There is no doubt that D. W. Griffith at intervals gives just cause to the commentators who place him at the top of the list of all directors. But at the same time he often does the most ordinary of things on the screen. In one picture he is an artist and in the next he appears in the light of a producer of hack pieces of motion picture film.
The reason, no doubt, is that Mr. Griffith is a business man as well as an artist. He sinks an unusually large amount of money in a picture such as “Hearts of the World” and then realizes that, while the returns from such a subject are slowly accruing, he must needs turn out a few pot-boilers to keep the wolf from the door. Thus “Hearts of the World” was followed by two or three shorter and less pretentious war pictures of commonplace variety.
Mr. Griffith is constantly exasperating people by such mixed proceedings and just when his long-suffering public has decided to forsake him forever and turn to more consistent directors and producers, he startles the world again with another masterpiece.
His latest picture, for instance, “Orphans of the Storm,” has proven an artistic success from almost every viewpoint, and has been quite capable of disposing of the bad taste left in the collective mouths of critical audiences by his recent “Dream Street.”
One of the most interesting things about Mr. Griffith to the lay mind is that he never uses the usual continuity that the majority of directors employ. He has his story clearly in his mind before he starts work. He has something of a subconscious realization of how many different scenes ought to be embraced in each episode and he sets about his work accordingly.
This might not seem so difficult as it really is if Mr. Griffith employed the De Mille method of directing his pictures in continuity, beginning with scene No. 1 and proceeding numerically onward. But Mr. Griffith sails right along using one setting or scene after another without much regard for continuity. He takes the number of shots required in each setting and scene with but slight assistance from notes and memoranda.
He works in the following order: A scene may represent a room in a country home. A son is saying goodbye to his mother; he is either going away to war or going to the city to make good. There is, of course, a tearful parting. Now the average director will refer to his script and note that the scenario writer has given him, say, twelve different shots, including closeups, long shots and semi-closeups in which to get the “goodbye” scene over and done with.
D. W. GRIFFITH
