THE SILENT SCREEN – RICHARD DYER MACCANN (PDF Download)

 

THE SILENT SCREEN – RICHARD DYER MACCANN (PDF Download)

Essays in honor of American executives, directors, stars, comedians and films, 1896-1926

Did D. W. Griffith go into a decline after Intolerance? This is the view of Lewis Jacobs in The Rise of the American Film, but it is a view bound to the aesthetic notion that montage is the highest form of cinematic art. His later films are simply different in purpose and therefore in style, and Blake Lucas has eloquently argued that “his more intimate and subtle works are often superior” because he sought to describe “the infinite shadings of human emotion and interaction.”

In True Heart Susie, for example, Lillian Gish plays one of her most subtle roles, a farm girl who sells a cow so she can secretly support her childhood sweetheart through college. It takes her gawky neighbor (played by Robert Harron) a very long while to appreciate her, but there is finally a subdued and happy ending in this most rural of all possible worlds.

A short, powerful film. Broken Blossoms stunned the critics. Photoplay called it “the first genuine tragedy of the movies.” The public, too, surprised theater owners by supporting at the boxoffice the integrity of this film and its consistent mood, so perfectly achieved by the dim backgrounds and the tense, controlled performances of the two young actors.

Another film also invalidates the theory of “‘decline”after Intolerance. Way Down East (1920) was enormously popular and profitable. It was a melodrama, one which had been touring the states since the turn of the century. A story of an innocent woman tricked into a fake marriage, pregnant, abandoned, mourning her dead child, wandering into the country—it is climaxed by a denunciation of her seducer, an expulsion from the household, and a rescue by the young son who loves her. The rescue takes place in a blizzard, and required Lillian Gish to ride a block of ice down the river.

The fascinating thing about this old-fashioned story is how modern its moral is. Of course Griffith takes the opportunity to put down the supercilious rich city people in the early scenes, but he also turns us against the farm folk, so ignorant and sanctimonious. We yearn to help this frail outcast woman, and when she is rescued, we realize it is not accomplished by her return to rural life, but by the younger generation.

The silent screen cover
The silent screen_nodrmDOWNLOAD

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