Volume 31, Number 19 · December 6, 1984
A Traveling Man
By Michael Wood
D.W. Griffith: An American Life
by Richard Schickel
Simon and Schuster, 672 pp., $24.95
In 1929 D.W. Griffith predicted that people would come to laugh at silent films, to wonder at their weirdly antiquated looks. He was right, of course. It is easy to smile at the broad, pantomimed gestures of Griffith's own works, at the helpless, foolish title cards. 'After tea and noodles,' one card says in Broken Blossoms as we watch Richard Barthelmess, all humble and slant-eyed as the Yellow Man, trot down the street. Another card has Lillian Gish asking, 'Why are you so good to me, Chinky?' Yet Griffith can almost always disperse those smiles, reclaim even later audiences with touches of softness or cruelty or unnerving suspense. A few years ago I saw Way Down East amid a giggling crowd in a New York movie theater. As Gish got herself stranded on an ice floe heading straight for a vast waterfall, everyone fell silent. And when her rescue was effected at what seemed to be later than the last possible minute, the previously scornful person behind me muttered 'Christ Almighty' in audible relief.
Review, 2437 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |