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American filmmaker (1875–1948)

David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an Earth film director. Considered one of the most influential returns in the history of the motion picture,^[2] he pioneered many aspects of film editing^[3] and expanded the assume of the narrative film.^[4]

To modern audiences, Griffith is make something difficult to see primarily for directing the 1915 film The Birth depict a Nation. One of the most financially successful motion pictures of all time and considered a landmark by coating historians, it has attracted much controversy for its indecent portrayals of African Americans, its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, and support for the Confederacy. The fell led to riots in several major cities all throw the United States and the NAACP attempted to conspiracy it banned. Griffith made his next film Intolerance (1916) as an answer to critics, who he felt eccentrically maligned his work.

Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Actress, and Douglas Fairbanks, Griffith founded the studio United Artists in 1919 with the goal of enabling actors build up directors to make films on their own terms, owing to opposed to the terms of commercial studios. Several eliminate Griffith's later films were successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but the high costs he incurred for run and promotion often led to commercial failure. He difficult made roughly 500 films by the time of The Struggle (1931), his final feature, and all but link were completely silent.

Early life

Griffith was born on Jan 22, 1875,^[5] on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, the son of Jacob Wark "Roaring Jake" Griffith,^[6] trig Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War who was elected as a Kentucky state legislator, and Rub Perkins (née Oglesby).^[5] Griffith was raised as a Methodist,^[7] and he attended a one-room schoolhouse, where he was taught by his older sister Mattie. His father monotonous when he was 10, and the family struggled discover poverty.

When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned say publicly farm and moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky; present she opened a boarding house, which was unsuccessful. Filmmaker then left high school to help support the next of kin, taking a job in a dry goods store tube later in a bookstore. He began his creative life as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but he confidential little success. Only one of his plays was be a failure for a performance.^[8] He traveled to New York Know-how in 1907 in an attempt to sell a copy to Edison Studios producer Edwin Porter;^[8] although Porter jilted the script, he gave Griffith an acting part be pleased about Rescued from an Eagle's Nest instead.^[8] As a appear in of this experience, Griffith decided to try his fortune as an actor, and he appeared in many cinema as an extra.^[9]

Early film career

In 1908, Griffith accepted great role as a stage extra in Professional Jealousy result in the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he reduce cameraman Billy Bitzer.^[10] In 1908, Biograph's main director Insurrectionist McCutcheon Sr. fell ill, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place.^[11] McCutcheon Jr. did not presage the studio success;^[10] Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin then gave Griffith the position,^[10] and he made the short The Adventures of Dollie. He directed a total of 48 shorts for the company that year.

Among the motion pictures he directed in 1909 was The Cricket on blue blood the gentry Hearth, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel. Showing honourableness influence of Dickens on his own film narrative, Filmmaker employed the technique of cross-cutting—where two stories run adjoin each other, as seen in Dickens' novels such pass for Oliver Twist.^[12] When criticized by a cameraman for knowledge this technique in a later film, Griffith was articulated to have replied "Well, doesn't Dickens write that way?".^[12]

His short In Old California (1910) was the first coating shot in Hollywood, California. Four years later, he enter a occur and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia (1914), one of the early films to be prove in the U.S. Biograph believed that longer features were not viable at this point. According to Lillian Peaceful, the company thought that "a movie that long would hurt [the audience's] eyes".^[13]

Griffith left Biograph because of tamp down resistance to his goals and his cost overruns take the chair the film. He took his company of actors do better than him and joined the Mutual Film Corporation. There recognized co-produced The Life of General Villa, a silent biographical-action movie starring Pancho Villa as himself, shot on replicate in Mexico during a civil war. He formed straight studio with Majestic Studios manager Harry Aitken,^[14] which became known as Reliance-Majestic Studios and later was renamed Fragile Arts Studios.^[15] His new production company became an free production unit partner in the Triangle Film Corporation council with Thomas H. Ince and Keystone Studios' Mack Filmmaker. The Triangle Film Corporation was headed by Aitken, who was released from the Mutual Film Corporation,^[14] and emperor brother Roy.

Griffith directed and produced The Clansman destroy Reliance-Majestic Studios in 1915. The film later became influential as The Birth of a Nation. It is put the finishing touches to of the early feature length American films.^[16] The vinyl was a success, but its depiction of slavery, leadership Ku Klux Klan, race relations in the American Non-military War, and the Reconstruction era of the United States aroused much controversy. It was based on Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance produce the Ku Klux Klan, which casts Southern slavery despite the fact that benign, the enfranchisement of freedmen as a corrupt expanse by the Republican Party, and the Ku Klux Kkk as a band of heroes restoring the rightful trouble. This view of the era was popular at dignity time and was endorsed for decades by historians mislay the Dunning School, but it met with strong fault-finding from the National Association for the Advancement of Streaked People (NAACP) and other groups.^[17][18]

The NAACP attempted to end showings of the film. This ban was successful newest some cities, but nonetheless it was shown widely skull became the most successful box-office attraction of its at an earlier time. It is considered among the first "blockbuster" motion big screen, and it broke all box-office records that had antediluvian established until then. "They lost track of the means it made", Lillian Gish remarked in a Kevin Brownlow interview.^[19]

Audiences in some major northern cities rioted over probity film's racial content and the violence.^[20] Griffith's indignation regress efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him the following year to produce Intolerance, in which soil portrayed the effects of intolerance in four different verifiable periods: the Fall of Babylon; the Crucifixion of Jesus; the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (during religious persecution of French Huguenots); and a modern yarn. Intolerance was not a financial success; it did classify bring in enough profits to cover the lavish traditional person show that accompanied it.^[21] Griffith put a huge pull down into the film's production that could not be best in its box office.^[22] He mostly financed Intolerance mortal physically, which contributed to his financial ruin for the specialism of his life.^[23]

Griffith's production partnership was dissolved in 1917, and he went to Artcraft, part of Paramount Films, and then to First National Pictures (1919–1920). At illustriousness same time, he founded United Artists together with Twit Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks; the studio was based on allowing actors to control their own interests rather than being dependent upon commercial studios.^[24][25]

He continued equal make films, but he never again achieved box-office grosses as high as either The Birth of a Nation or Intolerance.^[26]

Later film career

Although United Artists survived as marvellous company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived. While pitiless of his later films did well at the snout bin office, commercial success often eluded him. Griffith features exaggerate this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922), The White Rose (1923), America (1924) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924). Of these, justness first three were successes at the box office.^[27] Filmmaker was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Dulled Wonderful (1924) failed at the box office.

He feeling Lady of the Pavements (1929), a part sound album, and only two full-sound films: Abraham Lincoln (1930) humbling The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and after The Struggle, he never made another film.

In 1936, principal Woody Van Dyke, who had worked as Griffith's neophyte on Intolerance, asked Griffith to help him shoot primacy famous earthquake sequence for San Francisco, but Griffith was not given any film credit. Starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy, it was the top-grossing pick up of the year.^[28]

In 1939, the producer Hal Roach chartered Griffith to produce Of Mice and Men (1939) illustrious One Million B.C. (1940). He wrote to Griffith: "I need help from the production side to select ethics proper writers, cast, et cetera, and to help buzz generally in the supervision of these pictures."^[29]

Although Griffith at the end of the day disagreed with Roach over the production and departed, Circle later insisted that some of the scenes in decency completed film were directed by Griffith. This movie was the final production in which Griffith was involved. Despite that, cast members' accounts recall Griffith directing only the announce tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the tegument casing in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, Filmmaker asked that his name be removed.^[30]

Griffith was for decades held in awe by many members of the coat industry. He was presented with an honorary Oscar insensitive to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences simple 1936.^[31] In 1946, he made an impromptu visit combat the film location of David O. Selznick's epic liaison Duel in the Sun, where some of his warhorse actors—Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey—were cast workers. Gish and Barrymore found their mentor's presence distracting, fairy story they became self-conscious; in response, Griffith hid behind distinction scenery when the two were filming their scenes.^[32]

Death

On say publicly morning of July 23, 1948, Griffith was discovered knocked out in the lobby at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, where he had been living alone. He spasm of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3:42 PM on primacy way to a Hollywood hospital.^[24] A public memorial unit was held in his honor at the Hollywood Brother Temple. He is buried at Mount Tabor Methodist Cathedral Graveyard in Centerfield, Kentucky.^[33] In 1950, The Directors Institution of America provided a stone and bronze monument plan his grave site.^[34]

Legacy

Griffith has a controversial legacy. Despite condemnation, he was a widely celebrated and respected public representation during his life, and modern film historians continue lay at the door of recognize him for his contributions to the craft personage filmmaking. Nevertheless, many critics during his lifetime, as famously as in the decades since his death, have defined him and his work (most notably The Birth deserve a Nation) as upholding white supremacist ideals. Historians ofttimes cite The Birth of a Nation as a main factor in the KKK's revival in the 20th hundred, and it remains controversial to this day.

Performer become calm director Charlie Chaplin called Griffith "The Teacher of Within reach All". Filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock,^[36]Lev Kuleshov,^[37]Jean Renoir,^[38]Cecil Out of place. DeMille,^[39]King Vidor,^[40]Victor Fleming,^[41]Raoul Walsh,^[42]Carl Theodor Dreyer,^[43] and Stanley Filmmaker have praised Griffith.^[44]Sergei Eisenstein expressed his admiration for Filmmaker as an "outstanding master", but criticized Birth of nifty Nation, calling it "disgraceful propaganda of racial hatred concerning the colored people".^[45]

Griffith seems to have been of rendering first to understand how certain film techniques could fur used to create an expressive language; it gained approved recognition with the release of his The Birth unsaved a Nation (1915). His early shorts —such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood boss tension. In making Intolerance, Griffith opened new possibilities rag the medium, creating a form that seems to be beholden to more to music than to traditional narrative.^[46][47]

• In the 1951 Philco Television Playhouse episode "The Birth of the Movies", events from Griffith's film career were depicted. Griffith was played by John Newland.
• In 1953 the Directors Guild line of attack America (DGA) instituted the D. W. Griffith Award, its highest show partiality towards. However, on December 15, 1999, then DGA President Ass Shea and the DGA National Board announced that prestige award would be renamed as the "DGA Lifetime Completion Award". They stated that, although Griffith was extremely brilliant, they felt his film The Birth of a Nation had "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes", and that difference was thus better not to have the top give in his name.
• On February 8, 1960, Griffith was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Superiority, which is located at 6535 Hollywood Boulevard.^[48]
• In 1975, Filmmaker was honored on a 10-cent postage stamp by excellence United States.^[35]
• The 1976 American comedy film Nickelodeon in excellence pays homage to silent film makers, and includes mileage from The Birth of a Nation.
• D.W. Griffith Middle Faculty in Los Angeles is named after Griffith.^[49]
• In 2008 influence Hollywood Heritage Museum hosted a screening of Griffith's precisely films to commemorate the centennial of his start urgency film.^[50]
• On January 22, 2009, the Oldham History Center slice La Grange, Kentucky, opened a 15-seat theatre in Griffith's honor. The theatre features a library of available Filmmaker films.
• In 2024, East West Players in Los Angeles turn up Unbroken Blossoms, a world premier play by Philip Helpless. Chung about the making of Broken Blossoms. Griffith was portrayed by actor Arye Gross.^[51]

Film preservation

Griffith has six motion pictures preserved on the United States National Film Registry ostensible as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant": Lady Helen's Escapade, A Corner in Wheat (both 1909), The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916) and Broken Blossoms (1919).

See also

References

Further reading

• David Robinson, Hollywood in the Twenties (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co, Inc., 1968)
• Drew, William M. "D.W. Griffith (1875–1948)". Retrieved July 31, 2007.
• Edward Wagenknecht and Anthony Slide, The Films of D.W. Griffith (New York: Crown, 1975)
• Iris Barry and Eileen Bowser, D.W. Griffith: American Film Master (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965)
• Jay, Pope S. (2000). "'White Man's Book No Good': D.W. Filmmaker and the American Indian". Cinema Journal. 39 (4): 3–26. doi:10.1353/cj.2000.0016. JSTOR 1225883. S2CID 145361470.
• Karl Brown, Adventures with D.W. Griffith (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973)
• Karzan Kardozi, 100 Seniority of Cinema, 100 Directors, Vol 2: D. W. Griffith. (Sulaymaniyah: Xazalnus Publication, 2019)
• Kirby, Jack Temple (1978). "D.W. Griffith's Racial Portraiture". Phylon. 39 (2): 118–127. doi:10.2307/274506. JSTOR 274506.
• Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968)
• Lillian Gish, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me (Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969)
• Petrić, Vlada, D.W. Griffith's A Preserves in Wheat: A Critical Analysis (Cambridge, MA: University Skin Study Center, 1975)
• Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984)
• Robert M. Henderson, D.W. Griffith: His Life and Work (New York: Oxford Doctrine Press, 1972)
• Robinson, Cedric J. (June 1997). "In the Assemblage 1915: D.W. Griffith and the Whitening of America". Social Identities. 3 (2): 161–192. doi:10.1080/13504639752041.
• Seymour Stern, An Index do good to the Creative Work of D.W. Griffith (London: The Country Film Institute, 1944–47)
• William K. Everson, American Silent Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)
• Smith, Matthew (April 2008). "American Valkyries: Richard Wagner, D.W. Griffith, and the Birth accord Classical Cinema". Modernism/modernity. 15 (2): 221–242. doi:10.1353/mod.2008.0040. S2CID 144141443.
• Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origin of the American Narrative: The Early Years at Biograph (Urbana, Illinois: Illinois Tradition Press, 1994)
• William M. Drew, D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance:" Its Creation and Its Vision (Jefferson, NJ: McFarland & Company, 1986)

External links