Communications and Media

David Wark Griffith is one of the most important names in the history of American film making. His ambition to become a playwright inspired him to work hard at an early age. He began working as an actor in Louisville at the age of 20. He managed to write in between rehearsals to fulfill his passion. He was given a break as a writer in 1907 when his play A Fool and A Girl was produced by James K. Hackett, but unfortunately a flop. Griffith and his wife, actress Linda Arvidson, shifted to new motion picture industry to support his own family. He continued his career as a writeractor with Biograph Company in New York City and started history as one of the most influential directors in the American film industry, particularly in motion pictures.

As a child, Griffith gained inspiration from his father, Jake Griffith known as the Roaring Jake, a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Jake reared David with the works of Shakespeare, Poe, Dickens, and the Bible, that later inspired Davids film achievements. His fathers connection with the war and his Southern background gave strong impact to Davids life and career. This impact reflected in his most controversial film  The Birth of a Nation.

Griffith had a firsthand experience of the Reconstruction after the Civil War. During the financial Panic of 1873, farmers were in hard times.  The Griffith family then owned a farm, not a plantation and Jake had done nothing to cope for his family but indulge in vices. Griffiths mother, Mary and his older sister Mattie were the ones who stood to earn a living for the family. Although his father had been irresponsible, David still gave a positive picture of his father in his unpublished biography, perhaps because of the guidance and passion of literature and the arts that he instilled to the young David. After his fathers death due to a severe stomach wound he gained during the war, Griffith family, David then 20 years old, was left in deep debt. This situation forced them to leave Oldham County hills to Louisville. Because of financial constraint, David was only afforded grade-school education. He tried at a young age to work to help his family. He worked as a store attendant in a bookstore at Louisville where he had accessed some literature. He also tried a career in music having a baritone voice. But his passion really was in theater. David had a chance to witness the Julia Marlowe in Romeo and Juliet in a production at Louisville. Sometime in 1896, he gave in to his theatrical urge and started his career in theater.

But his inclusion of that part in history to the production of The Birth of a Nation has been a controversy. Griffiths loyalty to his Southern ancestry was questioned. What happened in the film never really existed. As witnessed in history, Kentucky was not occupied by Union troops during the war. There was no movement against the weak and inactive Klan even when the Seventh U.S. Cavalry enforced the anti-Klan law in 1871 in Kentucky. The Griffith family owned slaves in their farm prior to war and Davids narration of the familys relationship with the former slaves in his film seemed to be favorable. But actually, the conditions of reconstruction appeared in The Birth of a Nation never happened. These facts stained Griffiths soaring career.

As an actor, Griffith built a stock company which players trained in a more restrained acting style. This reflected in most of his films where his actresses projected new, more assertive heroines.  As an editor, his rhythmic editing style in chase films developed a sense of excitement and aggravated suspense by intercutting actions and shorter shots between the chaser and the pursued. By using the technique, Griffith was essential in the development of the western film genre. He began filming an expression of his progressive social vision in films like The Redmans View (1909) and Ramona (1910), where he emphasized condemn against white mans oppression of the American Indian. A Corner in Wheat (1909) was about injustice against the poor brought about by capitalism and The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) was about urban poverty. His career reached its peak with his first feature at Biograph, Judith of Bethulia (1913), which reflected his abhorrence of imperialism.

As a film director, he inspired others in the field to be loyal and give serious attention to American films, not just as a light form of entertainment but a craft of essence. His influence appeared in most experimental films as he worked in combination of existing techniques. He encouraged his colleagues and students of the industry to contribute ideas. Griffith pioneered the techniques in editing, lighting, camera movement, and composition. These contributions later became the standard for all mainstream narrative films. He introduced the method of invisible editing which had a great significance on Hollywood style editing. He first executed the parallel editing and the use of the close-up to convey emotion. These techniques were used and employed until today in modern film making. 

Griffiths effort brought American film its highly regarded reputation. He successfully achieved this goal and recognized as the only most significant person in the development of film as an art (Steinle 3). Filmmakers of his time acknowledged him as their mentor. His legacy was highlighted by the respect given to him by successful directors to include those working in Hollywood, even up to his death. Griffith laid the foundations in the devise of most technical innovations in the industry of film making which directors and cameramen are thankful for. Griffiths attitude as a director deserved him to be the father of film making as he had respected and loved his own craft, his own films as a new art form. because he believed in innovations by recognizing that film requires a new method of acting and a new way of storytelling, apart from photography and editing. In essence, Griffith didnt have that belief of the possibility that the art form could be used for evil purposes. Even to the end of his career and his life, he never acknowledged any harm he had created in making The Birth of a Nation. Despite it tainted and ended his achievements, the film a formative influence on modern day films and truly had a recognized impact on film history. As the great master expressed his thought on the influence of film, he said in an interview published in the New York Times ... the human race will think more rapidly, more intelligently, more comprehensively that it ever did. It will see everything  positively everything. ...

The time will come, and in less than ten years, when the children in the public schools will be taught practically everything by moving pictures. Certainly they will never be obliged to read history again. (Barry 1) Griffiths critics cannot deny his contribution to the art of film, and his personal dedication to expanding the range of film as an art form. But besides debasement in the reputation of a great artist, there is no doubt that his unmatched accomplishments persists, led to the birth and establishment of motion pictures as the dominant narrative form of the 20th century and beyond throughout the world.