Advertising “Broken Blossoms”

 

Advertising “Broken Blossoms”

Miss Gish has given many excellent portrayals, but it is doubtful if she has done anything so superlatively artistic as this interpretation of the abused child. Her expressions are irresistibly touching at all times and there are moments when she reaches emotional heights seldom attained by any actress. 

Lillian Gish as Lucy Burrows in “Broken Blossoms” – Swedish Magazine

Lillian Gish. It has been that now you like her and now you don’t. This time, however, there can be no question about her. She is a poor little cockney, the ward of a prize fighter whom she calls “Daddy.” It is upon this helpless waif that daddy vents the rage of his black moments – using the rawhide with skill born of long practice. One of these beatings brings her to the Chinaman’s door step, where she falls, spent with pain. Hunger, agony, terror, helplessness, timid gratitude to the first person who has ever been kind to her – the Chinese boy – are all portrayed by Miss Gish with startling realism. You are sick with pity for her. You admit it – and that shows how wonderful she is.

The scenes of London’s Chinatown are marvelous in their realism. Lillian Gish fairly lives the part of the girl, and expresses the tragedy of the empty life with a wonderful characterization.

Broken Blossoms (United Artists Pressbook, 1919)DOWNLOAD

Back to Lillian Gish Home page

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984)

Image
D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984) D.W. Griffith – An American Life By Richard Schickel – 1984 Griffith! Before him, the movies were a nickelodeon novelty, after him, they were an international art form and a powerful, glamorous American industry He was the first to codify the rules and techniques of screen storytelling, the first to establish the conventions by which the unique capacities of the movies for both sweeping spectacle and profound intimacy could be employed in long, complex narratives, the first to assert the director’s claim to primary authorship of a film Above all, it was Griffith who imagined the future of his medium, and with his driving energy, his taste for the grandiose and his flair for publicity, propelled that medium toward that future—only to be crushed by the very forces he had unleashed. D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Painting; D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Art Print for sale His story is, in huge measure, the story of how the ...
Read more

Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983

Image
Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983 Vanity Fair – October 1983 Lillian Gish Jeanne Moreau This is a summit meeting: a queen paying homage to an empress. Of course, Lillian Gish, far right, is no truer a blueblood than any other homespun midwesterner. But wherever she goes now, she is treated like a monarch, acknowledging standing ovations in allAmerican palaces like Radio City Music Hall. Her admirers aren’t really applauding her 101 films (she has just completed the 102nd, about a sweet old lady and her sweet old dog). They may never have seen her slim but supernally intense performances in the D. W. Griffith masterpieces or in the Victor Sjostrom classics she made in the late ’20s at MGM. Lillian-Gish-Jeanne-Moreau 60s But they sense in her the grace, the purity, the wealth of symbolism that royalty sustains. Gish’s companion here, Jeanne Moreau, radiates a similar authority; what Gish was to the cinema of the ’20s, Moreau was to the cinema of the ’60s. ...
Read more

LEADING LADIES – 1976 (Electa Clark) PDF Download

Image
  LEADING LADIES – 1976 (Electa Clark) PDF Download “Humanity marches on into the new and glorious 20th century!” exults a daily paper in its first issue of 1901. “Come, oh century, child of hope!” begins a long poem on page one. Another column trills, “We are 20th century women … with the dower of privilege and responsibility which enriches women in this wonderful era!” Lillian Gish had a similar effect on millions who saw her in the movies. She was not only talented, she had a unique quality: pure, ethereal, elusive. As if she acted in whispers. As if in her hands, the definite blurred into the indefinite. It was drama critic George Jean Nathan who described her as being “behind a veil of silver chiffon.” He courted Lillian for years, but she eluded marriage. Horse drawn float declares National American Woman Suffrage Association’s support for Bristow-Mondell amendment 1920s Lillian Gish Actress ‘La Boheme’ Oversized DBW Photo by Kenneth Alexander Leading ladies an affectionate l...
Read more