D.W. Griffith - The Birth of an Art Form - Essay Example

D.W. Griffith: The Birth of an Art Form Prior to the career and work of D.W. Griffith, the art and industry of film was still developing into its infancy stage. At this point in history, the life of D.W. Griffith happened to intersect with the birth of film and cinema at just the right time. He was an individual who played a clear, undeniable role in establishing film and motion pictures as the dominant medium for artistic expression of the 20th century to date. Through the use of novel filming techniques and a vision of film as a viable business enterprise, Griffith rose to prominence as one of the industry’s foremost directors while at the same time a complex artist with a well-developed vision. In spite of his great strengths, Griffith’s life ended not with great admiration but in a whimper—a cast-out of the industry he helped to create. Griffiths legacy is defined by his great works, The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, and the film techniques such as narrative storytelling and close-ups that he folded into their production; as a result of his life and his work, Griffith gave life to cinema as a new art form in America. In 1946, D.W. Griffith’s name had largely been forgotten among the post-war generation too young to have seen or had a chance to appreciate his films. The last time Griffith had participated in a movie production had been in 1940 on the set of Hal Roach’s One Million B.C., which Griffith later distanced himself from. At the age of 71, the worn-out Griffith had settled to living alone at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles. In 1948, his unconscious body was discovered in the building’s lobby; he died on the way to the hospital. The subsequent funeral was attended by only a few Hollywood stars, a far cry from the scores of actors and actresses that Griffith not only associated with but mentored in a way that would forever affect the successful fate of films in the first half of the 20th century. Those who did speak at his funeral did, however, remark what a privilege it was to work with “the great man,” as they called him (Gunning 32). After his death, Griffith’s name would be praised by actors and directors carrying his torch in defining the way that movies were made. Orson Welles went as far as to say: “I have never really hated Hollywood except for its treatment of D. W. Griffith. No town, no industry, no profession, no art form owes so much to a single man” (Baxter 98). That sort of praise was not uncommon from respected inheritors of Griffith’s work in Hollywood, coming also from figures as diverse as Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock (Orr 95). The legacy Griffith left behind is likely due to his ability to use film techniques convincingly as an expressive language—rather than a way to merely copy life to screen. Attention to details led to a more immersive experience for audiences by heightening tension. Recognizing this ability, film experts came to recognize Griffith’s role in creating new possibilities for film. As a lasting credit to his vision as a director, the Directors Guild of America created the D.W. Griffith Award, which was its highest honor for technical prowess (Stokes 290). Along with being featured on a US stamp, Griffith’s fame and recognition today are still small compared to his success throughout the 1910s and early 1920s. Griffith’s life began in 1875, when he was born to a Methodist Anglo-Welsh family in Kentucky. His father had served as a Confederate colonel in the Civil War before being elected to the Kentucky state assembly. After the death of his father in 1885, the family fell on hard times—forcing Griffith, his mother, and his siblings to move to Louisville. Griffith dropped out of high school to help provide money for the family, taking a job in a bookstore. While working at the bookstore, it is thought that Griffith became interested in the great playwrights of history. He began his career as a playwright in earnest, meeting very little success with his writings. Along with his interest in writing plays, Griffith also took on roles as an extra in performances—increasing his exposure to the techniques and nuances of stage performance, which would be instrumental in his development as a filmmaker (Schickel 20–23). At 32, in 1907, Griffith gave up his acting career in Louisville and traveled to New York in order to try to sell a script for a motion picture to the Edison Manufacturing Company, one of the largest film studios at that time. Griffith was unsuccessful in selling the script, but he received a role as an actor instead. As part of the cast of Rescued from an Eagles Nest, Griffith learned quickly about filmmaking, including what not to do from watching himself be partially obscured by the edge of the frame. He went on to take an acting job with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (or “Biograph”), which would launch his film career. Just one year after joining the troupe, Griffith stepped in as the primary director at Biograph. In 1908, Griffith completed directing his first film named The Adventures of Dollie, starring Arthur and Linda Arvidson, which follows an unfortunate series of events involving a family and a gypsy basket peddler (Gunning 68–74). The film’s producers were impressed with Griffith’s natural ability to use the full frame and for building dramatic tension in shorter films. Griffith’s production increased to about three films a week; during this extraordinarily productive period, he made a number of associations with high potential actors and actresses. At a time when most films were shot on the East Coast, Griffith envisioned filming in a place out west. In Old California, a 1910 silent movie directed by Griffith, was the first filmed in Hollywood, California. Starting the trend of movie studios in Hollywood, D.W. convinced others that not only was filming in California a good idea, but filming in general was going to be a profitable enterprise. Shot in 1913, Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia was an early feature film—a project that Biograph did not see potential in and did not authorize (Gunning 271). Despite them, Griffith made the film; irked by Griffith’s boldness, the studio held the film until a year later, erasing some of the profits as well as Griffith’s compensation for making the movie. Now angered by the studio that gave him his first shot at filmmaking, he looked for a new start. Due to those creative differences of opinion regarding the viability of feature films, Griffith left Biograph in October 1913 to start on his own path where he could produce and direct full-length movies. That path took him to Harry Aitken’s Mutual Film Company, where he took a cast of actors that had grown loyal to him during their time at Biograph. In conjunction with Aitken, Griffith’s new studio would be called Reliance-Majestic Studios (Schickel 201–208). While at Mutual Film, Griffith started work on The Clansman, which later was renamed to The Birth of a Nation, an epic Civil War saga considered to be America’s first true blockbuster and a film that inspired wide public interest in movies as an art form. In the film, two families—the Stonemans from the North and the Camerons from the South—live through the tumultuous post-War Reconstruction period over the course of several years. From a technical standpoint, The Birth of a Nation pioneered several camera techniques. First, the use of panoramic long shots allowed audiences to take in the whole scene. Second, night photography was a largely unused practice in film; setting scenes at night offered more flexibility for production as well as adding realism for audiences. Third, Griffith used panning shots, rather than keeping the camera fixed. Fourth, a battle sequence with many hundreds of extras added a big-budget effect for movie-goers. Fourth, instead of focusing just on the big details of scene, however, the film also pioneered the use of close-ups: revealing the intimate details on the actor’s face: personalizing them as performers and as characters in a fictional world. One of the most memorable shots in the film is an intimate close-up of a mother and a child crying in a field. The film also utilized a narrative format (driving action toward a climax) to tell a story, much like a novel would—convincing the public that movies could be used for telling an exciting story (Roman 30). Likewise, the musical score for the film, being performed by an orchestra, added to The Birth of a Nation’s epic quality. But while the movie was widely embraced for its innovative film techniques and its entertainment value, it was also widely disparaged for its controversial portrayal of African-American men, slavery, and its glamorization of the Ku Klux Klan. Commercially, the film was a smash-hit, breaking box office records of the time. For better or for worse, The Birth of a Nation launched Griffith into the national spotlight (Roman 2–3). At a White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson said that watching the film was like “writing history with lightning” (Stokes 111). Success for Griffith created success for the film industry in general: attracting attention toward its ability to electrify audiences across the country. Yet while the film was financially, socially, and artistically successful, it invited tremendous controversy, particularly from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which attempted to ban the film as racist propaganda (Stokes 112). They denounced Griffith despite what he thought was an accurate picture of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Personally, he was taken aback by charges of racism. He felt angry at attempts to remove his film from theaters. His publication The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America in 1916 responded to his critics by attacking their alleged suppression of creative expression (Stokes 380). Griffith moved quickly to his next epic film, Intolerance, in 1916. Passing The Birth of a Nation in terms of scale and structure, Intolerance further explored the use of close-ups, panning, and parallel editing. While doing this, it sweeps across four stories from different periods of history—demonstrating the consistency of inhumanity and intolerance across civilizations. Thought to be a response to critics of his previous film, Intolerance shows emotional actors in thematically complex, breathtaking scenes. Thematically, Griffith succeeded in drawing attention to the injustices of modern American society insofar as they are tied to the low ideals of Ancient Babylon, Judea, and France during the Revolution (Stokes 263). Events coincided with the release of Intolerance that made it a box office failure. By 1917, audiences for the film had left the theaters to prepare for a fight in World War I, and the movie did not return enough revenue to make up for the expensive production and roadshow to promote it. Despite the lack of commercial success, Intolerance would serve as a timeless influence on directors in Japan, the Soviet Union, and in Europe (Drew 119). Film historian Theodore Huff called it “the only film fugue” (Roman 5); thus, the world of film had become internationalized due to D.W. Griffith’s influence and creative mastery of technique. Griffith’s partnership with Aitken dissolved in late 1917 (Stokes 270). Seeking new partnerships to keep making films, Griffith formed relationships with a number of companies, including Paramount and First National. He also founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. Griffith used United Artists as a platform to make movies smaller in scope than his two epic pieces—none of which approached the commercial success of The Birth of a Nation. Griffith would leave United Artists in 1924 due to a poor commercial performance by Isn’t Life Wonderful?, a film about a homeless Polish family that has since become widely appreciated by film critics. Like others at United Artists, Griffith would find the transition to talkie films difficult; he made only three films with sound between the years of 1929 and 1931—all of which were unsuccessful at reviving his career (Schickel 505–510). The rest of Griffith’s time in the movie industry could be summarized as a series of small jobs providing basic direction on the sets of films directed by those who appreciated his early work. Directors like Woody Van Dyke and Hal Roach, who saw The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance as influences on their own creative styles, invited Griffith to participate in the creation of their own works (Schickel 596). But D.W. failed to regain the recognition he had once garnered as the top director in film. By the late 1940s, Griffith lived a lonely life in a senior living apartment building, largely forgotten by the film community that he had helped to establish. Griffith’s vision was instrumental in bringing about three great advances in the history of American cinema. First, he and his company Biograph recognized the potential of Hollywood as a place to film. According to film critic Philip French, “In fact, [in 1910], the prolific DW Griffith had come west to take advantage of the California sunshine, and the 17-minute In Old California, an adventure set in Spanish colonial days, was the first to be filmed in its entirety in the village” (French). Second, he recognized the potential of extended films and their commercial viability; inspired by the Italian feature film Cabiria in 1914, Griffith took on longer projects. Third, he explored novel camera techniques, such as fade-in, fade-out, long shots, close-ups, panning, and flashbacks. That creativity inspired generations of filmmakers to experiment with methods as a means to tell a story and to evoke emotional responses in their audiences. For that, the film community owed a great debt to D.W. Griffith, a debt that was not paid while Griffith was still alive. Looking only at Griffiths seminal works in The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, one can see the emergence of cinema as an art and as an industry: the use of feature-length films, the location of their filming, and filming techniques such as close-ups and panning shots. The vast majority of filming for major studios occurs in Los Angeles. And one would be hard-pressed to find a single technique that D.W. Griffith did not initially explore in the 1910s at the high point of his career. If history is the product of the actions and ideas of great men, then the history of American film and cinema was shaped to a great degree by the actions and ideas of D.W. Griffith. Going forward, it is important to recognize the role that individuals can play in shaping the use and perception of artistic expression, especially if it is coming through in a new form—just as how film was new and unknown in the early 20th century. Works Cited Baxter, Keith. My Sentiments Exactly. New York: Oberon Books, 2002. Book. Drew, William M. D.W. Griffiths Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision. New York: McFarland & Company Incorporated, 1986. Book. French, Philip. How 100 years of Hollywood have charted the history of America. 27 February 2010. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/28/philip-french-best-hollywood-films. 28 January 2014. Gunning, Tom. D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Book. Orr, John. Hitchcock and Twentieth-Century Cinema. New York: Wallflower Press, 2006. Book. Roman, James. Bigger Than Blockbusters: Movies That Defined America. New York: Greenwood, 2009. Book. Schickel, Richard. D.W. Griffith: An American Life. New York: Limelight Editions, 2004. Book. Stokes, M. D.W. Griffiths the Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. New York. Read More