A thumbnail biography of the celebrated silent film director,
D.W. Griffith
, appears on a page from a fashionable magazine paid for by the publicity office of the film studio. Directors back in the teens had to be fluffed and soothed, too.
One of Conde Nast's most popular magazines reviewed D.W. Griffith's film,
The Birth of a Nation and gave a somewhat balanced account of the production. The journalist clearly recognized that the movie was "unfair to the Negro" yet "remarkable for it's photography".
Twenty-two years after wrap was called on the set of
The Birth of a Nation, leading lady Lillian Gish (1893 - 1993), put pen to paper and wrote this reminiscence about her days on the set with
D.W. Griffith.
This 1940s Hollywood journalist refrained from using the pejorative "white cracker" while condemning silent film director D.W. Griffith for his racial views -and yet at the same time did something rather bold in that he put in print his views that the man has been erroneously credited as the creator of various assorted film innovations that were pioneered by other filmmakers.
A short review of the silent classic film,
Intolerance
by D.W. Griffith:
"For many years to come it is sure to be the last word in pictorial achievement. Not only is it deeply enthralling as entertainment, but it also carries a message of such power that pages of editorials have been written around its theme and its treatment."
In 1946 the Museum of Modern Art Film Department decided to exhibit only the most famous films of
D.W. Griffith for the retrospective that was being launched to celebrate the famed director. This enormous omission inspired film critic Herb Sterne (1906 - 1995) to think again about the large body of work that the director created and, putting pen to paper, he wrote:
"Because of the museum's lack of judgment, the Griffith collection it has chosen to circulate is woefully incomplete, thereby giving contemporary students of the motion picture a distorted and erroneous impression of the scope of the man's achievements."
To read a 1924 article regarding Hollywood film executive Irving Thalberg, click here.
Sweet words of praise were heaped high for the silent film director
D.W. Griffith when he was selected by VANITY FAIR magazine to be one of their anointed ones:
"Because he was for many years an excellent actor and a leading man on Broadway; because he went into moving pictures as a an actor and emerged from them as a producer;because the greater the magnitude of the task ahead of him the more the prospect pleases him; because he invented the high-priced movies; because he has employed upwards of 5,000 people in a single scene; because he is an excellent musician and wrote the orchestral music for 'Hearts of the World', the most sensational moving picture of recent years."film production
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business ethics articles
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film production
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business ethics articles
display cases
imaging
old magazine
film production
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A 1919 film review of
Broken Blossoms, directed by
D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess:
"Broken Blossoms came to the screen a masterpiece in moving pictures. Bare narration of the story cannot hope even to suggest the power and truth of the tragedy that Mr. Griffith has pictured."
You can read more about Lilian Gish here
