6. Broken Blossoms (1919)

US 90m Silent BW

Director: D.W. Griffith

Producer: D.W. Griffith

Screenplay: Thomas Burke, D.W. Griffith

Photography: G.W. Bitzer

Music: D.W. Griffith

Cast: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard, Edward Peil Sr., George Beranger

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D.W. Griffith’s reputation in film studies is, if slightly overstated, nevertheless entirely unimpeachable. American (and world) cinema would be a different beast without his many contributions. The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are, rightly, his most renowned films, remembered for their remarkable manipulations of story and editing. But another of his films, 1919’s Broken Blossoms, has always stood out as among his very best, and it is surely his most beautiful.

Along with William Beaudine’s glorious Mary Pickford vehicle Sparrows, Broken Blossoms exemplifies what was known in Hollywood as the “soft style”. Thiswas the ultimate in glamor photography: cinematographers used every available device-powder makeup, specialized lighting instruments, oil smeared on the lens, even immense sheets of diaphanous gauze hung from the studio ceiling-to soften, highlight, and otherwise accentuate the beauty of their stars. In Broken Blossoms, the face of the immortal Lillian Gish literally glows with a lovely, unearthly luminescence, outshining all other elements on the screen.

The beauty of Broken Blossoms must be experienced, for it is truly stunning. Gish and her costar, the excellent Richard Barthelmess, glide hauntingly through a London landscape defined by fog, eerie alleyway lights, and arcane, “Orientalist” sets. The film’s simple story of forbidden love is complemented perfectly by the gorgeous, mysterious, production design, created by Joseph Stringer. No other film looks like Broken Blossoms.

The collaboration between Gish and Griffith is one of American cinema’s most fruitful: the two also worked together on Intolerance, The Birth of a Nation, Orphans of the Storm, and Way Down East, in addition to dozens of shorts. Surely this director-actor collaboration ranks with Scorcese-De Niro, Kurosawa-Mifune, and Leone-Eastwood, to name a few; indeed, it is the standard by which all others should be judged.

Griffith finds a perfect balance between the story’s mundanity and the production’s seedy lavishness (much of the film takes place in opium dens and dockside dives). It takes a skilled and confident director to handle a form/function split like this one; this is Griffith at the top of his abilities. It is the tension between the everyday and the extraordinary that drives on Broken Blossoms, securing its place in film history.

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Information

Internet Movie Database (IMdb)

Wikipedia Article

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RapidShare Links

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This article was written by Ethan de Seife and is included in the book “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” (Ed. S. J. Schneider)

Copyright © 2006 Quintet Publishing Ltd

~ by kostasg82 on November 26, 2008.