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 fascinated by things as little as the movement of leaves, to a big as the arrival of the train. The mere fact, that they could see moving images in front of them on a screen was the most fascinating thing, an attraction to them.

The “Cinema of Attractions”, as Tom Gunning mentioned in one of his most famous essay, was the cinema of the early days and was typically exhibitionist in nature. However, towards the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, with the establishment of the nickelodeon i.e. permanent exhibition sites, the demand for longer films increased. This demand was met by the introduction of “chase sequences”, which would lengthen the film by merely adding scenes upon scenes. But this did not fully satisfy the demand for longer films. Thus, to meet up to the demand of the times, film had to borrow from literature, especially the popular novels to create a fictional dramatic world, where every event is coherently connected by cause and effect and tell a story. This is how the storytelling tradition of cinema began which we see even today in the 21st century. This period from 1907 to 1913 came to be known as the “cinema of narrative integration”.

Speaking of narrative cinema, one of the giants who must be mentioned is David Wark Griffith. After pursuing a failing theatrical career, he joined the film industry writing scenarios and acting both for Edison and Biograph companies. Later at the age of 33, the Biograph Company, facing a shortage of directors, offered him the job of a director. From 1908 to 1913, Griffith made about 450 short films under the Biograph Company. These are collectively termed as Griffith’s Biograph Films.

Other than these facts, the one thing about Griffith that makes him one of the greatest directors of the silent era is that he single handedly developed the grammar and language of silent films. Though most of the techniques were invented before Griffith, he took up the job of assembling them to give his films an aesthetic and artistic value. Photographing actors in close up and medium shots, or the use of parallel editing to heighten the tension, or showing contrast and simultaneity by juxtaposing shots, or bathing his heroes in light while depicting villains in dark – all such techniques and aesthetics were in the arsenal of Griffith and he made extensive use of these to establish his staunch belief in the earlier world order, the order of American Victorianism.

THE IDEOLOGY AND AESTHETICS OF D.W. GRIFFITH

Being the son of a Civil War veteran, he was brought up with a tradition of a “self-made” man, as was his father. He went to the Methodist church where he was inspired by the powerful sermon style which was reflected later in his Biograph films. He wanted to use film as a medium to cleanse the society out of evil and sin. Since the film medium delivered the message through the eyes rather than the ears, or hands, he found it suitable for his ideological venture, the ideologies which he believed in and was brought up with.

His religious spirit came to rest on the women and family, with a special reverence to pure womanhood and he used film to depict his ideal of saintly womanhood. He even recalled, “even a wink or a bashful nod towards a young lady would get one a good piece of hot lead or a kick in the pants.” This was what stayed with him till the end, and thus in the beginning of the twentieth century, he got disillusioned with the changing sexual roles and the rise of the “flapper” culture. Though he could do nothing but relent for the society, he tried to find a medium to express his father’s frontier spirit.

All these ideologies and delusions of Griffith, took shape in his aesthetic appeal. The portrayal of youth and innocence in his women characters; the depiction of contrast- vice and virtue, rich and poor, proletariat and bourgeois, religious and atheist; depiction of heroes in vibrant light while the villains in darkness with dark colour clothing are all meant to arouse in the audience the identity of righteousness. The themes of the films are generally divided into two types – lessons or warnings. His use of close up was also motivated by the ideology to intensify the intimacy between the audience and the characters. The parallel editing for which he is so renowned, was inspired by his favourite novelist Charles Dickens, who often in his novel, used the literary equivalent of parallel editing, by alternately switching from one character to another thus creating a climactic moment in the novels. Thus, all such aesthetics embedded with Griffith’s techniques helped him create films, which established the basic grammar and language of silent era films.

THE TECHNIQUES AND METHODS OF GRIFFITH

The aesthetics and ideology of person need techniques and methods, by which he can establish his ideologies on screen. Hence, Griffith, assembled the knowledge and

inventions of the previous filmmakers and gave his own input to create his memorable short films. Making an endless list of his techniques and methods would be an improper method to critically analyse his films. It would be helpful to analyse his first Biograph Film The Adventures of Dollie (1908) and one of his later film, The Painted Lady (1912). The contrast between these two films, would be most helpful to analyse his techniques, methods and aesthetics which developed over the years until it reached its culmination with The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).

The Adventures of Dollie (1908)

The Adventures of Dollie (1908) is the first film directed by D.W. Griffith under the Biograph Company. Since it is the first film by Griffith, we see any feature which resemble the early cinema like the tableau shot and the editing similar to chase sequences. Since it is a narrative film, there is coherent plot, which obviously is pretty simple.

There’s a happy family of consisting of three people – the father, the mother and the daughter. One day, while the daughter and the mother are sitting alone, a thief tries to steal something from her. The father comes right at the moment and saves them. After a little while, when the thief finds the daughter alone, he kidnaps her and seals her in a drum. The father and his associates desperately try to find her daughter, but in vein. The thief loads the drum on a horse carriage, and crosses a river. The drum accidentally falls, and is washed away by the river stream. It passes through a series of place, before eventually landing in the very place, where the mother and the daughter were resting. The father opens the drum, and the family is united again.

With such a simple plot in hand, Griffith used a variety of techniques to put it effectively on screen. In the very opening shot, we see a daughter being chased by his mother and his father. All of them walking toward/near the camera. This very shot is striking as before Griffith, people generally used to walk in the xy-axis which rendered the film typically flat. But Griffith, by asking the actors to move towards the camera created a depth of field.

Opening shot of The Adventures of Dollie.

Secondly, here we can clearly see that the characters are dressed in light colours, preferably white. This aesthetic of Griffith can be seen in his later films where he often bathes his heroes and heroines in light, while his villains appeared to be dark and sinister in the shadows. This contrast between light and dark, white and black, vice and virtue was important to Griffith, both ideologically as well as cinematically.

The third thing that can be observed here, is the tableau or proscenium arch shot, showing the actors entire body as well as the space above and below. This was a feature of the early cinema which was adopted by Griffith, since he belonged to the transitional period. However, towards his later films, he would rarely use the tableau shot, and move towards the more standard medium shot, or medium close up shots. But this film is fully shot in tableau shots.

The stealing of the purse

The above image (No.2) the place where the mother and the daughter are relaxing is shown. Behind them, the thief, i.e. the villain of the film, dressed in black is trying to steal her purse. This whole contrasting situation is the unique feature of Griffith, which he used extensively in his later films too.

One other interesting fact about this film is that, there is coincidentally no use of inter-titles to describe a situation. The film is just stitched with shots after shots with no inter-titles. By 1908, the inter-titles were already used in many of the early films. However, Griffith doesn’t use it here. It is probably due to the fact that, the narrative of this film is so simple, that it actually could be understood easily by the audiences without the help of inter-titles.

Toward the end of the film, when the daughter Dollie is found back and the family is reunited again, the scene is shown of the same location with the camera placed at the same angle. This repetition of shots and spaces, create a contrast with respect to the beginning scene and also create an emotional fulfilment in the audience. This technique of repetition, though used only once in this film, is later used extensively by Griffith in his other Biograph films.

The Family - Reunited

The editing structure of this film also is not typically Griffithian, since it was his first film. The editing is simple, with the simple spatiotemporal cuts, linking the narrative as a whole. The whole story works on a few connected spaces. However, one of the aspects of editing here is the influence of the early films, especially the “chase sequences.” Like the chase sequences, which could continue on forever and forever, just by adding more and more shots, here the scene where the drum is being carried away by the river is extended using the similar editing pattern of the chase films.

The Drums shown at various locations

Thus, by critically analysing the various methods and techniques used by Griffith is his first short film, it can be concluded that the typical feature of Griffith i.e. parallel editing and close-up shots are absent. However, there are other features which eventually was followed by Griffith in his later films. By analysing one of his later film, The Painted Lady (1912), one can observe a sharp contrast between his early and his later work in aspects of editing, cinematography and performance. Nevertheless, The Adventure of Dollie (1908) was the base upon which Griffith laid his giant foundation.

The Painted Lady (1912)

The Painted Lady (1912) is one of the later films by Griffith, towards the end of his Biograph days. In this film, right from the opening shot, one can see the striking difference in the shot length. The opening shot and the subsequent shots do not follow

the early film paradigm of the tableau shot, rather Griffith photographed his actors with the lower parts of their legs invisible below the frame. This allowed him to come closer to the actors, and thus led the audience connect with them more intimately, understanding their psychological intensity and undertones. Thus, this technique of close-up was actually the cinematic equivalent of novelists trying to enter the mind of the characters and reading their thoughts. This technique was the foundation of the narrative film language, which would soon follow the path of literature and drama.

The Painted Lady (Opening Shot)

Here also, we see that the heroine is typically dressed in white and bathed in lights – the technique which Griffith earlier used for The Adventure of Dollie. Another thing that is to be noticed is that the actors performance is sharp and on the point. In The Adventures of Dollie, since the camera was not placed at the actor’s close proximity, their expressions couldn’t be recorded. However, here, because of the camera’s close setup, the expression on the face has to be more worked upon. For these types of roles, Griffith generally chose young actresses with a perfect skin which represented his ideal belief of saintly womanhood. Generally Lilian Gish was considered to be the perfect cast for his female ideal, but here the lead role is played by Blanche Sweet, who too confers to the concept of Griffith’s ideal woman.

Another point about this film is the use of inter-titles to further help the audience understand the narrative. However, it can be considered to be the genius of Griffith that even without the use of inter-titles, the film would have perfectly made sense. Such deep and contemplative was the craft of D.W. Griffith.

Intertitle from The Painted Lady

With respect to editing, we see the Griffithian version parallel editing. Before the simultaneous editing takes place, he creates two strands of the storyline, basically two different spaces. In one he creates the conflict while in the other, the rescuer is arriving – the typical structure of a melodrama. This gives rise to his classic technique of parallel editing. In The Painted Lady, when the lady discovers that and unknown intruder has entered her home, she pulls out a gun and threaten him. However, in the ensuing clash, the gun suddenly goes off, and the intruder dies. Upon opening his scarf, she finds out that he was her sweetheart. This situation is consistently juxtaposed with her father arriving to the house to save her. This moment create a mini-climax. Since the film does not portray a last-minute rescue situation, so there is no parallel editing in the typical sense.

However, since the story is more focused on the psychological poignancy of the lead character, it uses another technique to establish its point – the repetition of spaces. This is a techniques, which Griffith scarcely used in The Adventures of Dollie, but used extensively in films like A Corner in Wheat and The Unchanging Sea. In both these films, the space which is repeated becomes a kind of motif, often creating an emotional resurgence and attachment with the character’s psychological crisis. Similarly, in The Painted Lady, the loneliness of the lady is the important aspect of the narrative. Hence, the bridge where she used to meet with her first lover, is repeatedly depicted, but with contrasting situations.

In the first meeting, they share glances on the bridge, and get interested in one another. The lady was happy by the fact that someone got really interested into her, even though she did not wear a makeup.

In the second meeting, they became a little more intimate, and expressed their love for one another. In this particular meeting, the lady tells the gentleman about her father’s wealth.

After the whole action with the intruder and killing him to save his father’s wealth, she realizes that she had killed her lover who was disguised as the intruder. This broke her heart, and drove her mad.

After the accidental killing, she drove insane and mad. She rushed to the location where she used to meet her lover, stands there and now talks to herself. She becomes a lunatic. At this moment, after the third repetition of the shot, the scene strikes the audience deep down drawing empathy out of them.

This is the last meeting, where, she wears a makeup and visits the same location hoping to find her beloved, but all goes into vain. After the fourth repetition, this location and a setting become a motif, a symbol in itself suggesting the loneliness and misery of the lady’s life.

The Painted Lady (1912) truly shows the potential to which film can reach using its own language. For a novelist, this psychological crisis which the lady felt, would need pages after pages to explain. But for a filmmaker, it only requires a few well connected shots and an intelligent editing. Thus, with so little elements, such a great psychological depth could be explored. This masterpiece work by Griffith truly set the stage for cinema to transform itself beyond its exhibitionistic quality to the grey depths of the human mind and Griffith took the first step towards it.

CONCLUSION

Thus, through this analytical examination of Griffith’s two Biograph films, we get a rough idea about the contribution of Griffith in narrative cinema and the role of his ideologies, aesthetics and techniques in his short films. These techniques were the foundation on which he created features life The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) which brought him international recognition. Though later in his life, his career steeply fell, he will always be remembered as the “father of narrative cinema.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Apocalyptic Cinema: D.W. Griffith and the Aesthetics of Reform by Lary May.

David Wark Griffith: Cinema; A Critical Dictionary by Richard Roud.

Weaving a Narrative, Style and Economic Background in Griffith’s Biograph Films by Tom Gunning.

The Oxford History of World Cinema: Edited by Geroffrey Nowell-Smith