David Wark
Griffith was born in La Grange, Kentucky on January 22,
1875. After stints as both writer and actor of poetry
and plays, Griffith first entered the motion picture industry
as an actor for Edison Studios in 1907. He moved over to
Biograph in 1908 for the salary of $5 a day. Griffith's
work at Biograph would
forever change the way movies were
made.
Biograph was
one of the first motion picture studios in America, when films
were sold outright by the foot, and not rented as they are
today. Films were silent and no more than one reel in length
(a running time of about 12 minutes). At a price of 10-cents a
foot, the cost of a reel of film was about $100. When Griffith
first came to Biograph, the studio was only selling about 20
copies of each new film and was in poor financial condition.
Biograph was
in pressing need of a director. The job was offered to
Griffith at an increase in salary, but he was reluctant to
take it. He was working steadily and was afraid that if he
failed he would lose his job as an actor. Henry Marvin,
founder of Biograph, assured Griffith that if he did fail as a
director, his acting chores would continue. Griffith
reluctantly accepted.
Griffith had
only a rudimentary understanding of film making. He knew that
film directors were no more than sheepherders, moving the
actors from one place to another on the screen. The cameraman
was king. Biograph had two: Arthur Marvin, brother of
Griffith’s boss, and a German immigrant named G.W.
“Billy” Bitzer. When Griffith selected The Adventures
of Dollie for his initial plunge, Marvin was assigned to
be his cinematographer. Bitzer, in the meantime, offered the
novice director all the help that he could.
Both cameramen wanted
Griffith to succeed. If he didn’t, chances were that they
would be pressed into directing, a move that both considered a
demotion.
The
Adventures of Dollie was typical of the films of the day.
A little girl is kidnapped by a band of roving gypsies and
sealed in a water cask. The cask falls off the wagon when
crossing a river and the cask, with the little girl inside, is
swept down the stream toward a waterfall. In the nick of time
the girl is rescued by two boys.
The simple
story was filmed by Griffith and Marvin in two days at Sound
Beach, Connecticut, in 700 feet (or just under nine minutes of
running time). On the surface, the picture looked no better
nor no worse than any other Biograph film. But there was
something special about it. The Adventures of Dollie
sold almost 100 prints -- something almost unheard of for a
Biograph film.
Griffith’s
second film, The Redman and Child did nearly as well
and Biograph had found not only a new director, but its
salvation as well.
Between 1908
and 1913, Griffith directed hundreds of films for Biograph, yet
in the entire time his name never appeared on the credits --
nor did those of his actors. The greatest of all the early
film actors worked for Biograph: Mary Pickford, Lillian and
Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Harry Carey, Henry B. Walthall, Mack
Sennett, Fred Mace, Florence Turner, Constance Talmadge,
Donald Crisp, Robert Harron, and others -- all got their start
with Griffith.
But Griffith
was not happy. In his Biograph years he had perfected all the
elements of so-called film grammar -- cross-cutting, tracking
shots, the running insert, flashbacks, and more. He wanted to
make longer films, but Biograph fought him all the way.
Biograph was a member of
the Motion Picture Patents Company, a trust organized by
Thomas Edison and his associates to restrict production of
motion pictures to ten companies, to eliminate further
competition. Theaters paid a two-dollar weekly fee and and
could only exhibit Trust-produced films. Independents who
tried to produce their own films were often met with violence.
The Trust had
a policy when it came to filmmaking -- keep it simple and keep
it profitable. One-reel films were profitable and there was no
reason to make them longer or more expensive. Griffith did
manage to make a number of two-reelers, but it was always
under protest from the company.
By 1913, the
grip of the Trust was weakening, but not their resistance to
change. Griffith decided to leave Biograph and, when he did,
he took his stock company of actors with him. Biograph’s
decline began the moment Griffith walked out the door. In five
years, it was gone.
Griffith, on
the other hand, continued to prosper and in 1915 he put forth
his most ambitious effort, the twelve-reel destined to be
classic Birth of a Nation, based on Thomas
Dixon's southern tilted Civil War era drama. Although
highly controversial for its content both then and now....(the
climax of the movie is a highly dramatic gathering and riding
of the Ku Klux Klan)....the film was an instant
sensation. Griffith was hailed as a genius.
He followed
this up with another controversial film titled Intolerance in
1916. Although applauded by the critics, this
movie met some box office resistance and lost money. The
picture followed the action of three modern tales of city
life, inter-cut throughout the film. It was perhaps a
little too real for audiences of the time.
Griffith from
this time on would alternate between more sure fire money
makers such as One Exciting Night (1922), and more
personally satisfying efforts such as Orphans of the Storm
(1922). He was one of the founders of United Artists in
1919. But toward the end of the 1920s, Griffith's movies
was slowly sinking into oblivion. In the glitter of the Jazz
Age, his filmmaking was considered hopelessly old-fashioned.
He moved to
New York and his movies lost even more appeal for mainstream
audiences. His last picture, “The Struggle”, was
made in 1931 and played in theaters only a week before being
withdrawn. Griffith returned to Kentucky and his family. Then,
in 1940, comedy producer Hal Roach summoned Griffith back to
Hollywood to “supervise” the making of “One Million
B.C.”, a remake of one of his old Biograph films about
primitive man. Although he was to act as only a consultant,
the autocratic Griffith tried to take over the whole
production and was dismissed.
He died July
22, 1948.
Among the mourners
at his funeral were friends and colleagues from the days when
the movies were young and Griffith was the undisputed king of
the cinema. One of these, actor Donald Crisp, delivered a
fitting eulogy: “I cannot help feeling that there should
always have been a place for him and his talent in the motion
picture field. It is hard to believe that the industry could
not have found a use for his great gift."
Virtually
forgotten by the industry he helped build, it was Griffith who
had saved the ailing Biograph Studios from bankruptcy and,
through his incredible talent, had made it a leader in the
fledgling movie industry. And it was Griffith who turned
filmmaking into an art.