Orphans of the Storm (1921) **1/2

The Plague, the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the guillotine, blindness, poverty--what storm didn't these orphans encounter?

D.W. Griffith's last historical epic, Orphans of the Storm, stars the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy, as two orphans facing uncertain times during the upheaval of the French Revolution. Recently orphaned and one blinded, the sisters leave the French countryside looking for a cure for the blind sister in not so gay Paris. The sisters become separated and each faces their own personal hell--one put out as a beggar, the other placed before the guillotine. Eventually the sisters are reunited, the blindness is cured, and all is well. Trust me, the story is too long (2.5 hours) to put every detail in this blog.

As someone who specialized in this area of history, I have an odd appreciation for this film.  However, I do have a slight problem with the part where Danton rushes in and saves one of the sisters from the guillotine--once you went out in the death wagon you didn't come back with your head still attached, let alone still breathing.

It is said that this is the best acting performance of Lillian Gish's silent career. That is debatable--I prefer her in Way Down East. The film is a bit melodramatic, but still, it really is a silent classic.

 

Way Down East (1920) **

Another title for this 1920 D.W. Griffith silent could be: When Bad Things Happen to Good Girls.

Lillian Gish plays a very gullible New Englander who comes under the spell of a Bostonian cad named Sanderson. In one of the more inventive ways of getting a virgin into bed, Sanderson gets Gish to elope with him and sets up a bogus wedding ceremony. With "some details" to work out, he sends her back home to her mother, where she soon learns she's with child. Does this sound like a soap opera, yet? When she contacts her "husband" with the good news she is promptly dealt the unsavory truth. This sets off a series of unfortunate events, such as her mother's death, the baby's death, and her homelessness. With a good bit of cinematic luck, she soon finds herself working at the Bartlett farm, where she meets and falls in love with the farmer's son, played by Richard Barthelmess. But Gish's secret shame isn't ever far away, nor is Sanderson, who conveniently lives close by. The truth is revealed and finally the best part of this entire film happens: the icy river scene.

Despondent after being turned out by the Bartletts, Gish sets off in a snowstorm and manages to get herself trapped on a piece of ice floating down a rushing river. In one of the most exciting action sequences in silent film history, Barthelmess maneuvers along the broken ice in a race against time and a plunging waterfall. At the very last possible moment he rescues her. After she recovers from frostbite and all around stupidity, all if forgiven and they wed.

I did not find the story itself all that compelling. This is Victorian melodrama at its height. However, the frozen river sequence makes the film worth watching. The editing of this scene alone is something to be marveled at--especially for 1920.

 

Broken Blossoms (1919) **

Does anyone have an anti-depressant? This 1919 D.W. Griffith silent, starring Lillian Gish, is, well, depressing.

The story revolves around a physically abusive father-daughter relationship and a Buddhist shop owner who becomes a protector to the daughter. The shop owner, called Yellow Man (oh, D.W., always the racially-sensitive director!) comes to the rescue of the girl a number of times and a quasi-romance develops. In 1919 this was a BIG no-no, as many states still had anti-miscegenation laws on the books. Mind you, Richard Barthelmess, who plays Yellow Man, was actually a white man, so I guess it was a lot less shocking than if Philip Ahn (just call him Ito) had played the role.

The film is rather violent, with a number of beatings, a shooting and a suicide. The Hays Code was over a decade away, so you could still get away with these more mature themes. What makes the violence so disturbing is the way Lillian Gish is photographed in Griffith's soft-style, gauzed lens. She looks ethereal in all of her shots, so when savage things happen to her it seems even more gruesome.

This is an unusual film. It is one of Griffith's more nuanced efforts, but it is not my favorite. I like it, but I don't love it. Is it a classic? In a sense yes. Technical elements such as the lighting, makeup, set design, and lensing elements make this movie important in the development of film. Is it Griffith's best film? I think not.

 

Intolerance (1916) ***

The title says it all. What can be tolerated by the human mind is not always as much as one would like to believe. Still miffed about his "ill-treatment" over the controversy surrounding Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith released this 3+ hour historical epic in 1916. The theme of the movie is "Love's struggle throughout the ages." This can be applied not only to the four stories juxtaposed in the film, but also to Griffith's overall love of filmmaking--he has endured hardship as well, with the backlash from Birth of a Nation.

The scope of the film is mind-altering today--let alone what one would have thought about it in 1916. You have four different plot scenarios--all in different time periods--crosscut in such a way as to add suspense to all of the stories. Griffith covers the life of Jesus, the St. Bart's Day Massacre, a Babylonian king who wishes to be a tolerant ruler, and a contemporary story about a man with a date with the electric chair and his tenacious lover's actions to get him a pardon. How do all these stories relate to one another? They don't, except in that they all show the evil that is wrought through intolerance. Do you think Griffith had a point to make? In the words of Sarah Palin, "You betcha."

The sets, costumes, scripts, and the 3,000 extras had never been heard of before in the land of movies. The film cost millions to make--it didn't see a profit.

I suppose all great historical epic directors, such as Cecil B. DeMille and David Lean, can trace their directing DNA back to Griffith and this film. Lovers of juxtaposition, such as Pedro Almodovar and Sergei Eisenstein, also owe a debt of gratitude to Griffith.

I personally like the film and fully understand its importance in the development of the world of film, but I also understand why some might not find it as enjoyable as I do.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) **1/2

Three words describe this 1915 D.W. Griffith historical epic: controversy, controversy, and controversy.

For those out of the loop, the nation being born is the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. The film follows a southern family through the defeat of the Confederacy and the troubling times of Reconstruction. Seeing their world decimated by Northern Republicans, Copperheads, and their former chattel, they form a secret society of sheet wearers with a propensity to burn crosses and lynch those with darker pigmentation. It is a historical fact that some white southern men found themselves disenfranchised during this period, and that some uneducated former slaves were used as props in a political game led by former abolitionists and Republicans. Quite honestly, Reconstruction wasn't good for anyone other than the corrupt Grant administration and Rutherford B. Hayes, who got Southern Democrats in the House to give him the 1876 Election by promising to end Reconstruction. And remember what followed? Jim Crow...which was legally sanctioned by the Supreme Court from 1896 to 1954.

Upon the release of the film the NAACP led a protest and a few riots ensued--none in the South mind you. Griffith was so miffed by the controversy over the film that he released Intolerance the next year. Does the film have racist overtones? Yes. When some watch the film today they visibly cringe at a number of scenes, most notably the black man hell bent on raping the white woman, who would rather throw herself off a cliff than submit.

Yet, with all the controversy surrounding the film, it was still a revolutionary film. At 3 hrs. long, the film is no doubt a historical epic. Cecil B. DeMille owes a debt of gratitude to Griffith's penchant for detail and story development. Norma Desmond owes her love of the close-up to the nutty sister in this film. Orson Welles' fondness for the tracking shot finds itself an avid admirer of the battle scenes filmed by Griffith. Morricone and Williams, those prolific movie maestros, should also give a congratulatory bow to Joseph Carl Breil and Griffith for their score.

While this film definitely has racist overtones, I don't think that's enough to negate the important film elements first revolutionized in the production. This film should be watched.

Release date: February 8, 1915.