to the career of the man who was as Chaplin said "the teacher of us all".


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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
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