D.W. Griffith

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Am I wrong in remembering that part of the controversy of this specific book is about how poorly researched and inaccurate multiple aspects of the book are?

[DarkImbecile]

That’s the impression I’m getting: it’s very pointedly non-academic, and very casual in making assertions that sound a bit questionable — even if the basic thrust of the thesis is generally accurate

[domino harvey]

After years of occasional sampling, I finally sat down and worked my way through all 6+ hours of Kino's collection of Griffith's Biograph shorts. I should note that marathoning the set isn't an ideal method, as Griffith's work really starts to run together in close quarters, and you start realizing how much of these shorts were shot on the same street block! Nevertheless, on the whole I found this collection to be excellent, with none of the duds even rising below the level of mediocre/forgettable. In lieu of writeups for all 23 shorts, here's my five favorites, in order of preference:

the Miser's Heart (1911) A flint-hearted old man sacrifices his precious riches to save the life of a little girl. This short is essentially the platonic ideal for all of Griffith's incessant victorian moralizing: literally every character who does a good deed is rewarded in kind with a good deed that saves them. This would almost be too neat were Griffith not a master of stacking each of these characters against each other within the space of the film. It helps that this is also the funniest of the shorts in the set- quite a feat in a film in which the action relies on the incredible image of a toddler being actually hung out a window tied to a rope held over a burning candle! (A Letterboxd review tipped me to the fact that Griffith recycled this plot element from an earlier short called Cord of Life [not included in this set], but I dutifully watched it and it shares none of this short's strengths, so here's a strong argument in favor of self-cannibalization)

A Corner in Wheat (1909) A greedy industrialist is hoisted by his own petard. There's a terrific shot early on in this short that highlights how brilliant Griffith was at working with the static form to create fields of focus, as we see ground being tilled on three shifting fronts. The EC Comics-esque finale here was so effective that Griffith essentially remade the film as the far less successful the Usurer the following year.

the Painted Lady (1912) A banker's daughter participates in a clandestine affair with a criminal. One of the things that rises Griffith above the phony morality of a witnessing tool is his genuine compassion for those he judges wrong. The mental breakdown of the wayward daughter here is haunting and points to Griffith's warm-hearted nature as he captures her tormented grief. Rather than a reflection of cruelty, the short reveals how Griffith loves his pitiable blind fools (Lionel Barrymore's oblivious priest in the New York Hat is another variation of this that comes to mind)

the Sunbeam (1912) A little girl plays matchmaker for two lonely tenement denizens. This is 100% cornball romantic comedy fluff, but Griffith goes at it with such gusto that you can see why all those Shirley Temple vehicles just lifted this methodology wholesale. A deeply uncool and unironic winner.

the Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) Criminals attack each other and others as the underworld bleeds into regular life. An intriguing peak at the extent to which Griffith's heavy-handed morality has surprising depth-- here criminality is rewarded and forgiven as another "link in the system", with the law of the land superseded by basic human kindness. It's also wild and violent and extraordinarily shot!

Unexpectedly, though there are a lot of action-oriented shorts that presage the scale of the Birth of a Nation, I found his smaller stories more inviting. Though one of those, the Battle at Elderbush Gulch, does feel awfully prescient with its literal "They're eating the dogs" messaging!

Other random impactful images from other films in the set: An arcade crane scooping up the writhing bodies of women wearing ostentatious chapeaus; a suicide victim exhaling a mouthful of smoke after shooting himself; a cheater getting cheated on in turn in the impossibly close quarters of a restaurant; a black servant risking his life to save his dead master's memorial sword; a king delighting in twirling a flower fallen from the clothing of the unfaithful wife he just murdered; and a disembodied gun poking out from a hole in a wall.

[DeprongMori]

The Library of Congress has been busy restoring their collection of Griffith Biograph shorts from paper copyright records. Every morning at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone they screened three restored two-reelers. I was only there for a day and a half so only got to see Monday morning’s Biograph program, but they were beautifully restored from the paper copies — The Greaser’s Gauntlet, The Man and the Woman, and The Fatal Hour. The frame rate of 16fps worked very well for them.

[domino harvey]

Watched the Civil War shorts included in Kino’s set of Birth of a Nation and was deceived into high expectations because the first two shorts in the program rank amongst Griffith’s best. In the Border States is functionally built around the same kind of reciprocal salvation as the Miser’s Heart, but transferring this narrative to opposing sides of the war is an effective twist. But the real standout here is the House With Closed Shutters, where shame manifests into a corporeal form that imprisons both villains and victims alike. Wonderfully twisted stuff!

But it’s all downhill from there, unfortunately. The worst film here, and the worst I’ve seen from Griffith, is His Trust Fulfilled, a sequel to His Trust (duplicated here as well) that, like most sequels, does not need to exist. The heroic slave from the first installment gives into ludicrous self-sacrifice to benefit the orphan of his master, paying her way through society in secret as she blithely treats him as no more than trusted help. Admittedly I hate this narrative device (see Stella Dallas), but Griffith has no interest in the social complexities of this story and the film isn’t even interesting visually. Can see why they didn’t bother to include this in the Biograph set despite it containing the original

[pistolwink]

Sad to see another fine director dragged down by sequelitis.

[domino harvey]

Found this commemorative coin and could not resist for $5





Impossible to imagine something like this being made fifty years later for many reasons… it’s amazing any silent film director still had enough name recognition apart from film studies circles to merit a mass release like this in the 70s

[domino harvey]

Just got my first non-WB dead disc, on Image’s old two disc DW Griffith set of AB shorts, 2/3 of the way through the first disc. Bummer, because this is the only Griffith disc release of any of his films to have commentary tracks and that’s the main reason I picked it up. There’s only seven shorts here that don’t overlap with Kino’s Biograph set (and one of the seven is on their Birth of a Nation set, so really only six exclusive shorts), but I loved the four new to me shorts I was able to watch, especially the wonderful the Redman’s View (and the commentary on this one is, surprisingly, mostly concerned with examining how Griffith uses intertitles, or leaders as the American Biograph company referred to them— great contrast to Sarris’ reading of Griffith’s intertitles). Greatly enjoyed the short dramatizing the ills born from the creation of Coca-Cola (pardon me, “Dopokoke”) and turning it into a social problem picture too

[hearthesilence]

As part of MoMA's To Save and Project festival, a selection of newly restored shorts have been programmed with Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville's The Old Place (which Godard and Miéville made when at the turn of the new millennium, MoMA commissioned them to make a film about the Museum, its collection, and its history). The pairing comes because Griffith is indeed brought up in their film.

There's one more screening later in the month and FYI the restorations are presented with recorded scores, no live accompaniment:

Those Awful Hats. 1909. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With Mack Sennett, Flora Finch. DCP. 3 min
Romance of a Jewess. 1908. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With Florence Lawrence, George Gebhardt, Gladys Egan. DCP. 13 min.
Father Gets in the Game. 1908. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With Mack Sennett. DCP. 8 min.
An Awful Moment. 1908. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With George Gebhardt. DCP. 12 min.
All films preserved by the Film Preservation Society.
The Musketeers of Pig Alley. 1912. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With Lillian Gish, Elmer Booth. DCP. 16 min.
Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with funding from The Lillian Gish Trust for Film Preservation.

Inspired by Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville’s reflections on D. W. Griffith in The Old Place, from his pioneering development of film language and his politics to his crucial place in the history of MoMA’s own film collection, we present several shorts that Griffith made for the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company between 1908 and 1913. Whether in the canon or unseen for more than a century, these films have achieved an unprecedented visual clarity and coherence thanks to contemporary digital technologies and painstaking research by Tracey Goessel, Ruxandra Blaga, and Benjamin Solovey of the Film Preservation Society, as well as MoMA conservator Peter Williamson and other experts in the field. The films in this selection, which have been digitally restored using 35mm materials preserved by MoMA, the Library of Congress paper print collection, and other sources, allow us to trace Griffith’s experiments in visual storytelling: the melodrama Romance of a Jewess (1908), shot on location on New York’s Lower East Side; the suspenseful An Awful Moment (1908); the proto-Keystone comedy Father Gets in the Game (1908), starring Mack Sennett in his first-ever lead appearance; the trick film Those Awful Hats (1909), a spoof of nickelodeon moviegoing; and the seminal gangster film The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912).

They actually show Those Awful Hats first since it can double as a courtesy notice to the audience, then The Old Place, then the remaining Griffith shorts.

Watching these reminded me of something Gary Giddins said about Bing Crosby - it's hard for modern ears unfamiliar with that era to see what was so revolutionary about Crosby until you listen to him in context. (Once you hear other pop records at the time, his achievements in reshaping and profoundly changing singing in pop music is apparent where he brings in innovations that may have been heard in the most important jazz and blues of the time but were completely absent from pop recordings normally sung by white musicians.)

These films are too few with a big gap between the last two films to play as a precise and comprehensive look at how cinema evolved, but you do see the baby steps.

Romance of a Jewess is like a filmed play. It's also a melodrama of its time from story to acting style. It's all long shots that generally last for the duration of an entire scene, and nothing that comes off as remarkable tableaux filmmaking. (Usually the only visual elements of importance are a few actors that usually move along the x-axis.) But there is one startling shot that appears to have been set up on a genuine urban sidewalk - it's so much denser in detail than the other sets with such naturalist behavior from the designated "extras" that I'm guessing they set up a hidden camera and had the actress walk down the street as if she was a local. (It's possibly the only notable z-axis movement I can remember.) Either that or they uncharacteristically put a lot of resources into one shot that lasts several seconds. Also notable is how few intertitles there are, with no dialogue involved, but it's mainly because they throw them up to set a scene. The action and story are so elemental, they're rarely needed to clarify anything after they're used to set the scene.

Father Gets in the Game is a decent broad bit of comedy, and much of it is shot outside (possibly Central Park?) Again mostly long shots that reveal the entire height of the body and then some. There is one close-up I can remember of a business card, which is essentially an intertitle. (It's clearly mocked up, they didn't shoot a small card held in someone's hand.)

An Awful Moment is a suspense film where the climax works on the basic principle that we know something the central character does not, so we're bracing for something terrible to happen should a specific action occur. The film noticeably has more complex action. Again, it's mostly filmed with long shots that are static and last for the duration of a scene, but the opening shot is a pretty busy shot, dense with characters instead of just lead characters so it requires a lot of action/business to fill out the composition. There's one moving shot that follows a gypsy vertically as she climbs up to a window. Then the final shot is startling - we get a long shot that doesn't run for the entire moment, it actually cuts to a medium or possibly a medium closeup, and it's from the same angle too. So for the first time we're using something much closer than a long shot, and on top of that, we're cutting to it from the same set up ("we don't have to keep the shot the same, we can jump closer!") On the heels of the other shorts, this is a startling new development that strongly punctuates the conclusion.

Those Awful Hats is a funny and broad comedy. Shown first, it chronologically fits here. It's mostly a special effects piece, and I won't give away why, but it's the same long shot setup (which makes sense as a way of accommodating the effects), and there's a few jump cuts that look intentional, what Méliès did to cheat in special effects. The shortest so far, it's also the most entertaining.

A sizable three or four year gap comes between these preceding films and The Musketeers of Pig Alley, and the advances are numerous. Camera's much closer, with medium shots dominating. Z-axis movement is not only a frequent component of how the general action is choreographed, it's possibly more dominant than x-axis movement (i.e. Griffith has really grown to love depth in composing a frame). Also most of the action is outdoors, but nothing that suggests a hidden camera. Lots more extras in most shots. The most startling shot is the use of a close-up, which I won't describe, it's wonderful seeing it for yourself and how it emerges in a scene. Also it only occurred to me later that changing focus is another development because they had to have done it given how much z-axis movement there is (combined with tighter shots). The acting in general is more subtle and naturalistic, a substantial change from before. (Lillian Gish is actually the first person you see, virtually marking the change we're about to see.) Seen in this context, the film comes off as revelatory.

All the restorations look amazing. The most impressive is Those Awful Hats which used a paper print held by the Library of Congress to fill in gaps of a 35mm element, but it's virtually seamless.

[hearthesilence]

Forgot one observation - it made sense why long shots were originally preferred because when you see these films projected, you realize they kind of replicate a live stage play, perhaps intentionally. This is made especially clear when you see the film within the film Those Awful Hats - they could be watching a play and that choice would have worked too.

[Stefan Andersson]

Way Down East:
"World premiere of the new, digitized edition of MoMA’s definitive 1979 photochemical restoration. 145 min."
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11556

[Tyler Michael]

Way Down East:
"World premiere of the new, digitized edition of MoMA’s definitive 1979 photochemical restoration. 145 min."
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11556

My absolute favorite of his. For those of us not in the City, though, is this print that’s debuting a significant departure from the MOMA restoration as presented on that Kino Blu Ray?

[hearthesilence]

It's definitely an updated master and probably a new scan, but how big of an upgrade remains to be seen.

[Peacock]

What’s the deal with Orphans of the Storm and Broken Blossoms not getting a Blu-ray release anywhere? These are major films. Here’s Way Down East getting an updated master (which is fantastic don’t get me wrong) while those two appear to be forgotten?

[Orlac]

What’s the deal with Orphans of the Storm and Broken Blossoms not getting a Blu-ray release anywhere? These are major films. Here’s Way Down East getting an updated master (which is fantastic don’t get me wrong) while those two appear to be forgotten?

The Griffith I most want to see restored is ONE EXCITING NIGHT, even though from all accounts it's terrible (and racist, what a shock!). It's his attempt at an old dark house movie after he was unable to get the rights to THE BAT.

[pistolwink]

True Heart Susie is another great one that doesn't have a new master since the Image DVD from 20+ years ago (I believe the version released by Flicker Alley is just the same disc image).

[Stefan]

True Heart Susie is another great one that doesn't have a new master since the Image DVD from 20+ years ago (I believe the version released by Flicker Alley is just the same disc image).

Indeed, this gem definitely needs all possible love and care by any restorers. It was, by the way, Jacques Rivette's favorite film.