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D.W. Griffith |
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Director / Producer /
Screenwriter |
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1875 - 1948 |
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Born January 22,
LaGrange, Kentucky, USA |
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Key
Production Country: USA |
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Key Genres:
Drama, Melodrama, Short Film, Romance |
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Key
Collaborators: G.W.
Bitzer (Cinematographer), Robert Harron (Leading Character Player),
James Smith (Editor), Lillian Gish (Leading Player), Kate Bruce (Leading
Character Player), Carol Dempster (Leading Player), Mae Marsh (Leading Player), Hendrik
Sartov (Cinematographer), James Smith (Editor), Charles Hill Mailes (Leading Character
Player) |
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Highly Recommended:
Intolerance (1916)*,
Broken Blossoms (1919)* |
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Recommended:
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), True Heart Susie (1919)*, Way Down East (1920)*,
Orphans of the Storm (1922),
Isn't Life
Wonderful (1924) |
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Worth
a Look:
A Corner in Wheat (1909), The Unchanging
Sea (1910), The Lonedale Operator (1911),
The Girl and Her Trust (1912)**, The Old Actor (1912)**, The Mothering Heart
(1913)**, The Birth of a Nation (1915)*, The Mother and the Law (1919),
A Romance of Happy Valley (1919), Dream Street (1921), The White Rose
(1923), Abraham Lincoln (1930), The
Struggle (1931) |
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Approach with Caution:
For His Son (1912), The Painted Lady (1912), One Exciting Night (1922),
The Sorrows of Satan (1926) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; **
Listed in TSPDT's
Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ]
[
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
PBS American Masters ] [
Gilda's Blue Book
of the Screen Article ] [
Mainly About D.W. Griffith (1922 Article) ] |
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Books:
[
D.W.
Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at
Biograph ] [
D.W.
Griffith: An American Life ] [
D.W.
Griffith: American Film Master ]
[
The Films of D. W. Griffith ] [
D.W. Griffith's Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision ] |
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"The
single most important figure in the history of American film and
one of the most influential in the development of world cinema
as an art... From the very start, he showed a remarkable
instinctive understanding of the creative potential of the
medium, using inherently cinematic techniques - changing camera
angles, intercutting, crosscutting, parallel action, camera
movement. dramatic lighting, the close-up, the full shot,
rhythmic editing, etc." -
(The
MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994) |
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"American pioneer
of the silent cinema and of many of its more sophisticated
techniques. Griffith is still generally regarded as the first
great American director despite the failure of many of his later
films; and, between 1914 and 1921, when his talent and
confidence were in full flower, he was the maker of some of the
most famous and exciting films in Hollywood history." -
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999) |
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"Griffith
devised a grammar of emotions through his expressive editing.
The focal length of his lens became a function of feeling.
Close-ups not only intensified an emotion; they shifted
characters from the republic of prose to the kingdom of poetry.
Griffith's privileged moments are still among the most beautiful
in all cinema. They belong to him alone, since they are beyond
mere technique. Griffith invented this "mere" technique, but he
also transcended it." -
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"A giant of the industry, Griffith more than anyone else was
responsible for creating or refining film technique into a mode
of creative expression. His genius covered writing, directing,
editing, and even advertising a film." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"Talkies, squeakies, moanies, songies, squawkies... Just give
them ten years to develop and you're going to see the greatest
artistic medium the world has known." -
D.W. Griffith |
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"Actors
should never be important. Only directors should have power and
place." - D.W. Griffith |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include
Lady Helen's
Escapade (1909), Judith of Bethulia (1913), The Avenging Conscience
(1914), Hearts of the World (1918), The Greatest Question (1919),
America (1924), Sally of the Sawdust (1925), and The Battle of the Sexes
(1928). |
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"Since
the 1980s, Griffith’s status has been in nearly steady
decline, or at least dramatic reassessment. An important
renaissance of early film history has systematically
rediscovered and reinserted other individuals, films, and
social forces as crucial formative influences on the
development of American and world cinema. Moreover, the
insights of cultural studies made it impossible to continue
forgiving the sexism and vicious racism at the core of his
work while at the same time praising his craft and
romanticizing his life. For many today, Griffith represents
much that was wrong with Hollywood, American ideology, and
even dominant film histories of the past. Nonetheless,
Griffith’s films remain key texts for understanding the
development of narration in cinema. Theorists interested in
film language point to their shot scale and editing patterns
as important markers of a developing cinematic code system,
while others look to Griffith as a canonical source of
gender and genre construction in cinema."
-
Richard Neupert, Schirmer Encyclopedia
of Film |
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●
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100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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The
2nd Most Influential Director of All
Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll) |
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●
Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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●
Cecil B. DeMille |
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Allan Dwan |
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John Ford |
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Abel Gance |
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Henry King |
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●
Fritz Lang |
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●
Frank Lloyd |
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●
F.W. Murnau |
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●
Giovanni Pastrone (External Link) |
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●
Edwin S. Porter |
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●
King Vidor |
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●
Raoul Walsh |
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