History of Film Part 3- D.W.

"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."

Orson Wells

David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was born on January 22, 1875 in LaGrange, Kentucky. His father was a Confederate Colonel who died when he was ten. He grew up poor. He had aspirations of being a playwright. He would fall into acting in hopes of those ends. He would give birth to film as we know it. He would best be know as D.W. Griffith.  

D.W. Griffith wanted to make it as a playwright and found the best way was as an actor. He would work his way into film starting as an actor for Edwin S. Porter in "Rescued From an Eagle's Nest" http://youtu.be/Ghxyw4zAEAk in 1908. Later that year Griffith would direct his first film "The Adventures of Dollie" http://youtu.be/rvIH0MzPQ14. 

Griffith would make great innovations is cross cutting, lighting, continuity, editing and acting. Charlie Chaplin would call him "the teacher of us all". Lillian Gish (who Griffith discovered) would call him "the father of film". Here are some examples of D.W. Griffith's early work. The Musketeers of Pig Alley http://youtu.be/ZxCBvgnjmPU, The Burglar's Dilemma http://youtu.be/tS2zqI9V6F8, The Sunbeam https://youtu.be/FZZv34GueWQ, and the first film of Dorothy and Lillian Gish "An Unseen Enemy" https://youtu.be/BVSFlSxNvLg. Griffith would make hundreds of films before 1915. In 1915 he would take all his invocations and all his experience up to that point and he would change film forever. What he would do is give birth to film as we know it. He would make the cinemas first real masterpiece and give rise to the feature film. The film he made? Birth of a Nation http://youtu.be/I3kmVgQHIEY.

With Birth of a Nation Griffith wanted to make a real evening's experience, like going to The Theater. Rather than making 15 to 30 min shorts he wanted to make a 3 hour experience, epic in story and production. The studio was happy to leave well enough alone so opposed his plan,  like his other innovations, intercutting storylines for instance. D.W. Griffith was not willing to follow his studio overlords and left the studio and did it himself. The film is equally know for its racist content as its impact to film. The Birth of a Nation showed the impact film could have and led to race riots and helped with the KKK rising again. It would also be the first film screened at the White House, admittedly by the president that segregated the federal government Woodrow Wilson. 

I should say something about something you wouldn't expect from a film pre1927, and that is sound. Birth of a Nation was meant to have an accompanying symphony. When you hear "Charge of the Light Begrimed" while watching Birth of a Nation, that is what Griffith intended in 1915.

Shocked by the riots and negative reaction to Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith would double down with one of the most epic films ever to be made, Intolerance https://youtu.be/eo66cJqEl4A. The story would go from The hanging Gardens of Babylon to a poor widowed woman in modern times and everywhere in between. The film sets and amount of extras used would be massive. And DW Griffith would control this with no script, the entire story and stage direction was in his head. Ultimately the film would be a financial failure, mostly due to its massive roadshow production, and the film would put DW Griffith into debt for the rest of his life. The film would go on to be hugely influential throughout the history of film particularly in Russia, but more on that later. 

Griffith would go on to found United Artist with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. His stay there would not be long. While he would go on to make other classics, most notably Broken Blossoms, ultimately the system he helped create would reject him. He died July 23, 1948.