Both spiritual father and sustaining mother to an infant art, D. W. Griffith expanded the artistic horizons of audiences, safely shepherding cinema into adulthood and nurturing its unique language. Malcontent as a mere film actor, Griffith joined Biograph Studios in 1908...
[more]Both spiritual father and sustaining mother to an infant art, D. W. Griffith expanded the artistic horizons of audiences, safely shepherding cinema into adulthood and nurturing its unique language. Malcontent as a mere film actor, Griffith joined Biograph Studios in 1908 as a writer and director, delivering a copious body of work -- over 500 short films in just five years. Many early cinema stars earned their close-ups and honed their craft with Griffith, who was a busy promoter of silent stars such as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish.
Credited with innovations including crosscutting, close-ups, and the iris shot, Griffith had such a pervasive influence on film that his name became synonymous with the medium. His performers respected him absolutely as patriarch, mogul, and creative captain. As his popularity and box-office receipts skyrocketed, so did his expansive aesthetic; he melded grandiose historical settings with intimate scenes of heart-wrenching human drama. His greatest triumph was the epic "Birth Of A Nation" (1915), a work that paradoxically cemented his fame and shattered his enviable reputation. This three-hour Civil War Reconstruction melodrama became a landmark in American filmmaking, both for its artistic merits and for its breakthrough use of flashbacks, fade-outs, and close-ups. The film was harshly condemned, however, for its racial bias and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan; several subsequent lynchings were blamed on the film.
As Griffith continued to direct feature films into the 1920s, the scale of his productions got ever bigger, and so did the messages he hoped to convey. "Intolerance" (1916), a cinematic defense of intellectual freedom, unveiled an altruistic Griffith who sought the olive branch from that segment of the public alienated by "Birth of a Nation." Bloated, confusing, and lacking in internal consistency, "Intolerance" came at a huge cost to morale and finances. Its failure forced Griffith into dependence on other backers, permanently breaking his spirit and his aesthetic concentration.
Although Griffith made numerous other films, none ranked in sheer brilliance with his two monumental works. Among the best of these later efforts were "Broken Blossoms" (1919), released by his newly formed corporation, United Artists; "Way Down East" (1920); and "Abraham Lincoln" (1930). As his story lines became blander, his audience rejected him in favor of movies about gun molls, gin mills, and gangsters. Griffith, who was both worshiped and maligned in the span of a lifetime, died alone and forgotten by the industry he helped to build.
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