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An actor, a vaudevillian, and a dramatist before he became a filmmaker, D. W. Griffith used the resources of theatre to great purpose and to great ends. In pioneering the quintessentially modern medium of film from the 1890s to the 1930s, he drew from older, more broadly appealing stage forms of melodrama, comedy, vaudeville, and variety. InStagestruck Filmmaker, David Mayer brings Griffith's process vividly to life, offering detailed and valuable insights into the racial, ethnic, class, and gender issues of these transitional decades.Combining the raw materials of theatre, circus, minstrelsy, and dance with the newer visual codes of motion pictures, Griffith became the first acknowledged artist of American film.Birth of a Nationin particular demonstrates the degree to which he was influenced by the racist justifications and distorting interpretations of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Moving through the major phases of Griffith's career in chapters organized around key films or groups of films, Mayer provides a mesmerizing account of the American stage and cinema in the final years of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century.Griffith's relationship to the theatre was intricate, complex, and enduring. Long recognized as the dominant creative figure of American motion pictures, throughout twenty-six years of making more than five hundred films he pillaged, adapted, reshaped, revitalized, preserved, and extolled. By historicizing his representations of race, ethnicity, and otherness, Mayer places Griffith within an overall template of American life in the years when film rivaled and then surpassed the theatre in popularity.

The most comprehensive volume on one of the most controversial directors in American film history A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers an exhaustive look at the first acknowledged auteur of the cinema and provides an authoritative account of the director's life, work, and lasting filmic legacy. The text explores how Griffith's style and status advanced along with cinema's own development during the years when narrative became the dominant mode, when the short gave way to the feature, and when film became the pre-eminent form of mass entertainment. Griffith was at the centre of each of these changes: though a contested figure, he remains vital to any understanding of how cinema moved from nickelodeon fixture to a national pastime, playing a significant role in the cultural ethos of America. With the renewed interest in Griffith's contributions to the film industry, A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers a scholarly look at a career that spanned more than 25 years. The editor, a leading scholar on D.W. Griffith, and the expert contributors collectively offer a unique account of one of the monumental figures in film studies. * Presents the most authoritative, complete account of the director's life, work, and lasting legacy * Builds on the recent resurgence in the director's scholarly and popular reputation * Edited by a leading authority on D.W. Griffith, who has published extensively on this controversial director * Offers the most up-to-date, singularly comprehensive volume on one of the monumental figures in film studies

This book offers a significant and original contribution to studies on D.W. Griffith and film, through a systematic analysis of the director's chase scenes, which create suspense and resolution in his films. The predominance of the emphasis of building suspense differs in the various stages of his chase scenes. The primary source of material discussed here is Griffith's films after 1913 when he left the Biograph Company. Griffith's post-Biograph films are more complete and representative of his techniques than his earlier films, which were subject to financial constraints while he was still innovating and developing his cinematic techniques. Most of his films used in this analysis were provided by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The purpose of this study is to determine a definition of a Griffithian chase scene in terms of his editing techniques. Categories are established, defining specific tools. This is done by determining and documenting consistencies, comparisons, and specific patterns occurring in his chase scenes that generally do not occur in his general editing. Griffith's basic mechanics in editing are filmic time and space, parallel action, referential crosscutting, and decomposition.A major finding in this book is that Griffith's chase scenes are the most important part of his films in terms of suspense and resolution. His chase scenes are complex, unique and sometimes even unpredictable. As such, this is an important new work on D.W. Griffith, and will be of interest to scholars and others interested in both the director and film, and will also be an asset to libraries and bookstores.

The most comprehensive volume on one of the most controversial directors in American film history A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers an exhaustive look at the first acknowledged auteur of the cinema and provides an authoritative account of the director's life, work, and lasting filmic legacy. The text explores how Griffith's style and status advanced along with cinema's own development during the years when narrative became the dominant mode, when the short gave way to the feature, and when film became the pre-eminent form of mass entertainment. Griffith was at the centre of each of these changes: though a contested figure, he remains vital to any understanding of how cinema moved from nickelodeon fixture to a national pastime, playing a significant role in the cultural ethos of America. With the renewed interest in Griffith's contributions to the film industry, A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers a scholarly look at a career that spanned more than 25 years. The editor, a leading scholar on D.W. Griffith, and the expert contributors collectively offer a unique account of one of the monumental figures in film studies. Presents the most authoritative, complete account of the director's life, work, and lasting legacy Builds on the recent resurgence in the director's scholarly and popular reputation Edited by a leading authority on D.W. Griffith, who has published extensively on this controversial director Offers the most up-to-date, singularly comprehensive volume on one of the monumental figures in film studies

No detailed description available for \"Cinema's Original Sin\".

This essay reconstructs and analyzes the context of production for D. W. Griffith's The Idol Dancer (1920) and The Love Flower (1920), both filmed in South Florida shortly after Griffith Studios relocated from Hollywood to Mamaroneck, New York. By reconstructing production processes, this essay demonstrates that Griffith's ambitions exceeded his abilities. He was often indecisive when choosing filming locations, as exemplified by his capricious relationship with South Florida. The essay further argues that Griffith's overzealous ambition and geographical ambivalence correlates with his attempt to function independently when the industry shifted to a more producer-centered model post–World War I.

By presenting new information about sound effects, stage lighting, film length, speed of projection, and motivation for the changes to D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), this article rebuts the conclusions presented in Russell Merritt, “D. W. Griffith's Intolerance: Reconstructing an Unattainable Text,” Film History 4, no. 4 (1990): 337–75. My analysis argues that composer Joseph Carl Breil's score for Intolerance could become functional again only with the MoMA reconstruction of a very early version of the film. I establish how important music was for Griffith and therefore how necessary the orchestral scores are for any assessment of his motion pictures. By focusing on the heretofore minimized role of Griffith as showman, this article unearths rich documentation about his film presentation practices and publicity, which significantly alters the way his films should be perceived and presented. Griffith's emphasis on orchestral scores also played a role in the elevation of the cinema and in the pressure for bigger, more luxurious movie theaters in the United States and Great Britain.

Common contemporary usage of the term intertitle reflects a misunderstanding of the function of title cards up to the early 1910s. Unlike the later role of intertitles as captions placed in between shots within scenes, early title cards were headings, either serving as titles of individual films (and initially presented as lantern slides) or as subtitles naming component scenes within longer individual films like Edison's Uncle Tom's Cabin. This use underscored the systematic alternation of scene and title and the autonomy of the scene.

This text offers a significant and original contribution to studies on D.W. Griffith and film through a systematic analysis of the director's chase scenes, which create suspense and resolution in his films. The predominance of the emphasis of building suspense differs in the various stages of his chase scenes. The primary source of material discussed here is Griffith's films after 1913 when he left the Biograph Company. Griffith's post-Biograph films are more complete and representative of his techniques than his earlier films, which were subject to financial constraints while he was still innovating and developing his cinematic techniques. Most of his films used in this analysis were provided by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The purpose of this study is to determine a definition of a Griffithian chase scene in terms of his editing techniques.