Understanding D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Short Films with respect to his ideologies, aesthetics and techniques.
LOCATING D.W. GRIFFITH IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA Film as an art form is relative a new invention with respect to literature, music, and painting. However, in spite of being an invention of the late 19th century, film as a medium has consistently developed itself by its own authority creating for itself a language - the film language. Like words and sentences in literature, rhythm and tempo in music and lines and shapes in painting, in film there are shots, scenes and sequences. Shots are the building blocks of a film. These shots, joined one by one, creates a unified whole i.e. a scene. Several scenes together, make a sequence, and several sequences create a story. However, this grammar and language of film, was not always this simple and story-telling was not always the main purpose of a film. In the early days, when the films were being made, they actually created awe and wonder in the audience by its sheer quality of presenting moving picture; the audience got fasc