David W. Griffith (1865 – 1948)

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Martedi 6 ottobre - David W. Griffith - Summary

Introduction

Griffith (1865 – 1948) is known as the father of modern cinema, having created the basics of the current cinematographic vocabulary, mainly through a revolutionary use of parallel montage. The two best known movies by Griffith are The Birth of a Nation (1915, >120’) and Intolerance (1916, >180’). But actually, Griffith came to the cinema world much earlier before, in 1908.

Cinema at the beginning of the 20th century

At this time, Griffith was a stage actor and wanted to make his career in the theater world and not in cinema, which did not have good reputation. He accepted to play in different movies only to earn a living before finding a stable position in the theatre world. One day, the cineaste got ill and Griffith was offered to replace him temporarily. So it is quite by chance that he begun to record movies.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the movies were one minute long. It is quite difficult for us to imagine now the reaction of the public confronted with this new invention: a moving image. We have all heard about the first projection of the L’arrivée d’un train à la gare de la Ciotat, the Parisian public being afraid and running out from the projection room to escape the train. We do not know if this is a true story or not, but it tells us that by this time, the issue was less about the story of the movie; but about the revolution of the moving image.

Physical and psychological space

In 1926, Gorky wrote about his own reaction to watching a movie. He was quite impressed by the obscurity which surrounded the image: what happened to the actors when they were going outside the recorded frame and disappeared into the dark? Did they die? Did they go into another dimension, another world ?

We cite Gorky because he is a well known author, but we may think of a lot of other people that had the same kind of questions.

In fact, cinema was taking care of its public, by giving it information about what happened through the written announcement, or by the continuity and integrity of physical space on the images from on scene to the other.

We have to remember that cinema was still a space for experimentation and intellectual confrontation at this time: how to use it, its means and possibilities had not been clearly defined yet. The movies were made on one physical place and the public was still under shape creation.

When Griffith started making movies, the means by which the image could link two different geographical places had not been known yet. The simple question that nobody asks anymore today, but which did not have an answer at that time is why one scene / one image would be linked to another image / scene.

Griffith produced more than 500 movies between 1908 and 1931, making sometimes 2 or 3 movies by week. This let him touch a large variety of subjects, and the possibility of a lot of experimentation.

In a movie called After many years, Griffith tells the story of a couple. Whereas the man is isolated on an island, the woman waits for him without knowing if he is still alive. The ocean is separating the couple, but there is a mental link (love) which builds a bridge between them. How to represent this link on a screen and to create a unity of space while there is a geographical discontinuity ? How to represent the link which exists between these two people?

Griffith found an answer in using a prop: a “broken heart necklace” is worn by both lovers, one on the island, one on the continent. We see the two necklaces and the link is created.

What Griffith showed in this movies, is that what we think about distance is inside us, not inside the image. This is the proof that the montage can play with our thoughts. The power of the movie does not come anymore from what is shown, but from what is hidden. Griffith broke the barrier of physical continuity by moving the place of representation of this continuity from the image itself to the spectator’s mind.

Griffith and poetry, suspense and montage

If Griffith is well known for his creation of parallel montage, Paolo Cherchi Usai offers another approach to his work. For him, Griffith is also the director who includes poetry in his work. Paolo sees in these movies the characteristics of poems: in the themes, the images, the cadrages, and the montage.

Figure 1 - Paolo Cherchi Usai

Country doctor : Opening on a circular countryside travelling from a river to the doctor’s house. A doctor lives happily with his wife and his daughter on the countryside. One day, his daughter gets ill, and he begins to take care of her. At the same time the daughter of another poor family gets ill, and the mother goes to ask the doctor to come and save her girl. The doctor refuses as he already needs to treat his own daughter. But the mother insists and the doctor finally decides to go and help the poor girl. While he is at the poor’s family house, his own daughter gets very sick, and his wife sends the servant to search for her husband. The doctor refuses to come back, as he has not finish to cure the poor girl yet. But the servant insists, and as the doctor finally cured the poor girl, he accepts to come back home. There, his daughter has already died. Closing on a circular travelling from the doctor’s house to the river.

Analysing Country doctor, Paolo explains that the disposition of the characters from one scene to another, the rhythm of the scenes’ length, the chosen journey inside a field of wheat, the symetrical construction of montage (opening and closing on the same but inverse circular travelling), are a transposition of poetic means to the cinematic world. In his point of view, Griffith is also the one who pushed the cinema on a poetic level, further than anyone before him.

Furthermore, Paolo notices the creation of a true suspense in the process of the movie, and the absence of a happy ending.

Taking into account the physical existence of the films at this point of history, Paolo gives us the opportunity to materialy touch a film bobbin. This is a crucial point : the physical opposition light/black, knowing/not knowing, hearing/silence have certainly been at the source of the intuition giving as much importance to what was shown than to what was not.