David
Walk Griffith was
born in Oldham County, Kentucky, on 22nd January, 1875. Griffith attempted
to become a writer but only managed to have one of his plays performed.
In 1907 Griffith moved to Hollywood and tried to sell a script to
a movie producer, Edwin S. Porter. He
rejected the script but gave him a part in a film he was making. After
appearing in
Rescued from an Eagle's Nest
(1907) Griffith managed to find work as a director
with the Biograph
Company. Over
the next six years Griffith made over 400 films. During this period
he discovered Mary Pickford and gave
her the leading role in his picture The
Little Teacher
(1910).
Griffith wanted to make feature-length films but when this idea was
rejected he left the Biograph
Company. He
immediately began work on Birth
of a Nation
(1915). The film created a sensation. Griffith's use of intricate
editing and film techniques such as alternating close-ups and long-shots
from varying camera angles, were revolutionary and inspired a generation
of directors.
The film's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan
and African Americans, resulted in Griffith being accused of racism.
Despite attempts by the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People to have the film banned,
it was highly successful at the box office.
Deeply hurt by the accusations of racism, Griffith's next film, Intolerance
(1916), was a quartet of stories of man's inhumanity to man. Griffith's
attempt to compensate for the politics of the Birth
of a Nation was
a commercial flop.
Intolerance
left him heavily in debt and over the next few years desperately attempted
to make films that would enable him to pay off his creditors.
In 1919 Griffith joined with Charlie Chaplin,
Mary Pickford and Douglas
Fairbanks to form United
Artists,
a company that enabled the people concerned to distribute their films
without studio interference. Films made by Griffith during this period
included Way
Down East
(1920), Orphans
of the Storm
(1921), The
White Rose
(1923) and Isn't
Life Wonderful
(1924).
Griffith made two sound films, Abraham
Lincoln (1930) and The
Struggle
(1931), a film about alcoholism. The films were not successful and
Griffith retired from the cinema, spending the last ten years of his
life living alone in Hollywood's Knickerbocker
Hotel. David Walk Griffith died on 23rd July, 1948.
Film poster for Birth of a Nation (1915)
(1)
D.
W. Griffith, The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America (1916)
Today the censorship of moving pictures throughout the entire country
is seriously hampering the growth of the art. Had intelligent opposition
to censorship been employed when it first made itself manifest, it
could easily have been overcome. But the Pygmy child of that day has
grown to be, not merely a man but a giant, and I tell you who read
this, whether you will or no, he is a giant whose forces of evil are
so strong that he threatens that priceless heritage of our nation
- freedom of expression.
The right of free speech
has cost centuries upon centuries of untold sufferings and agonies;
it has cost rivers of blood; it has taken as its toll uncounted fields
littered with the carcasses of human beings - all this that there
might come to live and survive that wonderful thing, the power of
free speech. In our country it has taken some of the best blood of
our forefathers. The Revolution itself was a fight in this direction
- for the God-given, beautiful idea of free speech.
Afterwards the first assault
on the right of free speech, guaranteed by the Constitution, occurred
in 1798, when Congress passed the Sedition Law, which made it a crime
for any newspaper or other printed publication to criticize the government.
Partisan prosecution of editors and publishers took place at the instance
of the party in power, and popular indignation was aroused against
this abridgment of liberty to such an extent that Thomas Jefferson,
the candidate of the opposition party for President, was triumphantly
elected. And after that, nothing more was heard of the Sedition Law,
which expired by limitation in 1801.
The integrity of free speech
and publication was not again attacked seriously in this country until
the arrival of the motion picture, when this new art was seized by
the powers of intolerance as an excuse for an assault on our liberties.
The motion picture is
a medium of expression as clean and decent as any mankind has ever
discovered. A people that
would allow the suppression of this form of speech would unquestionably
submit to the suppression of that which we all consider so highly,
the printing press. And yet we find all through the country, among
all classes of people, the idea that the motion picture should be
censored.
When the first small Board
of Censorship was established six years ago, we who took it seriously
then expected exactly what has come to pass - that a man of the mental
caliber of the captain of police of Chicago can tell 2 million American
people what they shall and shall not go to see in the way of a moving
picture.
They tell us we must not
show crime in a motion picture. We cannot listen to such nonsense.
These people would not have us show the glories and beauties of the
most wonderful moral lesson the world has ever known - the life of
Christ - because in that story we must show the vice of the traitor
Judas Iscariot. Had the modern censors existed in past ages and followed
out their theories to a logical conclusion, there would have been
written no Iliad of Homer; there would not have been written for the
glory of the human race that grand cadence of uplift called the Bible;
there would have been no Goethe. There would have been no thrilling,
beautiful dramas given us as the grandest heritage of the English-speaking
race - the plays of Shakespeare. And even today, none of these creations
would these worthy censors leave in our possession had they their
way.
(2)
Ida
Wells, a members of the NAACP, was
involved in the protests about Birth
of a Nation.
In her In her autobiography, Crusade for Justice (1928),
she described how D.
W. Griffith
defended his film in court.
Mr. D. W. Griffith, the creator of the film, took the stand and denied
that there was anything in The Birth of a Nation which could
be objected to. D. W. Griffith was a great artist and one of the leading
geniuses in presenting photo plays. That he should prostitute his
talents in what would otherwise have had the finest picture presented,
in an effort to misrepresent a helpless race, has always been a wonder
to me. I have often wondered if his failure to establish himself as
a moving picture magnate is not because he chose to prostitute his
magnificent talents by an unjust and unworthy portrayal of the Negro
race.
Last updated: 18th October, 2002
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