Who is D.W. Griffith?
Forever tainted by the legacy of The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) is nevertheless an extraordinary pioneer and technical master of early cinema. His narrative language of film-making and remarkable editing experiments remain with us to this day in everything from grand battle sequences, to intimate moments of romance, as well as simple scenes that inspire contemplation (such as wind blowing through the trees). Lillian Gish called him “the father of film” and Charlie Chaplin dubbed him “the teacher of us all.”
David Wark Griffith was born on January 22, 1875 in Kentucky. He was one of seven children raised by his father, a poor farmer and Confederate veteran who died while D.W. Griffith was still just a child. As a young man, Griffith worked odd jobs but had dreams of joining the theatre. Griffith also plied his trade as a writer and sold his first play “The Fool and the Girl” in 1906, but when he tried to sell a story to giant of early film-making Edwin S. Porter, Griffith was signed on to the producer’s Edison Company as an actor instead.
While working with Porter at Edison, Griffith learned a great deal about the craft of making films. Griffith made his lead acting debut in Porter’s Rescued From an Eagle’s Nest (1907), in which the young actor was so carelessly filmed that he was obscured by the edge of the frame – an experience that served him well later when he began directing his own films for the Biograph Company. Later that year, Griffith did get his chance to begin directing films and he showed an immediate talent for creative use of the frame, as well as developing rhythmic editing to build dramatic tension with short movies like The Adventures of Dollie (1908), A Corner in Wheat (1909) and The House with Closed Shutters (1910) to name but a few. From 1908 to 1913, Griffith was averaging almost three films a week, his choice actresses were Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet and Mae Marsh.
In 1913, Biograph refused Griffith’s request to make “Judith of Bethulia” (1914) a four-reel movie, but Griffith ignored their demand and went ahead and made the film anyway. In response, Biograph held onto the film’s release until the following year and in frustration, the director quit the company and took his stock company of actors with him to producer Harry Aitken’s Mutual Film Company. There he began making the movie for which he would become infamous, The Birth of a Nation (1915), simultaneously one of the most important and also revisionist, reviled films ever made. In response to the outcry, Griffith responded with a massive epic Intolerance (1916), a quartet of stories about intolerance throughout the ages, though the film was a massive box office flop. From this point on, Griffith found himself perpetually in debt, always hoping to achieve his former glory. He formed United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, which allowed him to Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), One Exciting Night (1922), The White Rose (1923), and Isn’t Life Wonderful (1924). Some were minor financial hits, but, none achieved the financial success of The Birth of a Nation and Griffith departed United Artists in 1924.
Griffith made a string of later films like The Sorrows of Satan (1926) for Paramount, and some films for United Artists like Drums of Love (1928), often considered one of his worst films, The Battle of the Sexes (1928) and Lady of the Pavements (1929). By the end of the silent era, Griffith’s career was in decline, his heyday long had long passed. Griffith entered the sound era with Abraham Lincoln (1930) starring Walter Huston in the first talkie film about his life, and. then he self-financed and directed The Struggle (1931), a films about a marriage that is collapsing due to a husband’s resurgent alcoholism. The Struggle failed miserably at the box office and left him in serious financial straights. It wound up be the last movie he ever made. Throughout his career he made over 500 movies.
Ignored by the industry that he played such a critical role in developing, Griffith retreated to the Hollywood’s Knickerbocker Hotel for over a decade. There he died alone from a cerebral hemorrhage on July 23, 1948 at the age of 73. A small ceremony was held in Hollywood but few stars attended. Griffith was forgotten for many decades until a reappraisal of his work came in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953, the Directors Guild of America instituted the D.W. Griffith Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a deserving member for technical prowess. Later recipients would include Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean and even Griffith’s old friend Cecil B. DeMille. But in 1999, the DGA discontinued the award due to the disgraceful legacy of The Birth of a Nation. The name of the award was changed to the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award.
D.W. Griffith’s Essential Filmography
D.W. Griffith made an incredible amount of films during his lifetime. I limited myself only to his essential films below, listed in order of release date:
- The Birth of a Nation (1915)
- Intolerance (1916)
- Broken Blossoms (1919)
- Way Down East (1920)
- Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Ranking My Favorite of D.W. Griffith’s Films
#3 The Birth of a Nation (1915) (praiseworthy for its technical achievements, not for its narrative)