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I’m not intending to pile on Seth, but a couple of more examples of why I disagree with your assessment of Griffith. Some of this will probably turn out to be repeats of Brook’s comments.
· He virtually (nothing happens in a vacumn) invented narrative filmmaking. Birth of a Nation was made in 1914. I’m not aware of any feature-length, narrative films made before this film and certainly none that were of this size and scale.
· The very good guy and the very bad guy observation is fair. But in 1915, what other feature-length films were more sophisticated in their story-telling techniques? I think it important to remember that he (and others) were in the process of inventing a new way of story-telling, handicapped by no speech. The technique was not mature and audiences were not yet educated enough to appreciate later subtleties.
· What you call, falling ‘back on the parallel edit’ and then comparing to current Bruckheimer, most knowledgeable critics call ‘inventing cross-cutting as a story telling technique’. I’m sure that you have forgotten that no one did this before, but I certainly can’t think of anyone (not that I have done personal, primary research, but a good many film historians credit Griffith with the first use of this technique, along with many others). What seems obvious today was revolutionary then.
· Not so factual, but more my opinion, I don’t find anything in Cabiria to equal the battle charge in Birth of a Nation. I think that this scene holds up well today.
· Aside from cross-cutting, Griffith either invented a number of other, now-standard cinematic devices or brought together ones pioneered by others to be used in a holistic fashion in telling his stories. I can’t remember the book (it is somewhere in my library) but the title is something like ‘History of Film Style’ has a list of what the author considers Griffith’s innovate accomplishments. And as I recall, the author takes issue with some things that have been attributed to Griffith by others, so I don’t think that this is a blind assessment.
· I refer to my earlier post on his mastery of crowd scenes. I don’t think that you can find any director’s efforts during this time who even come close to the detail in the background in some of these scenes. I refer you again specifically to the scene where the troops are marching to war. Actually you can’t make a Bruckheimer comparison here, because none of his director’s films have ever been close in this regard (I admit that I’ve not seem them all).
· And not everything in this film is quite so binary as you indicate. There are plenty of instances of conflicted emotions and motives. Look again at the meeting of the two young boys in the first reel. Absolutely brilliant as we quickly learn much about each of them and it carries through to the end.
Finally Brook and I tend to talk up foreign films and directors—so at least you know we are not being provincial.
And really finally, while the Americans were no doubt trying to control the market and make big profits, this is the first time that I’ve seen the conspiracy theory applied to film history. (and you can’t use as an argument, the superiority of films that can not be seen and compared).
¡Time is not my master!
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