c. 1913
David Wark Griffith's achievement is two-fold: he developed for Americans a syntax for expression in the movies, and he showed how the feature film could be a significant commercial and cultural element of American culture. The first achievement is less understood but more important than the second.
Griffith did not enter film with a record as a successful artist. He was a failure as a playwright, with but one of his plays actually produced. But because he approached film with the attitude that it was a temporary job, he saw it as an opportunity to experiment, to break the conventions of his era, to develop new means of relating narratives for the screen.
In 1907, when Griffith tried to sell a story to movie producer Edwin S. Porter who signed him on as an actor instead, American movies all too often consisted of series of scenes (originally called views) of events usually taken from the popular press or the stage. Static cameras recorded scenes connected by titles and little else. Four years earlier in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, Porter had stumbled onto more eloquent means of expression -- shorter scenes, multiple locations, use of natural landscapes with actors moving through them, even the close-up -- but he declined to develop these techniques. In fact when Griffith played the lead in Porter's RESCUED FROM AN EAGLE'S NEST (1907), the young actor was so carelessly filmed that he was obscured by the edge of the frame. Later that year, Griffith got his chance to direct and he showed an immediate talent for creative use of the frame, as well as developing rhythmic editing to build dramatic tension. Griffith also sought out younger performers who were less bound to the broad style of stage acting and more open to the nuances required for acting for a camera.
From 1907 to 1913, Griffith averaged 21 films a week, most of them for Biograph, using overlapping schedules and a stock company of actors who rapidly moved from one film to the next, sometimes in the same day. Griffith paid special attention to his actresses, developing a number of important women performers, including Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet and Mae Marsh.
In the midst of this whirlwind of production Griffith was developing new ways of telling stories that were uniquely suited to film. Editing became as important an element as cinematography, most notably in his use of cross cutting between parallel story lines. This offered opportunities to contrast behavior or social circumstance, as in A CORNER IN WHEAT (1909), or to develop suspense with a rising tempo of action, as in THE LONELY VILLA (1909). Griffith's collaborators in this adventure of inventing film language included not only his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, but also the actors themselves, who were encouraged to suggest mannerisms to enrich their performances.
At this time, filmmakers in other countries, especially France and Denmark, were making comparable discoveries about the importance of editing; often their films were shown in the United States, just as Griffith's Biograph productions were exported to Europe. This ongoing dialogue has made it nearly impossible to clearly define sources of innovation and influences which many historians have consigned solely to Griffith.
In 1913 Griffith broke with the Biograph Company when it declined to let him make feature-length films and the following year he began production on his first feature, THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915). Its release brought Griffith enormous acclaim and infamy. Audiences were dazzled by the film's sweep and epic power, as well as its intimate moments of pain and joy, but Griffith's embrace of the Ku Klux Klan and his insensitive depiction of black characters stirred up a storm of controversy. Previously relegated to the status of an amusement on the fringes of culture, movies were catapulted by Griffith and his film into social and financial prominence.
Griffith won financial independence with THE BIRTH OF A NATION and almost immediately moved on to another epic, an elaboration on the notion of parallel historical developments, which he would present through cross-cutting across time rather than geography. INTOLERANCE (1916) was a quartet of stories of man's inhumanity to man which some historians charge was Griffith's compensation for the accusations of racism made against him after THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Enormously expensive to produce, the film was nearly as big a box-office flop as BIRTH had been a hit. Its reputation over the years has in some ways surpassed its predecessor, and its influence is apparent in the works of Carl Dreyer, Sergei Eisenstein, Fritz Lang and many other directors.
As great an artistic achievement as INTOLERANCE was, it also left Griffith on a permanent financial treadmill, as he sought to pay off his debts with proceeds from future productions. From 1916 to 1931, he made over two dozen more features. At least five of these -- BROKEN BLOSSOMS (1919), WAY DOWN EAST (1920), ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1922), THE WHITE ROSE (1923) and ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL (1924) -- were either commercial or critical successes, but the financial dividends went to Griffith's creditors or producers. On one film, THE SORROWS OF SATAN (1926), Griffith's producers inflated the cost of the production by pressuring Griffith to film material he did not need and then recut the film after he had completed it. By the end of the silent era, Griffith was saddled with a reputation for extravagance, which was undeserved, and sentimentality, which was an integral part of his personality, although a steadily less compelling component of his films.
At the Awards ceremony in 1936
Ignored by the industry he played such an important role in creating, Griffith retreated to over a decade of isolation at Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel, where he died in 1948. For years, the scurrilous content of THE BIRTH OF A NATION and the unabashed sentiment of many of the other features consigned Griffith to the status of irrelevancy, but in the mid-1960s, a Griffith revival began, with re-appraisal of his early works and acknowlegements of his immense contributions.
Honorary Award 1935: "For his distinguished creative achievements as director and producer and his invaluable initiative and lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts." Winner presented a Statuette.
1 Honorary Award