Overall, Griffith directed over 500 films. He retired in 1931 and died in Los Angeles in 1948. In 1975 his picture was on a postage stamp and all the world loved him. But by 1999, The Director's Guild of America's National Board renamed the prestigious D.W. Griffith Award (first given in 1953 to such directors as Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, and Cecil B. DeMille to name but a few) because of Griffith's racism.
"If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain." - D. W. Griffith (1915)
The Scarlet Letter (1926) (scene with Lilian Gish)
Birth of a Nation (1915) (full film, remastered)
Minority Voices in Film History:
While most of the pioneers of early film were male Caucasians, the lack of minority voices in film was filled by two very important filmmakers: Alice Guy Blache and Oscar Micheux. While we will focus on these two primarily, they are far from the only minority voices around. Gay & Lesbian, Asian, Latino, and other influential filmmakers begin working in this time period.
Today, we will watch a few of their film clips and take notes of important details. By the end of the lesson you should begin to ask yourself the question:
why is minority cinema important? What is the future of minority cinema? How does knowing a little history help minority artists?
Bert Williams' films:
Fish (1916) and
A Natural Born Gambler (1916) predate Oscar Michaeux as the first African American comedic actor to also write, direct, and star in his own films. Learn more about him here at this
link.
Oscar Michaeux is credited as the first black film director.
Within Our Gates (1919) (music underscore added recently) and his film in its entirety for those interested
Within Our Gates (full film).
Evelyn Preer was one of the early black actresses. She was also a popular singer. Here's one of her songs:
It Takes a Good Woman to Keep a Good Man at Home. You can hear the rhythms of the jazz age (late 1920's). Think of the book
Ragtime.
Zora Neale Hurston, writer and folklorist, made several film documentaries in the 1920's. Here's an example of some of her
fieldwork (1928).
Sadly, in American film, the early work of female directors/writers is hard to find (or no longer exists). You can read about
African American women's contribution to the film industry here. There's just not much to view. It is, also sadly, not until 1991 that the first African-American female director (
Julie Dash) is allowed to make the first studio produced and widely distributed film
Daughters of the Dust. However, since then,
more black female directors have joined the ranks.
The first female director is:
Alice Guy Blache
The Cabbage Fairy (1896)
The Life of Christ (1906) (our first religious epic depicted in film, predating Cecil B. DeMille)
The Consequences of Feminism (1906)
Falling Leaves (1912)
Algie The Miner (1912)
Lois Weber, an
American female, was also a silent film actress and then director. She invented the first use of the split screen technique in her film
Suspense (1913).
Other films include
the Blot (1921) and
Hypocrites (the first full frontal nudity depicted in film outside of "art film" like Edweard Muybridge's work.) She, too, is important.
As for gay and lesbian films of the early silent film era, there are a few. Apart from two men dancing in the film by
Edison, the first depiction of one of the sissy stereotype characters is
Algie the Miner (1912, sound track added). The first butch male-to-male kissing scene is the fall of Babylon sequence in D.W. Griffith's
Intolerance (1916). It also features a pretty kick-ass heroine: mountain girl.
A little gender bending: Vitagraph's
A Florida Enchantment (1914); Here's Sidney Drew's full film:
A Florida Enchantment (1914).
German film was one of the first to tackle gay subjects head-on. Here's the film
Anders als die Andern (
Different from the Others, 1919) by Richard Oswald.
Here's a little about the significance of the film. It stars Conrad Veidt (more on him soon).
The lesbian film
Madchen in Uniform was made in 1931 (and is a talky, so we won't but mention it here). If you're interested in this film, you may also like the 1933 film
Anna und Elisabeth. (This is only a clip, sound is not original, of course.)
Recently, Barry Jenkins' film
Moonlight (2016) just won best picture and best adapted screenplay.
Latino silent film information can be found
here. There is little on line to watch (sorry about that).
Bronco Billy and the Greaser (1914), directed by Gilbert Anderson (Bronco Billy). By far one of the most famous Latin actors was
Antonio Moreno, a Spanish-born actor/director, who often played the now stereotypical "Latin lover" role.
Ramon Navarro (gay Mexican-American actor) was also popular during the 1920's was rumored to be
Rudolph Valentino's secret lover. He ended up tragically murdered in 1968. Here's a
link to a short amateur biography of the actor. He starred as
Ben Hur in MGM's 1925 historical epic.
And Asian film star Sessue Hayakawa starred in such films as
The Typhoon (1914) and
The Dragon Painter (1919). He signed on with Paramount Pictures (Famous Players Lasky) where he worked with Cecil B. DeMille in such movies as
The Cheat (1915). The first Japanese feature film was made in 1912,
the Life Story of Tasuke Shiobara. Here is the Japanese film
Jiraiya the Hero (20 min) in 1921.
Robert Flaherty's
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) is one of the most important early documentary films ever filmed. It follows the life and times of the Inuit hunter Nanook and his family. It is considered the first feature-length ethnographic documentary. Flaherty shot over 50k feet of film to make the film--which he shot on location in the cold north of Hudson Bay, Canada over the period of 55 days, traveling with the Inuit over 600 miles.
The director
Dadasaheb Phalke is considered the father of Indian film, although Asian film begins in the late 1890's. It is interesting to note that the first optical toy (a primitive
zoetrope) was invented by Ting Huan in 180 AD in China. By the end of the silent film era, most countries have begun to make films. Of particular note are the directors we will look at next class: Sergei Eisenstein & Robert Wiene and F.W. Murnau (German Expression films).
HOMEWORK: Reading: Complete the handout with the chapters on "The Edison Trust Monopoly" & "The Creation of Hollywood" in the D.W. Griffith packet. Then please read the chapter:
