Ladies Will Please Remove Their Hats

I'm currently reading Richard Schickel's biography of D.W Griffith.

Griffith's a tricky subject for people nowadays. The first thing he calls to mind is "Birth of a Nation" (well, that's what he used to mean to me). The second thing is the grandiose folly of "Intolerance". After that? You're lucky if he's remembered at all. "Broken Blossoms"? "America"? "Abraham Lincoln"? When was the last time you saw Channel 4 (or anyone) devote an afternoon to one of that little lot?

And this is unfortunate, as the man Chaplin called "The Father Of Us All" had a career that was quite frankly fascinating. He pretty much discovered Mary Pickford whose vaulting ambition led her to become not only the biggest star of her day, but pretty much the biggest star full stop. Lillian Gish got her start with him, as did Mack Sennett. Lionel Barrymore worked for him, as did W.C Fields in the characteristically bizarre "Sally of the Sawdust". Even if he didn't invent cross-cutting, the iris-in, close-ups and long-shots, he was the first to really come to terms with them and turn cinema into something more than a nickel curiosity.

From a shaky on-screen start (you can see him acting - barely - in "Rescued From The Eagles Nest" - he had a solid stage career behind him by the time he grudgingly turned to cinema), he slowly shifted his focus - first as a scenarist, then finally as a director. And he took to it like a duck to water.

In the years 1909 - 1913, he directed some 450 one-reelers for the Biograph company. That's 450. And a large proportion of them survive, astonishingly. Thanks to the joys of region 1 dvd's and YouTube (hint - one-reelers are the perfect length to sneak in under YouTube's 15 minute limit), I've been able to illustrate my reading with a large proportion of Griffith's Biograph works (over a hundred of them, actually).

His social comment films veer from absolutely stunning ("A Corner in Wheat" is angry in all the right places, with shots framed to resemble classical paintings) to extremely odd ("For His Son" features a venal Doctor marketing a new drink with added Cocaine called "Dopakoke" - I kid you not).

"The Painted Lady" features what is still one of the most convincing portrayals of madness I think I've ever seen on screen, "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" develops a familiar motif into what is often referred to as the first Gangster film (it isn't - Griffith himself had dipped into that well before), with scenes shot in genuine New York slums, and "The Redskin's View" shows the White Man to be a greedy, opportunistic mob at the best of times while the Indian is portrayed as noble and long-suffering. Funny how people forget that when they're hammering him for the likes of "His Trust" (and to be fair, the minstrelsy in that is horrid - I've never seen so much badly applied blackface, and the idea that the faithful gentleman of colour will be rewarded for serving the White Man).

"The Female of the Species" is grippingly nasty up until the final two minutes or so (three women lost in the desert lose their grip on civilisation until finally they are saved by their discovery of an Indian baby lying in the arms of his dead mother, and their natural womanhood reasserts itself. Ugh.)

"The House With Closed Shutters" examines a case of Cowardice in the American Civil War (a favourite Griffith preoccuaption - see "The Hessian Renegade", "In The Border States", "His Trust"/"His Trust Fulfilled", and many many others, leading right up to "Birth..."

Most of the time Griffith's heart is in the right place - and more often than not it's also on his sleeve. He's increasingly sentimental, given to floweriness, and at all times, even in his minor works - fascinating.

And then there's this.



from 1909, this three minute insanity was intended as a replacement for the old magic lantern slide. Mission accomplished I think. Put it this way, I never expected this to conclude the way it does...

Watch out also for the way the characters on the film within the film slowly become frustrated by the fact that the audience isn't watching them (and they're all played by the same people - how very wonderful). And also watch out for Mack Sennet and his glorious false nose - can't miss him, he's the one in the very loud suit. The woman dressed in white is Griffith's wife of the time, Linda Arvitson, I think. Also lurking in the cast is the mellifluously named Florence Lawrence, and Flora Finch is the one who suffers a fate worse than death in the final seconds.

Do enjoy. They must have been putting something in the water in 1909.